Africa
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Africa (n.) A large continent that acts as a prison for most of the world's poor black people.

Conveniently, Africa is also very resource rich, so the combination of an impoverished labor force with extractable mineral and natural resources has been extremely profitable for Northern businesses since the Arabs, and then Portuguese turned this into a global business model.

In modern day Africa the prison walls are carefully maintained by a cartel of foreign trade interests backed up by political and military force, and local business partners who run their fiefdoms with the help of military assistance. The attitude of those outside the prison varies from contempt to pity to mockery. There is rarely, if ever, any discussion of the prison itself, only of the apparently self-inflicted plight of those trapped within. So-called "foreign aid" is largely taken to maintain the walls. Foreign loans are stolen by the prison guards while the debt is assigned to those inside. As for those prisoners, the life ambition of every educated urban African is simple and primordial: escape.

The distinction between so-called economic and political refugees from Africa is bogus, since the economics and politics of Africa form a single inseparable system. A refugee from Africa has escaped in much the same way as an innocent man from a life sentence in Alcatraz, and often at great cost.

Visitors to the prison, also called "tourists", make several choices when visiting. They can remain in luxury VIP quarters, benefiting from those amazing natural resources, while avoiding any real contact with the inmates. This is the "safari" option, recommended to wealthy whites with little empathy for others. Or, they can choose to live in the prison itself, with all the attendant dangers and excitements. The astute observer choosing the second path will realize that his or her status as a natural VIP derives in part from their economic power, in part from their return ticket, and in part from their role as a lifeline to the outside world. It is rarely a matter of personal charisma, nor superior skin color.

Africa is not the only prison of this nature but it is the most successful natural one, benefiting from extraordinary geography which makes the upkeep of the prison walls very cheap. In short, one must either walk across the Sahara, or escape via one of the easily controlled coastal harbor cities.

Other examples of prison areas which do not have the natural wealth of Africa, but which act to effectively contain and isolate poor darker-skinned populations are: the Palestinian Gaza Strip and West Bank and America's black and brown inner cities.

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