#slaveryevolved

Equal Justice Initiative 

Molly Crabapple, the artist and activist whose bold and important work is on view in this Equal Justice Initiative’s "Slavery to Mass Incarceration" video will be joining PEN in New York City on Monday, November 2, with a talk titled "How to Draw the Elephant in the Room." 

Slavery to Mass Incarceration

The myth of racial difference that was created to sustain American slavery persists today. Slavery did not end in 1865, it evolved. #SlaveryEvolved

The legacy of slavery can be seen in the presumption of guilt and dangerousness assigned to African Americans, especially young men and boys, the racial profiling and mistreatment that presumption creates, and the racial dynamics of mass incarceration.

Watching Sandra Bland’s violent arrest for a lane-change becomes more deeply sickening with the knowledge that she will die under nefarious circumstances in her jail cell three days later. It is a gift that we can see Bland as the strong, vital, and beautiful woman she was in her now-viral Facebook clip made some time before her death on the germane topic of #BlackLivesMatter.

As grieved and helpless as stories like Bland’s make us feel, it stands to reason that we can better overcome this incessant brutality by learning about its origins. Explaining the critical link between deaths like Bland’s and America’s history of slavery can be a challenging task under pressure—at a bar, at a family event, around the water cooler. Same goes for the link between slavery and the poverty, violence, and high rates of incarceration in many black communities. This 6-minute video, gorgeously illustrated and succinctly narrated by civil rights hero Bryan Stevenson, is a powerful tool in drawing those connections. It’s the first video in what will be a series of five.