So Joe Biden won the presidential election. What does this mean for the hood? Before we can reach that conclusion, we must assess who Joe Biden really is. He is a 70+ year old white guy who has been in a position of power for 30+ years. He is known for the 1994 crime bill that accelerated Black incarceration under the Clinton administration. However, what is lesser known is that he is mostly solely responsible for a bill in 1986 that basically started the mass incarceration of Blacks. Yes it’s true that the 1994 crime bill created the three-strike rule, but by then, federal prisons were already filled with Black people. In 1993, 88.3% of those convicted of federal crack offenses were Black, before the crime bill. Why was this? Because of a bill that Joe Biden himself wrote in 1986 that gave the same sentence for crack possession and cocaine possession at a 100 to 1 ratio, respectively. Why was this fucked up? Because crack was primarily in the Black neighborhoods and cocaine was primarily in the white neighborhoods. So what this meant was that a black person convicted of possessing one gram of crack was given the same sentence as a primarily white person convicted of possessing 100 grams of cocaine. This did two things; first, it put a lot of Black people behind bars for a long time because you know muthafuckas was carrying more than a gram of crack in the 80s and 90s, and second, white people were free to possess large amounts of cocaine without the fear of lengthy sentences (if they were even prosecuted) which they could probably sell to Black people who would make crack from it, get caught up, and then go to the feds for over a decade. I’m not going to spend a lot of time or rhetoric on saying what mass incarceration did to the hood because we live through that shit daily; but I will speak on what it means for the hood when the originator and accelerator of mass incarceration becomes president. A mitigating factor is that Biden claims to be a changed man and has seen the errors in his way as long as 20 years ago and has been working to reverse his past mistakes. So basically, what he is seeking is Redemption.

As a Black man that has been to prison for over a decade and has seen the ill will of white racists first-hand, I am tempted not to listen to or believe in Joe Biden. However, as a Black man raised by a village in the qualms of respect for people and giving second chances, I can offer Joe Biden a long rope that he can either use to climb to another level of existence and respect from the black community, or he can hang himself with it. Either way, the Black journey will be far from over. Also, as an O.G. of the streets, there is something notable in the fact that Kamala Harris decided to ride with him as vice president. Most Black people who voted for Biden probably voted that way on the strength of Kamala. In the streets, having someone vouch for you can mean the difference between life and death. Since Kamala and Obama vouched for Biden, I’ll give him a shot at proving his worth. However, we must continue to remind him of his crimes against black people so Redemption will always be at the front of his mind when making policy decisions that affect Black people. So what does Joe Biden’s presidency mean for Black people… Kamala Harris.