Pubdate: Mon, 12 Jun 2000
Source: Times-Herald, The (CA)
Copyright: {year} The Times-Herald
Contact:  440 Curtola Parkway, Vallejo, CA 94590
Website: http://www.timesheraldonline.com/
Author: Kenneth Brooks
Note: Kenneth Brooks is the author of "African Americans & Other Myths," 
Contact him at P.O. Box 882, Vallejo, CA 94590 or e-mail  * Kenneth Brooks http://www.EthicalEgo.com

INCARCERATE FOR DRUG ABUSE OR TO OPPRESS?

America incarcerates more of its citizens than other industrialized
nations. Statistics show that it mostly incarcerates non white
citizens for drug abuse.

Those statistics seem to show that America uses incarceration more as
tool of racial oppression, than to fight drugs.

Some people justify those rates with the excuse that Americans are
more violent than other nations.

Still that doesn't explain why 73 percent of prisoners are there for
non violent offenses.

Others say that "black" and other brown-skinned people commit more
crimes than whites and that's why more are incarcerated. Statistics
show that most drug offenders are "white" at the rate of five times
that of "blacks." So, an irrational and racist drug policy is why
America locks up so many citizens.

In some states, Maryland and Illinois, "black" people were 90 percent
of people incarcerated for drugs.

They were 75 percent of those incarcerated in one-third of the
states.

It's getting worse. In California between 1988 and 1996 the drug
incarceration rate for "black" males increased 51 percent and for
"white" males they decreased by 23 percent.

Those statistics should change doubters' minds.

Do those skewed numbers happen from a non intentional or intentional
racist policy?

I suspect that both reasons apply.

Americans have a cultural and religious tendency to rationalize
blame.

We see that in the proliferation of lawsuits where people seek to
enrich themselves when a freak accident kills a loved one. This is
different from a negligent accident.

In American culture most people confer an aura of righteousness on
physically attractive or wealthy people.

See how society reacts with disbelief when they charge an attractive
or wealthy person with a crime. They look for the flimsiest evidence
that disproves the charges or to shift blame to a less attractive scapegoat.

That attractiveness prejudice extends to skin color.

Americans have always defined the pale skin group as more attractive,
smarter and wealthier than brown-skinned citizens.

So, it troubles them when members from that group commit a
crime.

That prejudice is so strong that events like the Columbine shootings
and evidence of "white" drug abuse sends society into numbed disbelief.

In Columbine it was the identity of the shooters, privileged young
white males, and not the carnage, that troubled society.

Society cannot keep its racial prejudices and honestly acknowledge
that the pale-skinned majority is mostly responsible for America's
drug problems.

So, it finds ways to shift all the blame to the "black"
group.

For decades, society convinced itself that "black" people were
America's drug users.

However, statistics made it hard to sustain that deception. So, they
expanded the old idea of the evil drug pusher, now the drug dealer, as
the real drug criminal.

Then, they could view those pale-skinned drug users as the victims of
those criminal "black" drug dealers supplied by those foreign Latinos
and Asians. Americans used that immoral and expensive escape from reality.

American lawmakers helped make the deception workable by tailoring new
drug laws that awarded draconian punishments for drug users in the
"black" group.

They mandated long prison sentences for the users of crack cocaine
because they though it was a drug only the "black" group used. They
gave light penalties for powered cocaine, the perceived drug of choice
for "white" users.

However, the "white" drug users didn't cooperate and they soon became
the majority users of crack.

So, the government had to choose between fairly enforcing its drug
laws, or enforcing them in obviously racist ways. The statistics show
their decision. They mostly ignored the "white" drug abusers.

Rarely does the media talk about the "white" drug dealer.

Surely, no rational person believes that only "black" drug dealers
collect those billions of dollars from "white" suburban drug users.

Nevertheless, the "white" male as drug dealer is an idea that American
society still avoids. I believe they will eliminate drug laws rather
than admit "white" culpability for sales.

Readers can dispute the reasoning I offer for America's drug policy.
Nevertheless, they cannot claim that it uses incarceration as a weapon
against drug abuse since it mostly ignores the "white" drug users and
sellers. I can think of only one other rational explanation. They use
those the drug arrests as an intentional policy to sweep from the
streets those "black" males they haven't educated and those they won't
hire.

Those "black" young men should wise up and sidestep that trap. Forget
the Ebonics, the rap, the hip hop image, the gang and baggy pants
persona and all that other nonsense.

They should educate themselves however necessary.
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