The Condemnation Of Blackness By Kahlil Gibran Muhammad

The Condemnation of Blackness by Kahlil Gibran Muhammad outlines the struggles and tribulations that African Americans had to face after the American Civil War. The book gives specific accounts as to why African Americans were deemed â€Å"The New Problem† and how that changed, highlighting discrimination of African Americans as the real problem. Muhammad also focuses of on the work done by social scientist, criminologist, libertarians, activist of both black and white races and how their work affected the African American people and their place in society as a whole. Muhammad also explains how the labeling of blacks as criminals has had an influence on our society today. One first to write about â€Å"The Negro Problem† was Nathaniel Southgate†¦show more content†¦This was an argument that would be used later by M.V. Ball, in the early signs of a shift away from African American criminality and towards the discrimination of black people as the reason for their high mortality rates. M.V. Ball was a prison doctor, who believed the high mortality rates among black prisoners was due to â€Å"childhood poverty, unsanitary living conditions, and poor hygiene.†3 Ball also stated that black people were treated unfairly and there was prejudice from white people, which have led to an increase in criminality among African Americans. Another household name in the world of black reformers was Ida B. Wells, she began to show the double standard of black men being lynched for sleeping with willing white women and white men going unpunished for their rape of black women. Wells also highlighted the fact that lynching was not exclusive to black men accused of rape. Over 110 black men, women, and children were lynched, but only 21% had been accused of rape. Throughout her career, she continued to show statistics of discrimination against black people in American society. This was an important and significant shift from the use of statistics against African American as seen by white supremacists and