Personal Memories and their Public Foundations: How Formerly Incarcerated African American Men Negotiate their Biographies

• In Event: 324 - Section on Race, Gender, and Class Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 05. RGC and Crime

Abstract

In the age of mass incarceration, the imprisonment of black men affects entire families and communities throughout the U.S. Those incarcerated for drug related charges face collateral consequences, such as disenfranchisement laws, the lifetime food stamp ban still present in ten states, and the ban on education and housing aid, all preventing the successful transition of offenders from prison into society. Formerly incarcerated black men have autobiographical memories of the experience of social and economic inequalities before and after being in prison. However, they might also be appropriated memories of their peers or memories disseminated through public, popular and vernacular discourses. There are also private family memories that are passed down from generation to generation. Depending on how these different scales of memories intersect, formerly incarcerated black men construct their autobiographical memories and reevaluate their collective self-understanding and the way they transition from prison to their communities. In this paper, I investigate the relationship between public and private memories through the narratives of formerly incarcerated black men who were incarcerated for drug related charges during the War on Drugs in New York. I attempt to understand whether and how these men situate their personal trajectories in the context of public, popular, religious and official representations of African American history. I am particularly interested to see whether and how ascribed and self-perceived marginality circumscribes their autobiographic memories.

Author

• Vanessa Lynn, State University of New York-Stony Brook