African American Woman Imprisonment

IMPRISENED WOMAN

Rachel Lawler

11/18/13

Philosophy 200

Professor Sanez

During the last quarter of the twentieth-century, the United States experienced a prison boom. Currently, one and half million people are imprisoned in either state, private, or federal prisons and an estimated four and half million Americans have been imprisoned at some point in their lifespan.  However, the probabilities of being incarcerated are not always equal among individuals. Often noted, blacks are currently six times more likely than whites to have ever been imprisoned. In 1923, the number of imprisoned African American females amounted to 48 percent of all woman sent to penal institutions. For every 100,000 African American females, 428.6 were in prison. While in 1923, for every 100,000 white American females, 44.6 were in prison.^[1] What is significantly alarming is that statistically over the years these numbers for African American females have not gotten any better. Racial inequality in imprisonment is a social problem with a history dating back to inequality of black females slaves during the civil war.  The prison boom has increased the impact of these racial disparities. In this paper, I will argue that structural racism is still presente in the imprisonment of African American woman.

Slavery in America began in the 16th century when the first African American slaves were brought to the American Colonies. The most well known town for transport of slaves was Jamestown, Virginia, starting in 1619. Slaves were sent to these American colonies to aid in the production of profitable crops such as tobacco. Slavery was practiced throughout the American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries, and African-American slaves helped build the economic foundations of the new American colonies. However, when slaves would act out of line their owners could do whatever they liked with their slaves. Often this included inflicting harsh punishments. The treatment of slaves in the United States varied by time and place, but was generally brutal and degrading. Whipping, execution, and sexual abuse, including rape, were common.

African American enslaved women were commonly raped, sexually abused and assaulted by their male masters. Meanwhile  as many of the female masters would watch this rape/ beating take place. Evidently the male’s master wife would watch her husband rape another woman because she was acting out, and it was expected because she was a African American woman who was owned by the white male slave master. The African American woman had no say in what the white man did to her and her body because she was owned by him. He was her master and she was his property. Colonial laws regarding statutory rape did not applied to blacks women. Blacks woman, as well as their children, were prohibited by law from defending themselves against abuse, sexual and otherwise, at the hands of the white master. A slave who defended herself against the attack of a white person was subject to cruel beatings by either the master or mistress. ^[2]