Following the Civil War, Black people led a Reconstruction in which they asserted their rights to full citizenship. The Bush Part II years promise no less. In essence, Blacks are struggling, as we have in the past, to maintain and improve basic civil and social rights - the right to health care and shelter, the right to vote, the right to public education, the right to work for decent pay and job security. The privatization of public space, amenities and entitlements is segregating Black people from these rights and quality of life conditions. Racial profiling by police and private security is used to target Black mall shoppers, drivers, and pedestrians who may venture into public spaces where they are not wanted.
Black families experience isolation and the loss of civil and social rights in other forms.
Fifty percent of Black children in the U.S. live in poverty. The public foster care system too is removing itself from the care of its wards, one-half of whom are Black. Increasingly, private agencies are monitoring these children, and their well-being is subject not only to the profit margins of private enterprise but also corruption. Corporations contract with local, state, and federal governments to build and operate facilities and to provide food, clothing, and other services to an institutionalized population whose increasing numbers only serve to fuel private profits. Moreover, Black men have a 29 percent chance of serving time in prison at some point in their lives.