Prison Nation: African Americans and the Violence of Modern Neoliberal State

Abstrakt

This essay focuses on widespread
structural violence against American ethnic
minorities. It argues that what is missing
from media coverage of America’s interracial
violence and public debates surrounding
this issue is an account of how violence that
inheres in social, economic and power relations
contributes to inter-racial conflicts in the
US. The economic deprivation and political
marginalisation of African Americans and
other US minorities is a well-known fact, but
its connection to racially motivated violence,
especially that unleashed by the oppressed
groups on the oppressive majority, is, more
often than not, pushed to the backburner in
mainstream public debates. 

Keywords: structural violence, zero
tolerance, racial profiling, US penitentiary,
racism, discrimination