Politicians selectively heard Black support for punishment while ignoring reparative demands.

Evidence

In recent years, politicians have defended mass incarceration on the grounds that “getting tough” on crime was what Black people wanted—in other words, that Black fear, not white fear, drove the phenomenon. This is a partial truth. Desperate to address rising crime rates largely caused by the disappearance of work in segregated, ghettoized communities, some Black people have, over the years, supported and advocated for mandatory minimum sentences and other harsh policies. Other Black people—including civil rights activists and organizations—have strenuously opposed crime legislation that propels mass incarceration. The NAACP called the draconian crime bill championed by President Bill Clinton in 1994 “a crime against the American people.” Yet Black voices challenging the prison-building boom and demanding investments in education, full employment, drug treatment, and affordable housing were ignored. As Elizabeth Hinton wrote with the historian Julilly Kohler-Hausmann and the political scientist Vesla M. Weaver in a New York Times opinion piece in 2016: “It’s not just that those demands were ignored completely. It’s that some elements were elevated and others were diminished—what we call selective hearing. Policy makers pointed to black support for greater punishment and surveillance, without recognizing accompanying demands to redirect power and economic resources to low-income minority communities.” — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 403

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces Hinton, Kohler-Hausmann, and Weaver’s concept of ‘selective hearing’ — politicians picking up Black punitive demands while ignoring demands to redirect power and resources.