I work this issue every day and am well aware of the racist nature of the War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs. But even I wasn’t aware of the outrageous statistics comparing the Drug War to Jim Crow era. Michelle Alexander lays it all out in her new book, The New Jim Crow: How the War on Drugs Gave Birth to a Permanent American Undercaste:
- There are more African Americans under correctional control today — in prison or jail, on probation or parole — than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.
- As of 2004, more African American men were disenfranchised (due to felon disenfranchisement laws) than in 1870, the year the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, prohibiting laws that explicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of race.
- A black child born today is less likely to be raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery. The recent disintegration of the African American family is due in large part to the mass imprisonment of black fathers.
- If you take into account prisoners, a large majority of African American men in some urban areas have been labeled felons for life. (In the Chicago area, the figure is nearly 80%.) These men are part of a growing undercaste — not class, caste — permanently relegated, by law, to a second-class status. They can be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits, much as their grandparents and great-grandparents were during the Jim Crow era.
The uncomfortable truth, however, is that crime rates do not explain the sudden and dramatic mass incarceration of African Americans during the past 30 years. Crime rates have fluctuated over the last few decades — they are currently are at historical lows — but imprisonment rates have consistently soared. Quintupled, in fact. And the vast majority of that increase is due to the War on Drugs. Drug offenses alone account for about two-thirds of the increase in the federal inmate population, and more than half of the increase in the state prison population.
The drug war has been brutal — complete with SWAT teams, tanks, bazookas, grenade launchers, and sweeps of entire neighborhoods — but those who live in white communities have little clue to the devastation wrought. This war has been waged almost exclusively in poor communities of color, even though studies consistently show that people of all colors use and sell illegal drugs at remarkably similar rates. In fact, some studies indicate that white youth are significantly more likely to engage in illegal drug dealing than black youth. Any notion that drug use among African Americans is more severe or dangerous is belied by the data. White youth, for example, have about three times the number of drug-related visits to the emergency room as their African American counterparts.
That is not what you would guess, though, when entering our nation’s prisons and jails, overflowing as they are with black and brown drug offenders. In some states, African Americans comprise 80%-90% of all drug offenders sent to prison.
The only thing more shocking to me than the new Jim Crow of the drug war is how few African-Americans are involved in ending it.
- The board of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) is composed of 14 white men, 1 white woman, and 1 Latina (Full disclosure: this board is my employer)
- Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) has no African-Americans or Latinos on their board as far as I’m aware (MPP does not publish this information on their website, as far as I can tell)
- Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) boasts three African-American men on their board of directors
- Americans for Safe Access (to medical marijuana, or ASA) has no African-Americans or Latinos on their board
- Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) has one African-American on their board
Medical Marijuana march in Madison, Wisconsin (I know Madison, Seattle, and Albuquerque aren't exactly Atlanta, Detroit, and Chicago, but there has to be SOME black people there, right?)
This sort of racial homogeneity is also found at the grassroots activist level as well. I coordinate NORML’s 95 active state, local, and college chapters and off the top of my head I can think of only one chapter not run by a white person (Oregon NORML‘s Madeline Martinez, who, coincidentally, is that sole Latina on the National NORML Board).
When I speak at conferences and festivals to crowds ranging from 50 to 50,000, it is always a nearly unbroken sea of white faces looking back at me. When I participate in the marches and protests against the drug war, I rarely see black or Latino people carrying a sign.
My view from the stage before speaking at last year's Seattle Hempfest, the largest marijuana reform rally in the world.
The War on Drugs is primarily a War on Marijuana, which makes up 49.8% of all drug war arrests, 89% of those arrests for simple possession. In New York City, a black man is nine times more likely to be busted for pot than a white man and three times more likely to get a custodial sentence out of that arrest. Yet when we look at the cannabis community, the only place we find many African-American faces is in rap videos extolling the virtues of “the chronic”.
Where is the Martin Luther King Jr. of the movement to end the War on Drugs? Why is he or she not responding to the efforts to end the single greatest cause of racial inequality in this nation?
Is he or she dissuaded by the culture of the black church, which demonizes drugs and drug use to the point where those who support sensible drug policies are shamed into silence?
Drug Policy Alliance's Int'l Reform Conference in Albuquerque, 2009
Is he or she turned away by looking at the leadership of drug law reform and seeing no faces like theirs?
Is he or she already feeling like they wear a target for law enforcement on their back already based on skin color and don’t feel like exacerbating that by publicly standing for drug law reform?
Whatever it is, this white man who’s used cannabis for twenty years and never once had an interaction with police is urgently calling out to my black and Latino brothers and sisters to get involved with your own liberation!
Hm, good point, NORMLMelissainTN (no need for confirmation of your credentials for my sake, I believe you). Yes, we were very influential back when we fought for civil rights; and I wanted to make the argument about how these are totally different times, a totally different fight, and a totally different opponent using totally different tactics… but I can’t, so I won’t. You’re right, we’ll never know how influential our voice is until we try.
However, I am curious about your take on why we haven’t been or aren’t as actively involved in this movement and how to draw more of us into it.
lovin’ it! great post
I know I’m late, but I’m still gonna throw in my 2cents because I am a black woman who is the chapter president of Tennessee NORML. (Russ, you might want to confirm this so peeps will believe me, LOL)
I’d never heard of NORML until my husband told me about the org. Since I’ve been involved, I’ve been thinking about how I can involve more minorities in the movement. True, there are lots of reasons why others are not involved and they do include things like being afraid of being even more of a target.
But, does not joining NORML (or other pro-pot orgs) make anyone any less of a target? We’re all participating in illegal activites every time we medicate or recreate. (I take poetic license on that usage of the word)
The truth is, there is strength in numbers and one of the main messages I think we’re trying to convey as an organization is that the face of a pot smoker runs the gamut of ethnicities, professions, and educational levels. No one is going to believe us when we say that unless they SEE us working.
DnL – you asked:
How influential are we (Blacks and Latinos) to the rest of America when we protest/demonstrate?
I have a question for you: Were we not influential when we fought for civil rights?
Unless we try, we’ll never know.
The book sounds like a must read for the facts to help convince people of all colors to be against the war on drugs aka Jim Crow 2.0
I personally don’t care what color a person’s skin is we need EVERYBODY to help get it legalized.
Well, I think that I have commented on this subject before but I’ll throw in 2 more cents for the sake of discussion (in opposed to my typical lurking and commenting every once in a while). First and foremost, I am a Black American man but I cannot speak for the entire Black community on this issue, Russ. I can throw out a few speculations or generalizations about why we are not more involved in the movement, despite the War On Drugs being Jim Crow 2.0 (and, I should add, a great deal of us probably recognize that it is just that); but ultimately, I can only speak for myself and my own opinions.
I’m not quite sure if floating adrift in a “sea of white faces” discourages us from making it out to the drug law reform conferences and festivals but I can say that these said events are not entirely directed towards us either, other than a few musical genres, so it could just be a marketing issue. If word of these events were brought to us in the right marketing channels that would catch our attention, I think that there would be more Black and Latino (and let’s not leave out Asian) attendance. However, I can admit to the concern that openly being for drug law reform is like painting a bullseye on yourself. And when you live in a society that already targets you based on skin color and stereotypes, sometimes you don’t want to draw more attention to yourself.
And, as I have commented before, we Blacks are a lot more “socially conservative” than originally assumed, particularly the older generations. California’s post-Prop 8 vote analysis had made this point of mine perfectly (though, I despise the notion that Blacks and Latinos voters were solely responsible for it’s passing). That’s not to says that Blacks are for the War on (Some) Drugs or against legalizing cannabis, many people that I speak w/ are for legalization. But our culture is heavily influenced or deeply rooted in the Southern evangelical church, and many of our most outspoken “leaders” are ministers or have ties with the church. While I am sure that these leaders are also against this war on our people, they don’t really know which alternative to pursue and fight for, and are reluctant to push issues like legalization for fear of being mocked by the media and/or having other issues that they fight for not be taken seriously. So they probably shy away from being the next MLK and take a safer route in order to not get the Rev. Wright treatment.
Which brings me to a question: How influential are we (Blacks and Latinos) to the rest of America when we protest/demonstrate? I hope that question doesn’t come off as cynical, it’s an honest question that I always wanted to know. It seems as though when we speak out against a certain injustice, the knee-jerk reaction from those in the media is to not take us seriously, to discredit our arguments, and/or to push blame right back at us. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t be a part of the movement that NORML and other drug reform organizations propose or to give a reason on why we aren’t more active; we should be on the front lines because we’re affected the most by the War on Drugs. I’m just kind of wondering what affect we would have on the movement itself and how it would be viewed if we were to join in.
[...] By: Russ Belville of NORML [...]
[...] By: Russ Belville of NORML [...]