HISTORY
How Black People Became Victims of Collective Punishment in America
Punishing Black people, an American pastime we should abandon
An old English proverb suggests that "the good suffer with the bad," while this may be true. Indeed, many innocent people have suffered for the misdeeds of others throughout history; we should consider the injustice of such a proposition. Shane Darcey, lecturer at the Irish Center for Human Rights and author of Collective Responsibility and Accountability under International Law, described collective punishment as punishing someone "without regard to individual responsibility for the deed or event." There are numerous examples of collective punishment throughout history. Indeed, one could argue that Black people have been the victims of collective punishment since the late 1500s and early 1600s, condemned to a lower caste for the color of their skin, their facial features, and even their hair texture, features they were born with.
Historians have noted that the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, which forcibly removed millions of Africans from West and Central Africa, created the African Diaspora. At the bottom of dank and drabby slave ships, a bond was fostered, one that transcended language, nationality, and even familial ties. The first collective punishment Black Americans endured was their enslavement and laws, which maintained their subordinate status. For instance, the Three-Fifths Compromise, an agreement Northern and Southern delegates agreed to at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, further illustrates how White people systematically used the presence of enslaved people as a source of political, financial, and social power while depriving them of any agency.
In 1811, Charles Deslondes, a Creole man, led the largest enslaved people's uprising in American history, starting at the Destrahan Plantation, miles away from New Orleans. Afterward, not only did White men kill Deslondes and other leaders, but they also killed other Black people, both enslaved and free, who did not participate. The same scenario occurred after Nat Turner's rebellion in 1831. White people were anxious to take their anger out on somebody. "Their heads were cut off and placed on poles along the river to frighten and intimidate the other slaves," Waters wrote for the Zinn Project regarding Deslondes' Uprising. "This display of heads placed on spikes stretched over 60 miles." Long before most White people would call them "Americans," Black Americans experienced collective punishment simply for being Black or wanting freedom or their civil and human rights to be respected.
After the Civil War ended, Black Americans continued to experience collective punishment in the form of lynchings, race massacres, and voter suppression efforts. Indeed, events such as the 1866 New Orleans Massacre, the bloody summer of 1868, including the Opelousas Massacre, Bloody Caddo, and the St. Bernard Parish Massacres, and the 1873 Colfax Massacre in Louisiana penalized and terrorized the black community. If some Black Americans mustered up the bravery and registered to vote, violence would be visited upon the entire community, not just those who cast their ballot, which was their legal right to express.
James Cone, in his book The Cross and The Lynching Tree, described "lynching" as "the white community's way of forcibly reminding blacks of their inferiority and powerlessness. To be black meant that whites could do anything to you and your people and that neither you nor anyone else could do anything about it." And in many ways, it still means that. Accountability is racially skewed in this country, and it's clear to anyone paying attention that Lady Liberty is holding an uneven scale. In one study, Black Americans were found to be "7 times more likely than White people to be wrongly convicted of murder," which suggests many Black Americans are punished despite being innocent of the crimes they were accused of committing.
This American obsession with punishment is detrimental to our national welfare. America imprisons more people per capita than any other country on Earth, yet violent crime has not diminished over the years. Oddly, many people refuse to make the connection that punitive measures are counterproductive to ensuring peace in our communities. They refuse to accept that wanting to punish people, whether individually or collectively, is driven by emotion. Perhaps this is why so many people turn a blind eye to the collective punishment Black Americans have and continue to endure. When the black community cries out that we are "over-policed," the response is rarely given with any level of compassion. Instead, White people often attempt to justify the over-policing of Black communities as necessary. Once again, collectively punishing the entire Black community for the alleged guilt of some.
Black Americans are often punished for being Black. Driving while black, walking while black, and shopping while black can all be fatal despite these being harmless, peaceful activities. Black Americans are incarcerated at five times the rate as White people and killed by the police at nearly three times the rate. While our nation is no longer formally segregated, the enforcement of laws disproportionately punishes Black Americans. Our neighborhoods are collectively punished for the alleged misdeeds of others, cast as "dangerous" to justify the aggressive police presence. The problem is that few people are willing to acknowledge that this collective punishment is occurring, let alone rally behind measures to mitigate the harm.
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