The C.O.W.S. w/ Becky Pettit: Invisible Men

The Context of White Supremacy welcomes Professor Becky Pettit. Professor Pettit is a White Woman and a professor of sociology at the University of Washington. She is a sociologist, trained in demographic methods, with interests in “social inequality”. She is a founding member of the Scholars Strategy Network. We’ll discuss her 2012 publication Invisible Men: Mass Incarceration and the Myth of Black Progress. Pettit posits that current methods for calibrating the US population omit large numbers of incarcerated black males. Ignoring this sizable portion of black people offers an inaccurate depiction of the so called gains black people have made in this area of the world. It also falsely skews the percentage of black voters as many black prisoners or former inmates are no longer permitted to cast a ballot.