Amid debate and sometimes heated argument, LSU black students discussed the criminalization of black males Tuesday night at the African-American Cultural Center.
Reggie Young, associate English professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, led the discussion, which was co-sponsored by the AACC and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc.
The criminalization of the black male is the process by which black men are perceived by the public as deviant and criminal, Young said.
“Young black men find themselves in a situation in society that is not new,” he said. “From the Civil War to the present day, black men are perceived as brutes.”
Young pointed to the movie “Birth of a Nation,” which was engineered in part by then-President Woodrow Wilson, as an example of portrayal of criminal activity as natural for black men.
“The movie portrayed black men as savage brutes who would kill and rape,” he said.
The trend continues today in television and movies, he said.
“Think about what you watch,” he said. “Even as African Americans, we are sometimes quick to classify someone as a ‘thug’ and say, ‘yeah, get him.’ In popular culture, we are still portrayed as criminals.”
Criminalizing black males continues to be an effective form of social control, Young said. He said although the majority of people arrested for crack-cocaine in the early 1990s were white, more than 90 percent of those sentenced to prison by federal courts were black.
“The disparity is significant,” he said.
Young also spoke of the disparity between the average black male and the incarcerated male and overall division within the black community.
That division is one of the causes of criminalization of blacks, said Mike Johnson, who leads Bible studies for Alpha Phi Alpha.
“We are divided by class,” he said. “My friends from the suburbs won’t talk to my friends in the hood. We see each other as enemies. We have to stop that.”
Too often blacks are judged only by the clothes they wear, Johnson said.
But Keenan Simon, a biological sciences freshman, said he wears what he wants, regardless of any criminal perceptions that may accompany his dress.
“You can think what you want, but I know what I am,” he said.
Young said certain appearances appear criminal to whites and can be intimidating.
“But because it makes someone nervous, does that make it wrong?” he said.
Young said perceptions are important. If a black person makes a substantial amount of money, he can be perceived as leaving behind what it really means to be black.
“But is that what being black really means?” he said.
Young told the students they had to persist in being the people they were and to stop the division within the black community.
“Things are better for you than they were for your parents, and they will be better for your children than they are for you,” he said.