In the late 1800s there is a photo of a group of Black babies lined up with the caption Alligator Bait. This trope goes back to the antebellum South but came into its own later. This photo, created in 1897 and popular with white Floridians, started an entire industry. There were even postcards of alligators chasing terrified Black children. Fishermen could buy lures that looked like a Black baby protruding from an alligator’s mouth. There was even a song called “Mammy’s Little Alligator Bait” and mechanical toys showing alligators swallowing Black babies. Thankfully, there is no evidence of Black babies actually being fed to alligators, but still…

Now we have Alligator Alcatraz and the president and his buddies even make jokes about why they put it in the middle of a swamp–anyone trying to escape will be alligator food. Who are the people there? Not any rich white people. They say it is to make the country safer. Data shows the place is not filled with criminals, even though some are there and maybe deserve to be there, but most are not criminals, just ordinary people who are darker–brown and black. It would seem that the trope of feeding certain sorts of people to the alligators never went away. How “sick” can we become.