"Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself." President Jimmy Carter 1977.
The facts are overwhelming. The trends are clearly evident. And, the destruction of the African American family and thusly the African American community is existent throughout the country.
Ohio State University Law Professor Michelle Alexander, a one-time clerk for Justice Harry Blackmun on the U.S. Supreme Court writes about the so-called “War on Drugs” in her book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The book examines what the author refers to as, “The cyclical rebirth of caste in America." It is a treatise long overdue and one every American should closely examine.
In our lifetime the United States has become the world's leader in incarceration with 2.3 million people currently in the nation's prisons or jails — a 500% increase over the past 30 years. These trends have resulted in prison overcrowding and state governments being overwhelmed by the burden of funding an ever-expanding penal system. According to Alexander and other experts the catalyst behind the numbers is our nation’s “War on Drugs.”
According to Alexander, “The War on Drugs is a war on African-American people and we countenance it because we implicitly accept certain assumptions sold to us by news and entertainment media, chief among them that drug use is rampant in the black community."
But. The. Assumption. Is. WRONG.
“According to federal figures, blacks and whites use drugs at a roughly equal rate in percentage terms. In terms of raw numbers, WHITES are far and away the biggest users — and dealers — of illegal drugs.”
The Sentencing Project, which has an established reputation in the fight for real justice in this country has some rather disturbing facts regarding the trend to incarcerate black males. “More than 60% of the people in prison are now racial and ethnic minorities. For black males in their 20s, one in every eight is in prison or jail on any given day. These trends have been intensified by the disproportionate impact of the "war on drugs," in which three-fourths of all persons in prison for drug offenses are people of color.”
In fact, Alexander warns us that, "One of three black males born today can expect to go to prison if current trends continue."
The debate has been prevalent in many communities for nearly three-decades. However, until now it has not truly been thrust in front of the American mainstream as President Carter and now Alexander has done.
Article comments
1 - Famer Bob
"In this way, a new racial undercaste has been created in an astonishingly short period of time â€" a new Jim Crow system."
It would be pretty easy to defeat this new "caste" system then. Just don't do the drugs, fools. How about that?
2 - Ronald W Weathersby
Evidently Farmer Bob you just don't read fool!
The point of this entire book is the fact that although black and brown people DO NOT use or sell and certainly DO NOT distribute drugs anymore than whites they are jailed, convicted and penalized at far greater numbers.
Now, that fact may sit well with you and your particular philosophy but it is wrong and un-American.
By the way, how did Limbaugh get away with buying and using hundreds of tablets of illegal drugs? Why isn't he in prison for being a fool?
Are you concerned about the rising level of government spending? If so here is a clear area that we can reduce substantial amounts of money.
3 - Darrell Pone
Michelle Alexander’s book is a classic. She legally and factually proves what most African Americans have already known for years. The Government designed drug laws to incarcerate black men and basically make them useless to society.
Unlike Slavery where black men had a function as slaves (free labor) and Jim Crow where they took menial jobs; mass Incarceration demonstrates no use at all for black men. This is a stain on America.
Darrell Pone, MD