Who says Black people in Southeast San Diego aren’t civically engaged? On June 8, we saw dozens of community members come together at a local civic engagement event to learn about ballot initiatives in this year’s general elections that matter most in our communities. One is the deceptively titled “Homeless, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act” (aka Prop 36), which would roll back Prop 47 and is being bankrolled by law enforcement and retail corporations. But the one I want to focus on here is Prop 6, which would prohibit slavery in any form, including forced labor, in California.
It was an amazing feeling and atmosphere, being able to see 104 eager faces congregate at the Live Well Center in Southeast San Diego two blocks away from an infamous street intersection once called “the 4 corners of death” which now we all recognized as the “4 corners of life.” Community members from different neighborhoods came together to eat soul food, listen to presentations and enjoy themselves. It was a sign of what’s to come when we become politically active around issues we all care about and protect our community members from being harmed by the law now and in the future.
Passing Prop 6 is a must because legal slavery is alive and well in the Golden State.
At the civic engagement event I realized while I was telling my story and listening to other community members’ stories and experience on being incarcerated that slavery is not only working for low wages in prison to benefit and enrich powerful white men who own major corporations. Just the mere fact of committing a felony and sitting in a prison cell, you are enriching these same powerful white men.
The carceral system is big business. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, the U.S. spends around $81 billion on public prisons and jails every year, and another $4 billion on private prisons and jails. More than half of that money goes to the thousands of vendors that profit directly from mass incarceration.
At the same time, the average daily wage of an incarcerated worker in the U.S. is 86 cents, and in some states, jobs doing custodial, maintenance, grounds keeping and food service are still unpaid. Others toil for state-owned businesses and for private industry. The list of companies raking in money includes Walmart and McDonald’s. The ACLU has concluded that labor produced through state prison industries — for things like mattresses and solar panels — brought in more than $2 billion in 2021.
Generally, monthly pay in California ranges from $12 to $56, and the people receiving these “wages” don’t have a choice. As Assemblymember Lori Wilson, the author of Prop 6, has noted, California is one of 16 states with an exception clause for involuntary servitude in its constitution. Involuntary servitude was banned in the U.S. following the Civil War, except as punishment for a crime. Prop 6 would stop prisons and jails from punishing any incarcerated person for refusing a work assignment.
Seeing Black people from all age groups, from the elders to the youth, engaging in open dialogue about important laws and being able to understand these policies that are matters of literal life and death to our community was astonishing. I was watching nearly every community member’s face as they began to understand the ramifications of the legislation that we highlighted. I heard organizers and community members say, “this is the information we need” and “this was historic.” I saw formerly incarcerated men realize that they had been “behind enemy lines” and come up to me asking, “how can I register to vote?” and “how can I become more engaged?”
It was a breath of fresh air and gave me hope that here in Southeast San Diego we will protect our community and pass Prop 6. We know what the powers that be are trying to accomplish and we won’t stand for it.