Week 13 RACE , CONFLICT , AND PUNISHMENT

Loic Wacquant applies Orlando Patterson’s seminal socio-historical work on slavery to compare historical conditions of African American enslavement to present conditions of imprisoned African Americans. Patterson argued that a condition of enslavement must meet the following criteria: natal alienation, violent subordination and general disshonorment. Wacquant breaks down the experience of African Americans into four periods: 1.) Chattel Slavery, 2.) Post-Reconstruction/Jim Crow, 3.) Northern Industrialization, the development of the “Black Belt” and the creation of urban ghetto, 4.) “Dark Ghetto” and the Carceral Institution marked by “structural symbiosis and functional surrogacy.