THE cOLLAPSE OF THE BLAck NUcLEAR FAMILY

In a class of ten of your Black American peers, we pose a question. How many have an immediate family member that has been incarcerated? Six students raise their hands. How many have an extended family member that has been incarcerated? Five students raise their hands. From these equal. Industry-manufacturer of killer, crook and thief, To keep the money/blood flowing through the capitalistic beast…Amerika, Amerika you’re raised your ugly head, To ease economic hunger pains that could not be eased with bread. From Soledad to Joliet on up to Reitchers Isle, Is the stench of a monstrous beast with mankind in his bowels. Surburbia is my home - the ghetto is where I feast, I’m one bad motherfucka’ - I’m belly of the beast.

Kenneth Bell Potosi Correctional Center Mineral Point, Missouri

“The scars on our skin will hear your calls for forgiveness but the scars on our hearts will say never-never.”

- Comrade P Lamumbo (ManMan), December 1992 two questions alone, we learn that Black Americans are overrepresented in our carceral systems, and the long term impacts of high incarceration rates for Black Americans start to seep into the family structure and support system. Those five or six students who raised their hands are predisposed to food and housing insecurity, mental and physical health struggles, behavioral issues, and antisocial behavior simply because they have an immediate family member in prison. The Jim Crow Laws exacerbated the dissemination of the Black nuclear family through rising incarceration rates, housing instability, and insecure employment. After the 1960s, Black communities saw increased in drug and gang related crimes, including possession or distribution of drugs, gang paraphenalia or involvement, gang-violence and increased reports of gendered violence. The increased frequency of incarceration in Black communities was different by state and community, and various laws were passed that carried longer sentences for repeated offenders.

The conglomeration of the war on drugs, increased corporate participation in the Prison Industrial Complex, and government policy are directly related to the instability of Black families and their ability to earn and maintain generational wealth.

The long-term disenfranchisement of Black Americans is a quiet violence that seeps into our homes and disrupts the ability to build community, support, or mobilize. It seeps into our educational systems as Black children underperform at terrifyingly low rates, that are made worse if you have parents in the carceral system. It seeps into our media, where we see the repetition of stereotypes: fatherless Black children, struggling single mothers, and a lack of empathy for the condition of Black families as they are torn apart by institutional violence.