Of The Sons Of Master And Man
My mind is still boggled by the deep insight Du Bois displayed in analyzing "Black" crime. Somehow our minds have been poisoned to believe this is a new age phenomenon that only recently became an issue over the last twenty years. We have allowed ourselves to be socially and psychologically brain washed to believe that black crime is a product of our own degradation.
W.E.B. Du Bois clearly understood that this was not the case:
"For, as I have said, the police system of the South was originally designed to keep track of all Negroes, not simply of criminals; and when the Negroes were freed and the whole South was convinced of the impossibility of free Negro labor, the first and almost universal device was to use the courts as a means of reënslaving the blacks. It was not then a question of crime, but rather one of color, that settled a man conviction on almost any charge.
Thus Negroes came to look upon courts as instruments of injustice and oppression, and upon those convicted in them as martyrs and victims. When, now, the real Negro criminal appeared, and instead of petty stealing and vagrancy we began to have highway robbery, burglary, murder, and rape, there was a curious effect on both sides the color-line: the Negroes refused to believe the evidence of white witnesses or the fairness of white juries, so that the greatest deterrent to crime, the public opinion of one's own social caste, was lost, and the criminal was looked upon as crucified rather than hanged.
On the other hand, the whites, used to being careless as to the guilt or innocence of accused Negroes, were swept in moments of passion beyond law, reason, and decency. Such a situation is bound to increase crime, and has increased it. To natural viciousness and vagrancy are being daily added motives of revolt and revenge which stir up all the latent savagery of both races and make peaceful attention to economic development often impossible."
Du Bois also clearly saw the ballot as an opportunity for political, social, and economic change. Voter apathy still languishes in our communities. Long hard battles were fought to secure Du Bois' ideals for utilizing the power of the vote to secure justice. Since the wounds of battle have healed, we have forgotten the pain of the struggle...and now allow that same political system to hold us in slavery.
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