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We Are Always Already Imprisoned: Hyper-Incarceration And Black Male Identity Performance, Frank Rudy Cooper

Scholarly Works

In this Essay, Professor Frank Rudy Cooper recenters the experiences of men of color, particularly those of black men, in light of Reagan's War on Drugs and recent scholarship illustrating the over-representation of men of color in prison for petty drug use. The mainstream's depiction of black men as always already imprisoned disciplines us into the never-finished quest to prove we are a "Good Black Man," rather than a "Bad Black Man." In order to propose greater empathy for black men's imprisonment, this article proceeds in the following manner. In Part I, Professor Cooper sets the stage for considering the …