The Strange Life of Apes

anticapitalist:

• There are more African American adults under correctional control today — in prison or jail, on probation or parole — than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.
• As of 2004, more African American men were disenfranchised (due to felon disenfranchisement laws) than in 1870, the year the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, prohibiting laws that explicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of race.
• A black child born today is less likely to be raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery. The recent disintegration of the African American family is due in large part to the mass imprisonment of black fathers.
• If you take into account prisoners, a large majority of African American men in some urban areas have been labeled felons for life. (In the Chicago area, the figure is nearly 80%.) These men are part of a growing undercaste — not class, caste — permanently relegated, by law, to a second-class status. They can be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits, much as their grandparents and great-grandparents were during the Jim Crow era.

stfuconservatives:

sonofbaldwin:

The idea that Rick Santorum was EVER going to answer this question honestly is BEYOND laughable and I can’t believe anyone ever expected that he would. The New Racism is to deny racism exists.

dumbthingswhitepplsay:

What an amazing world that we live in where the only explanation he feels he has to give is “that’s ridiculous”.

Really. Amazing. Post-racial Amurikkka.

“Oh, come on!” Santorum spokesman Hogan Gidley told Raw Story when asked for comment. “Give me a break. That’s unbelievable. What does it say about those that are running with this story that that’s where their mind goes. You know, I’m not going to dignify that with [a response].”

Wow so they aren’t even trying to pretend he said something else. They know it’s indefensible so they’re just pretending it never happened at all. SURPRISE.

-Jess