Will AG Holder urge the criminal justice system to “examine its racial soul”?
As detailed in this CNN article, Attorney General Eric Holder gave his first major speech yesterday, and it was a barn-burner about race relations and race discussions in the United States. Here is how the CNN piece describes the speech:
In a blunt assessment of race relations in the United States, Attorney General Eric Holder Wednesday called the American people “essentially a nation of cowards” in failing to openly discuss the issue of race. Eric Holder spoke to an overflowing crowd for Black History Month at the Justice Department Wednesday.
In his first major speech since being confirmed, the nation’s first black attorney general told an overflow crowd celebrating Black History Month at the Justice Department the nation remains “voluntarily socially segregated.”
“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards,” Holder declared.
Holder urged Americans of all races to use Black History Month as a time to have a forthright national conversation between blacks and whites to discuss aspects of race which are ignored because they are uncomfortable.
The full text of this interesting speech can be accessed at this link. Notably, crime (but not punishment) is mentioned briefly toward the end of the speech in this somewhat peculiar paragraph:
And today the link between the black experience and this country is still evident. While the problems that continue to afflict the black community may be more severe, they are an indication of where the rest of the nation may be if corrective measures are not taken. Our inner cities are still too conversant with crime but the level of fear generated by that crime, now found in once quiet, and now electronically padlocked suburbs is alarming and further demonstrates that our past, present and future are linked. It is not safe for this nation to assume that the unaddressed social problems in the poorest parts of our country can be isolated and will not ultimately affect the larger society.
I find it is telling and disappointing that racial disparities in state and federal criminal justice systems (and the related problem of mass incarceration for young black men) do not get mentioned by the nation’s top law enforcement officer when calling upon the county to “examine its racial soul.” As everyone who works in criminal justice systems know, that racial soul is on full display in criminal courts and in prisons and jails every day. As I have been saying for years (examples here and here), the reality of racial disparities in modern crime and punishment demands that criminal justice reforms should and must be at the heart of any serious modern civil rights movement.
I am encouraged that the new AG wants Americans to have frank discussions about race in the United States. I hope he will show he is willing to stimulate hard conversations talking bluntly in future speeches about the racial realities of modern crime and punishment.
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