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The speedy rise of technology is making today’s surveillance methods seem cutting edge. But these three modes of anti-Black surveillance during the enslavement era laid the foundation. And an ugly foundation at that.
Ship Cargo Inventory
Before enslaved Africans reached the shore, they were listed in inventories as “cargo.” Reducing human beings to numbered cargo surveilled and packed into a small space shares similarities with the organization of prisons today.
Branding
Using hot irons to brand Black people was a way to identify them. And that identification was necessary for surveillance and control. In early prisons, incarcerated people were branded, too. And with technology today, we have anything from facial recognition cameras to ankle monitors to do that work.
Lantern Laws
Lantern laws required enslaved Black people to carry lanterns with them after dark if a white person wasn’t accompanying them. If they didn’t abide by this law, any white person was allowed to stop and question them. This idea is still represented today through curfews and stop-and-frisk.
No matter how much technology changes things today, here’s the root of the issue: Blackness itself has always been criminalized, and this country doesn’t view us as human.
Still, the ancestors survived this, and so will we - and build a future where anti-Black surveillance no longer follows our every move.