Judge Mathis Calls Prison System Modern-Day Slavery

Two years ago, I went to the Rainbow/Push Coalition Convention as a guest of Rev. Jesse Jackson. I was there to discuss the state of African American male athletes and how they are continuously used by the NCAA. When asked about the NCAA, the only system I considered to be more exploitative is the prison industrial complex. Judge Mathis (aka Greg Mathis) was one of the speakers on prisons, and I was impressed. During that speech, he gave the kind of bold, empowered and intelligent message that will resonate with every black male athlete, entertainer, politician, businessman and power broker in America.

Mathis challenged the prison system head on, linking it with the sad state of the American educational system. Mathis reiterated his comments this week on BET's '106 & Park,' stating that the prison system is modern-day slavery. When I heard his comments I was taken aback.

Why would Judge Mathis, a man who earns a living off the very system he has critiqued, make a statement that might seem to be an alarmist exaggeration? It's simple: He made the statement because he is right. America has committed itself to mass incarceration, having more of its citizens behind bars than any other nation in the world. Out of those citizens who are in incarcerated, the majority of the males are African American. In fact, one in nine black males between the ages of 25 and 34 is behind bars. This is unacceptable.

To make matters worse, our nation has decided to utilize cheap labor from the prisons to allow corporations to make products at an inexpensive rate. The competition produced via globalization has led to America abandoning its ethics in favor of its economic prosperity. So, similar to the NCAA, who earns more than a billion dollars per year with low-priced labor on the basketball court, the prison system is doing the same thing to black men in jail.

While incarceration is not quite the same institution as slavery (as we know it), we must remember that personal liberty lies on a continuum. A person does not have to be completely stripped of all human rights in order to be enslaved. Instead, prison is a system that opens the door for most of your rights to be stripped if you are labeled a criminal. By leaving black men in the street uneducated, jobless and without adequate legal counsel, we are opening the door for them to receive the "criminal" label, which is an effective loophole to allow others to exploit them. Joseph Stalin did this in the Soviet Union, telling police to label their political enemies as criminals so he could force them into labor camps. The same thing is happening here in the United States, where black men have long been the political enemies of those in power. They have no use for your black sons, so you must take every precaution to protect and educate them.

Judge Mathis and other men like him need to continue their work. As my respected colleagues, Rev. Al Sharpton and Tavis Smiley, vigorously debate a black agenda (I'll be meeting with Sharpton in New York later this month), I am under the assumption that the prison, economic and educational systems will be at the top of the list. When the black man struggles, the black family struggles. So if we do not aggressively and radically confront the problems of the black male, we will remain in this socioeconomic abyss.

Good job, Judge Mathis, we need more like you. This fight is not going to be won without the willingness of some of us to make sacrifices and take stands. Perhaps it's time for a new day.