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Forest of trees
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2024
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Good question! Do you consider the disproportionate mass incarceration of African Americans a genocide?
While there are many systemic issues that result in the disproportionate mass incarceration of African Americans, one needs to recognize this isn't done to eradicate them. The US needs and uses them to make the poor fight each other rather than unite and fight the rich.
One also needs to recognize that the US does not incarerate them just for being black. They have created a system that forces poor people into criminality and that also makes african americans disproportionally poor. It's deeply racist but there are still differences.
But I'm glad you agree it's a violent thing to do.
Ah, but we know that the incarceration of Uighurs is done to eradicate them, because, uhh... how exactly?
Because thats what reeducation camps are for. To erase the original culture. Doesn't work as well with skin color.
On what basis have you concluded that? Is it not possible that the intent of the camps is to give people education so that they can become more productive members of society and thereby be less prone towards violent extremism? You're just asserting their purpose with nothing to back it up.
If you get a DUI and the state orders you to take an alcohol class, is that re-education meant to eradicate your culture?
If you do a bunch of petty thefts and the state orders you to participate in a re-entry plan that includes job training, is that re-education meant to eradicate your culture?
Historically, this is completely untrue. The post-Reconstruction U.S. famously had all sorts of laws designed to lock up black people for being black, as well as officially tolerated (with public officials often taking part) terror killings of black people just for being black. Even after Jim Crow, the War on Drugs was was explicitly designed to disproportionately lock up black people:
Even if you argue that today this intent has been largely wrung out of the system (which is not a given, and does not address the remaining disproportionate effects of the War on Drugs), there's still the question of when exactly the U.S. stopped doing what you're calling genocide and started doing non-genocidal mass incarceration.