Table Of ContentPalgraveMacmillan’s
ContentandContextinTheologicalEthics
Content and Context in Theological Ethics offers ethics done from theo-
logical and religious perspectives rooted in the particular contexts and lived
experience of real people in history, in the present, and looking with hope
towardthefuture.The seriesraisesthecontextsor culturesoutofwhich an
increasing number of scholars do their thinking and research regarding the
influenceofthosecontextsonthecontentofethicsandhowthatcontenthas
beenappliedhistorically,traditionally,and/orsubversivelybymembersofthe
contextorcommunityorcultureunderscrutinyorraisedasparadigmaticor
as a novel or passing fad. The series explores normative claims about right
and wrong, human flourishing or failing, virtues and vices—the fundamen-
talbasesandquestionsofethics—withinthecontext,culture,orcommunity
identifiedandincorrelationwithnormsinheritedfromorimposedbycolo-
nizing/dominant forces or ideologies while recognizing new voices and/or
new understandings of theologically and/or religiously inspired concerns in
response to knowledge uncovered by other disciplines that impact ethical
reflectiononthecontentexplored.
SeriesEditor
MARY JO IOZZIO,activeintheAmericanAcademyofReligion,Catholic
Theological Society of America, Catholic Theological Ethicists in the World
Church, Pax Christi USA, and the Society of Christian Ethics, she is a
professor of Moral Theology at Barry University, Miami Shores, FL, and
coeditoroftheJournaloftheSocietyofChristianEthics.
JusticeandPeaceinaRenewedCaribbean:ContemporaryCatholicReflections
EditedbyAnnaKasafiPerkins,DonaldChambers,andJacquelinePorter
TheologyintheAgeofGlobalAIDS&HIV:ComplicityandPossibility
ByCassieJ.E.H.Trentaz
ConstructingSolidarityforaLiberativeEthic:Anti-Racism,Action,andJustice
ByTammerieDay
ReligiousEthicsinaTimeofGlobalism:ShapingaThirdWaveofComparative
Analysis
EditedbyElizabethM.BucarandAaronStalnaker
The Scandal of White Complicity and US Hyper-incarceration: A Nonviolent
SpiritualityofWhiteResistance
ByAlexMikulich,LaurieCassidy,andMargaretPfeil,withaforewordwritten
bySisterHelenPrejean
This page intentionally left blank
The Scandal of White Complicity
in US Hyper-incarceration
A Nonviolent Spirituality of White
Resistance
Alex Mikulich, Laurie Cassidy, and Margaret Pfeil
Foreword by Sister Helen Prejean
THESCANDALOFWHITECOMPLICITYINUSHYPER-INCARCERATION
Copyright©AlexMikulich,LaurieCassidy,andMargaretPfeil,2013.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 978-1-349-43399-5
Allrightsreserved.
Firstpublishedin2013by
PALGRAVEMACMILLAN®
intheUnitedStates—adivisionofSt.Martin’sPressLLC,
175FifthAvenue,NewYork,NY10010.
WherethisbookisdistributedintheUK,EuropeandtherestoftheWorld,
thisisbyPalgraveMacmillan,adivisionofMacmillanPublishersLimited,
registeredinEngland,companynumber785998,ofHoundmills,
Basingstoke,HampshireRG216XS.
PalgraveMacmillanistheglobalacademicimprintoftheabovecompanies
andhascompaniesandrepresentativesthroughouttheworld.
Palgrave®andMacmillan®areregisteredtrademarksintheUnitedStates,the
UnitedKingdom,Europeandothercountries.
ISBN 978-1-349-43399-5 ISBN 978-1-137-03244-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-03244-7
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Mikulich,Alexander.
ThescandalofwhitecomplicityinUSHyper-incarceration:a
nonviolentspiritualityofwhiteresistance/AlexMikulich,Laurie
Cassidy,andMargaretPfeil.
p. cm.
ISBN978–1–137–00286–0(alk.paper)
1. Imprisonment—Religiousaspects—Christianity.
2. Imprisonment—UnitedStates. 3. Racediscrimination—
Religiousaspects—Christianity. 4. Racediscrimination—United
States. 5. Racism—Religiousaspects—Christianity.
6. Discriminationincriminaljusticeadministration—United
States. 7. AfricanAmericans—Socialconditions. 8. Hispanic
Americans—Socialconditions. 9. Whites—UnitedStates—Social
conditions. 10. Crimeandrace—UnitedStates. 11. United
States—Racerelations. I. Cassidy,LaurieM. II. Pfeil,
MargaretR. III. Title.
HV8687.M552013
365(cid:2).608996073—dc23 2012034150
AcataloguerecordofthebookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary.
DesignbyIntegraSoftwareServices
Firstedition:February2013
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
SeriesEditor’sPreface vii
Foreword ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction:TheInvisibilityofWhiteComplicity
inHyper-incarceration 1
LaurieCassidyandAlexMikulich
Part I Structure
1 Hyper-incarcerationofAfricanAmericansandLatinos
inHistoricalContext 31
AlexMikulich
2 WhiteComplicityinUSHyper-incarceration 59
AlexMikulich
Part II Culture
3 TheMythoftheDangerousBlackMan 89
LaurieCassidy
4 HipHopandtheSeditiousReinventionofthe
DangerousBlackMan 117
LaurieCassidy
Part III Spirituality
5 ASpiritualityofWhiteNonviolentResistance
totheRealityofHyper-incarceration 143
MargaretPfeil
vi Contents
6 ContemplativeAction:TowardWhiteNonviolent
ResistancetoHyper-incarceration 167
MargaretPfeil
Index 187
Series Editor’s Preface
Content and Context in Theological Ethics, as a new series in
the Palgrave Macmillan titles in religion, offers a fresh look at the
millennia-old tradition of ethics engaging religions, their scriptures
and revered texts, and their theological reflections on what matters
and why. The series is first and foremost focused on ethics, done
from theological and religious perspectives, and rooted in the par-
ticular contexts and lived experience of real people in history, in the
present, and hoped for in the future. While engaged by diverse con-
texts, themes emerging in the series span the gamut of research in
ethics that provoke theological and/or religious concerns; for exam-
ple,asthistextdemonstrates,atheo-ethicalreflectiononandactionin
thestruggleforundoingthecenturies-longtraditionsofracisminthe
UnitedStatesanditseffectsuponandincommunitiesofcolortothe
advantage of white folk and unexamined disadvantages for people of
color.Theseriesofferschallengestoastatusquoandsuggestswaysto
move from complacence in the face of hard truths exposing injustice
and/or alternatives to standard approaches to contexts that express
the content of a tradition in novel ways and means. As contempo-
raryworkinethicsisincreasinglycontextdrivenandcharacterizedby
diversity, this series brings contextual theological and religious ethics
tobearonthecontentexplored.
The Scandal of White Complicity in US Hyper-incarceration by
AlexMikulich,LaurieCassidy,andMargaretPfeilfocusestheemerg-
ing critique of how white privilege particularly in the United States
contributes—overtly and covertly—to suspicions of criminality about
people of color. As difficult as studies of “being white” may be,
this text challenges readers to examine how knowingly or unknow-
inglyraceplaysadvantageanddisadvantageinmostsocial,economic,
political, religious, and, as is underscored here, in judicial-penal are-
nas. The challenge is raised not to indict, necessarily, but to raise
awarenessandencouragepracticalandfaith-basedresponsestopartic-
ipation/complicity,intheaffairsthattreatfartoomanyinunjustand
discriminatoryways.Aswithothersubjectsengagedinthisseriesand
viii Series Editor’s Preface
arelatedworkinthisfirstyearofpublication,ConstructingSolidarity
foraLiberativeEthic:Anti-Racism,Action,andJustice by Tammerie
Day, The Scandal of White Complicity starts with the context of the
concretelivedexperienceofthepeoplemostaffectedbyincarceration
and then moves out to name and expose the system(s) that perpetu-
ate a culture of violence on individual and community life. Further,
whitescholarsMikulich,Cassidy,andPfeildevelopacomplexanalysis
of how whiteness operates in the US system of incarceration as they
witness a Christian nonviolent way to subvert white dominance and
theoppressionofbrothersandsistersofcolor.
I am grateful to include in the series’ first year of publication a
text that so carefully examines from the perspective of three white
Catholic theologians the operation of white dominance and privilege
in relation to the cultural production of the evil exemplified in the
incarceration of African Americans and Latinos in the United States.
The US Catholic academy, of which I am a member, has been slow
in acknowledging its own racism and, as with other communities of
faith, may be both embarrassed and uncertain about how to move
towardreconciliation,restorativejustice,andrightrelationshipamong
ourcoreligionistsandneighbors.Rejectinganycomplicityorcooper-
ationwithevilandworkingafaiththatdoesjustice,Mikulich,Cassidy,
and Pfeil resist that uncertainty with facts exposing white racism and
complicity, while offering measures and practices of accountability,
solidarity,andnonviolence.
Readers,welcometotheseries!
MaryJoIozzio
SeriesEditor
Foreword
IamdelightedtocommendtoyouTheScandalofWhiteComplicityin
USHyper-incarceration:ANonviolentSpiritualityofWhiteResistance.
This is a rare resource that offers theological, practical, moral, and
spiritual guidance in the work of dismantling white privilege and the
injusticeofhyper-incarceration.
WhenIfirstmetAlexMikulichatSt.GabrielParish(NewOrleans)
nearly four years ago and learned of his research for the Jesuit Social
Research Institute (JSRI), I challenged him as to whether or not his
researchservedthesocialjusticeimperativeoftheGospel.Hispassion
fortheGospelbecameimmediatelyapparent.Indeed,Ifoundhimto
beawillingandjoyfulpartnerinpracticingMatthew25ashehasbeen
visitingamanonAngola’sdeathrowforthreeyears.Thetheological
and social ethical perspective expressed in this volume is rooted in a
livedpracticeoftheGospel.
In Dead Man Walking, I shared my experience of entering the
St Thomas community in New Orleans, an experience that would
change my life forever. Part of my own conversion to social justice
advocacy involved becoming aware of my own racial and economic
privilege and how I had grown up as part of a segregated Baton
Rouge, Louisiana. I know that this book will be an indispensable
resourceforwhitepeopleengagingthestruggleforsocialjustice.
My own early childhood and education in Baton Rouge opens a
windowtotheimportofunderstandinghowwebecomewhitepeople
intheUnitedStates.TheScandalofWhiteComplicity rightlyassumes
with Roman Catholic theology that we are good people, gifted with
thegraceofbeingcreatedinGod’simage.Affirmingthattheological
truth, however, begs the question of how we become participants in
social systems and institutions that benefit one group of people over
andagainstthosewhoarepoorand/orofcolor.Readerswhoaredis-
cerningtheroleofraceandwhitenessinhyper-incarcerationwillfind
many practical tools and rich resources here for the many struggles
theywillencounterinthestruggleforsocialjustice.
My own background is instructive about the need for this book.
The culture of racism is not something “out there” unrelated to our
