Containment, Confinement and Death- The Plight of Many of Our Youth

There are so many ways we are treating our young people, especially young people of color, as suspects, threats, dangers to the social order.

They are heavily policed in their schools and neighborhoods-often subject to arbitrary search and seizure

They are the targets of zero-tolerance disciplinary policies in schools which have become little more than test prep factories.

They are arrested and jailed in enormous numbers for non-violent drug offenses, permanently undermining their prospects for employment and sometimes depriving them of the right to vote.

They are pushed out of the most prosperous neighborhoods into communities which limited resources and placed under close surveillance should they walk through or shop in gentrifying areas, even if they still live there,

Given these developments, and given the long history of racial profiling in the society, is it any wonder that unarmed young blacks are periodically killed by law enforcement officials or private security guards?

These acts of extreme violence are the logical outcome of a policy of containment and confinement that touches far larger numbers of people