"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." -The 13th amendment
He's not wrong, but his approach to addressing it isn't really tactful. That's a bit contentious of me to say, but r/conservative please just hear me out. While I don't fully agree with what Kaepernick is implying, based on the wording of the 13th amendment, he's got a point.
Antebellum slavery is -obviously- different than our modern prison industrial system's use of "forced rehabilitative labor programs". For starters, one indiscriminately bought and sold human chattel and the other is a necessary outcome given our system of laws. Functionally our modern system is meant to protect abiding members of society, and I'd say it generally does a pretty good job. Now there's a couple of directions I want to go in terms of similarities and differences between these two institutions. Race/ gender and economic profiteering.
On the issue of race, I imagine I won't sway many of you, which is fine, but it's got to be said. Hispanic and Black men face, as a weighted percentage, higher incarceration rates than white men. I can link the DOJ report from 2014 that details these numbers if need be. I haven't really looked at the numbers on the female side, just know that men as a whole are also far more likely to face incarceration than women. Drug laws and there enforcement are a big contributor to this racial discrepancy that exists in the US prison system. Now to be clear, I'm not saying that minorities should be given a "free pass" for criminal activity. It just seems incredibly suspect that incarceration rates -as a percentage of the population- for minorities (excluding Asian people interestingly enough) are so much higher than for Caucasians. By itself this Justice Department data doesn't raise an explicit red flag; but coupled with CDC stats on recreational drug usage, whites, as a percentage are more likely to be using illicit recreational Drugs. If this is the case, why don't the arrests and convictions match with recreational drug use? I can't be the only one that finds this discrepancy fishy right? Now I'm not saying these issues are exclusively about race. Socioeconomics, urban landscapes and educational backgrounds are just a few of the influences that effect people's likelihoods for illegal drug use and criminal activity across racial lines. But going strictly off the numbers? It's obvious race has a role. While race has a role, it's important to note that this "modern slavery" that exists in private prisons enslaves all people caught in the system indiscriminately. Whites, Blacks, Hispanic, Asians, Native Americans etc are all bent to the systems whim.