Pubdate: Wed, 27 May 2015
Source: Seattle Weekly (WA)
Column: Higher Ground
Copyright: 2015 Village Voice Media
Contact: 
http://www.seattleweekly.com/feedback/EmailAnEmployee?department=letters
Website: http://www.seattleweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/410
Author: Michael A. Stusser

CHECKING YOUR WHITE PRIVILEGE

How Drug Laws Don't Affect Everyone Equally.

It's good to be white.

For example, as a white guy, I'm statistically more likely to be 
selling drugs than an African-American man (I've always been too 
scared of going to jail to actually sell pot, but I'm using this to 
make my point.) If I were black, however, it would be three times 
more likely that I'd be arrested for dealing. It gets even better for 
whitey. Though five times as many of us use drugs, African-Americans 
are sent to prison 10 times as often for the same crimes. And once ya 
get to jail? On average, African-Americans serve as much time in 
prisons for drug offenses (58 months) as white folks do for violent 
ones (62 months).

While we may have legalized weed out West, these stats-and the 
ongoing federal War on Drugs-feed into a vicious loop that gives 
officers the pretense of probable cause to search, detain, and arrest 
African-Americans in droves. It is a short line from our national 
drug policy to police abuses. And by now we've all seen the dozens of 
cell-phone videos illustrating exactly how this often turns out for 
(eventually deceased) black men and women-who are after all under the 
law innocent until proven guilty.

While it might be good to be white, it doesn't exactly feel good; 
seems like we should be further down the line on the apparently 
not-so-self-evident "All Men Are Created Equal" thing. Recently I've 
been trying to put myself in the shoes of young African-American men 
in Baltimore and Atlanta and Ferguson. Can I relate? At what point 
have I been targeted or profiled or discriminated against?

I'm Jewish. Does that count? Over the years I've heard offensive 
stereotypes and jokes. ("Jew 'em down" is my least favorite.) But 
while that's painful, it's simply not the same. I have no fear of 
being pulled over for the way I look; I don't worry that some armed 
jackass playing Neighborhood Watchman will follow me for no other 
reason than the color of my skin. I have no problem getting my foot 
in the door in business meetings, obtaining loans, or hailing cabs in 
any city in the world. And because I don't have those life concerns, 
I may not actually "get it."

My upbringing didn't help either. I grew up on Mercer Island, where 
we called the only black kid in our entire elementary school 
"Chocolate." (I apologize, Hayden.) Eventually basketball icon Bill 
Russell and his family moved to the island, and our black population 
tripled. Without people of color to relate to, there was very little 
chance in my youth to experience diversity, much less economic or 
cultural differences or division.

It took a steady diet of Toni Morrison, classes at Berkeley, and the 
recent slew of well-documented abuses to understand that the color of 
a person's skin can clearly change their circumstances. I'm now fully 
aware that blacks are more likely to be pulled over by police, 
stopped as pedestrians (and frisked), and "randomly" searched at 
airports. The national unemployment rate for African-Americans is 
double that of whites. Black kids, according to the Department of 
Education, are more likely to be punished in schools, as well as get 
rookie teachers, which-go figure-affects their drop-out and 
graduation rates. But far more problematic than these are the 
institutional barriers that still exist.

In Missouri, the Justice Department's own report following the 
shooting of Michael Brown found that "nearly every aspect of 
Ferguson's law-enforcement system" negatively affected and severely 
impacted African-Americans.

Nationwide, while blacks are only about 13 percent of the population, 
they make up 37 percent of drug-related arrests and almost half of 
the prison population (one million of the 2.2 million incarcerated 
individuals). Overall, they're incarcerated at six times the rate of whites.

The ongoing police brutality against unarmed black men, women, and 
children has clearly triggered the anger that accompanies such 
injustice, resulting in ongoing protests and riots throughout the 
country. There's a point at which truly marginalized groups get 
backed into such a corner that an equally valid option to putting up 
with the jerry-rigged system is raising hell and overturning the 
apple cart. Intellectually, I get it; I've reached a boiling point 
over slow-moving traffic and lousy bar service. But I also understand 
that, for true change to occur, those in power must somehow seek to 
share that power.

How to do we make a seismic shift happen without all hell breaking 
loose? I don't know. I'm in over my head. But here's a start: I'd 
like my tax dollars to be directed to communities that have been 
decimated by mass unemployment and social neglect. And I'd like the 
government to explore new efforts and ideas to aid the poor and the 
vulnerable-many of which may fail. And that's OK. As a white person, 
I can relate to plenty of social experiments that have been colossal 
flops: Apple's Newton, for example, and Microsoft's Zune. Enron and 
MCI. Jazzercize. The Delorean. Solyndra. MySpace. And the War on Drugs.

Priorities must change. And any argument about government getting out 
of the way is yet another attempt to keep the status quo-and 
racism-alive and well. Indifference or passive support of the current 
dynamic is unacceptable. If you need a more self-centered reason to 
change the system than the common good, consider this: We'll be the 
minority soon enough.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom