Is Mass Incarceration “Racist”?

In 1994, Kweisi Mfume and the Congressional Black Caucus supported and overwhelmingly voted for the Violent Crime and Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. The largest crime bill in history was passed by a Democratic Congress and was signed into law by Bill Clinton. Most Republicans opposed it because it banned assault weapons:

“Kweisi Mfume, a former representative whose congressional district included Baltimore and who was the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) in the 103rd Congress, is trying to disown his and the CBC’s role in pushing through the 1994 crime bill. The 1994 bill was the largest crime bill in U.S. history—it added 100,000 new police officers around the country and committed nearly $10 billion to build new prisons. The bill also included an assault weapons ban, to entice Democrats to vote, and a “midnight basketball” provision that turned off some Republicans who might otherwise be all over a law and order bill like that. The bill passed 235-195, with most Democrats voting in favor and most Republicans voting against. President Clinton happily signed the bill into law.

Now, some supporters of that bill, instead of acknowledging that they’re evolving on the issue of being blindly pro-police, are trying to rewrite the history of how that bill passed a Democrat-controlled Congress and was signed into law by a Democratic president. …”

In the 1990s, the #BlackLivesMatter supporters wanted the thugs off the street who had turned our cities into urban war zones. Now that crime has receded over the last two decades, they are decrying the mass incarceration which they supported as a cruel racist conspiracy against black people and modern iteration of slavery.