What It Means to be Black in America: Race and America's Criminal Justice System

Once branded a felon, individuals are permanently relegated to a second class status. Drug felons specifically are banned from receiving subsidized loans for college. All felons are banned from public housing and can be legally discriminated against in private housing. They are also required by law to "check the box" on job applications and employers are entitled to legally discriminate against them. In fact, surveys show the vast majority of employers admit that they will not consider hiring a felon. Barred from affordable housing, educational opportunities, and shut out of the job market, felons also lose the right to eat; they are banned from receiving food stamps for life. In addition to losing the right to possess firearms, felons are completely excluded from serving on juries; because of this, fully 30 percent of black men in America have been automatically excluded from serving on juries. This is in addition to Supreme Court rulings which allow courts to, in practice, systematically exclude blacks from juries for admittedly "silly" and "superstitious" reasons which serve as legal cover for maintaining the all-white jury, which is and always has been a staple institution in American life. Perhaps worse yet, felon disenfranchisement laws deny the right to vote to millions of African Americans across the country. In fact, as of 2004 more black men were disenfranchised than in 1870, which was the year the fifteenth amendment was ratified which outlawed the denial of voting rights to people on the basis of race - Max Kantar  World Prout Assembly