44 pages • 1 hour read
Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, Ronald Cotton, Erin TorneoPicking Cotton: Our Memoir Of Injustice And Redemption
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Historical Context: Anti-Black Racism in the American Justice System
The history of anti-Black racism and unjust incarceration in the American justice system is deeply rooted in the legacy of slavery and systemic racial discrimination that has persisted until the present day. This history can be traced through several key periods and practices that have disproportionately impacted Black American men.
The origins of anti-Black racism in the American justice system began in the colonial era, when laws were created to enforce and legitimize the institution of slavery. The Slave Codes of the 17th and 18th centuries codified the racial subjugation of Black people, legally defining them as property and stripping them of any legal or human rights. These codes laid the groundwork for systemic racial discrimination, embedding racism within the fabric of American law.
After the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, the Reconstruction era (1865-1877) saw brief progress with the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, which aimed to grant newly freed Black people equal rights and protection under the law. However, Southern states quickly enacted Black Codes—laws designed to restrict the freedom of Black individuals and ensure their availability as a cheap labor force. These laws criminalized a wide range of activities for Black people, leading to mass arrests and the leasing of prisoners to work in industries such as agriculture and mining, a practice known as convict leasing.
The end of Reconstruction led to the rise of Jim Crow laws, which enforced racial segregation and disenfranchised Black Americans in the South. These laws, which lasted from the late 19th century until the mid-20th century, were backed by legal decisions such as Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which established the "separate but equal" doctrine of segregation. The justice system upheld these laws, and Black people were often arrested and imprisoned for minor or fabricated offenses.
The mid-20th century civil rights movement challenged legal and systemic racism. Landmark Supreme Court cases such as Brown v. Board of Education (1954) began to dismantle Jim Crow laws, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 aimed to protect the rights of Black Americans. Despite these legal victories, the justice system continued to be biased against Black people. In Picking Cotton, the detectives' assumption of Ronald's guilt without any hard evidence to corroborate Jennifer's testimony shows that anti-Black discrimination in the American justice system remains an issue.
Cultural Context: The War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration
Picking Cotton takes place during the late 1980s and 1990s, a time that saw a dramatic increase in the incarceration of Black American men, driven in large part by the War on Drugs launched in the 1980s. Policies such as mandatory minimum sentences, three-strikes laws, and the disproportionate sentencing for crack versus powder cocaine (which disproportionately affected Black communities) led to the mass incarceration of Black people. The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 and other tough-on-crime policies exacerbated racial disparities in the prison population, with Black Americans being incarcerated at rates far higher than their white counterparts. The Clinton administration's law enforcement plan, entitled "Taking Back Our Neighborhoods One Block at a Time" (1999), revolved around breaking the cycle of drugs and crime. This policy unfairly targeted Black and Latino neighborhoods and relied on biased practices like racial profiling and "broken windows" policing, which saw poverty and disorder in a neighborhood as signs of crime.
In the 21st century, the legacy of anti-Black racism and mass incarceration in the American justice system persists. Systemic issues such as racial profiling, discriminatory policing practices, and biased sentencing contribute to ongoing racial disparities in sentencing. High-profile cases of police brutality, such as the killings of Michael Brown, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, have sparked nationwide protests and renewed calls for criminal justice reform. In recent years, there has been growing awareness and advocacy for reforming the justice system to address these racial injustices. Movements like Black Lives Matter have brought attention to the systemic racism that pervades the justice system, leading to calls for changes such as police reform, the abolition of cash bail, sentencing reform, and the end of mass incarceration.
