According to the NODCP in Samuel Walker’s book: “Sense and Nonsense about crime and drugs” 74% of those incarcerated for drug crimes in the United States are African-American, while this minority is 12% of the population and 13% of drug users.
The drug war is a system of institutionalized slavery that has been used to oppress African-Americans since they were given political equality in the 1964 civil rights act. Since 1964 the prison population has quadrupled, whereas before it stayed relatively the same with slight fluctuations.
The Prison Industrial Complex is growing at an incredible rate and privatization means that even businesses want a chance to lock people in cages for extended periods of time(because prisons will never close with the drug war being endless and all, privatized prison companies make a great stock investment).Many of them are the darlings of NYSE wackenhut, CCA, etc. It is great that the ability to keep humans locked in cages is a commodity(sarcasm). For example directly following 9/11 stocks on all these privatized corrections corporations went through the roof. It was obvious there would be a lot of cattle in them pens very soon, judging by the guy on the megaphone.
Its very easy to stop racial profiling: Step 1:record the race of all traffic stops, searches, and arrests; Step 2: make records public; Step 3: public takes care of rest.
Please someone tell me where i’m wrong in this solution.Tell me how this could possibly NOT work.
If you could easily access such records from your local police department and you found out that 74% of searches were done on African-Americans. Would you stand idly by? No, there would be watchdog groups, there would be grassroots organizations that would then attempt to hold law enforcement accountable. As more and more people heard about the bullshit more and more people would be angry about the bullshit.
This is of course getting ahead of ourselves. Most people(caucies) don’t think racial profiling even exists. They look at the statistic from the NODCP that three quarters of people serving time for drugs are black.
These individuals do not beleive this is a smoking gun that obviousl;y proves beyond any doubt that racial profiling is a reality and it is pervasive.They’re racist, yah I said it, if you don’t think that law is enforced unevenly you’re not only stupid, you’re racist.
These people like to brand individuals who are victims of racial profiling as crybabys hiding behind their race.
Now lets do a little assumption here. Lets assume that all these 74% of individuals are guilty. They committed a crime by possessing or distributing narcotics. Lets assume drugs were not planted, lets assume they didn’t find it in a car and charge everyone regardless if they use drugs, and lets assume the police aren’t straight racist.
The only answer is that drug use is only being prosecuted if its an African-American male from the ages of 18-34. Every once in awhile other races will get busted, they couldn’t help it. Maybe some white dude walked in to the station and asked if they had seen his crack pipe. I mean some of ‘em you can’t ignore, but you know maybe they hooked him up with a choreboy from the evidence room and let him hit a rock on the stoop. I mean one more white person would really throw off the proportion. Maybe they are eurocentric and just feel bad about subjecting other Caucies to slavery?
Not only would it end racial profiling effectively and permanently.
It would give the people a little control over their solidiers of the status quo.
The forces running our government want to enslave all people. They will start with the easy ones. The ones that so many people don’t care about, because they’re fucking racist. So now that our prison population has overtaken Russias. Now that we over a million prisoners in our coutnry. Now that we have 1 million slaves, who will find it next to impossible to get a job when they get out, so they’re always going to be slaves.They’ll start with what middle america thinks the perpetrator looks like(you know tim mcveigh vs. bin laden which one is gonna amp up support for war with the mdidle east?).
So black males 18-34 my advice to you: Run.
Good Luck
Showing posts with label racial profiling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label racial profiling. Show all posts
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Habeus Corpus
Jose Padilla indicted for conspiracy to commit a terrorist act. Padilla’s Case was about to go to the Supreme Court to have his status as an enemy combatant reviewed. Without a doubt the individual who was held, without being charged for three years, was charged because of the upcoming Supreme Court Review.
This individual originally made headlines as a “dirty bomb” suspect (I believe in Chicago). Dirty bombs are a technological impossibility. So we had a U.S. Citizen being held without charges in a navy Brig for three years for allegedly attempting an impossible act. The question is whether letting this case go too the Supreme Court would have been a good thing. With our new justice: which way would it go?
I think the Stare Decisis of “Ex Parte Milligan” would have won out. We need Habeas Corpus and if wartime is the justification then rebuttal is already in Ex Parte Milligan that eternal question: “If wartime is the justification for erosion of our constitutional rights then what the fuck reason is the war being fought for?” Certainly it is not being fought to defend our freedoms. Hopefully the logic contained in such a conundrum as well as the precedent of Ex Part Milligan should lend weight to the advantage of maintaining our rights.
On the other hand the risk that the Supreme Court would fail to check the executive’s unbridled power and create a lasting precedent for the suspension of habeas corpus. This is such a terrible outcome I am at some level relieved that the decision didn’t get to the Supreme Court, to allow the possibility of such a catastrophic blow to our civil liberties. After Bush v. Gore and the decisions on not making public the documents and conversations at Cheney’s NEPDG. The Supreme Court has become co-opted by the executive and there is a chance they would agree with the “enemy combatant” status argument concerning a U.S. citizen allegedly attempting a technologically impossible act. Here is my burning question:
“Does it have to get worse before it gets better?”
Is it:
1.Better to have the Supreme Court unmasked and decried for allowing the executive to become tyrannical; thus making it apparent to everyone that the checks and balances in stalled by our founders have collapsed.
OR
2.The executive be scared of judicial review thus providing marginal protection from the police state (One won’t be held for MORE than 3 years without being charged).
And of course there is a third possible eventuality which is far worse:
3. The Supreme Court agrees that suspension of Habeas Corpus is constitutional. They should make the corruption of the court obvious and the tyranny of the executive apparent, but most people just don’t care.
There is a strong possibility people will just ignore it.
Using terrorism to justify such a worldview and patriotism to justify apathy individuals will compartmentalize away the existence of the fascist police state that will have started ruling over us when Habeas Corpus is suspended.
Our state may have become tyrannical at the point it suspends Habeas Corpus and reverses Ex Parte Milligan.
Will such a debate emerge at the point this happens? Or will a PR blitz and the “mainstream media” help everyone forget the constitutional rights they had?
This individual originally made headlines as a “dirty bomb” suspect (I believe in Chicago). Dirty bombs are a technological impossibility. So we had a U.S. Citizen being held without charges in a navy Brig for three years for allegedly attempting an impossible act. The question is whether letting this case go too the Supreme Court would have been a good thing. With our new justice: which way would it go?
I think the Stare Decisis of “Ex Parte Milligan” would have won out. We need Habeas Corpus and if wartime is the justification then rebuttal is already in Ex Parte Milligan that eternal question: “If wartime is the justification for erosion of our constitutional rights then what the fuck reason is the war being fought for?” Certainly it is not being fought to defend our freedoms. Hopefully the logic contained in such a conundrum as well as the precedent of Ex Part Milligan should lend weight to the advantage of maintaining our rights.
On the other hand the risk that the Supreme Court would fail to check the executive’s unbridled power and create a lasting precedent for the suspension of habeas corpus. This is such a terrible outcome I am at some level relieved that the decision didn’t get to the Supreme Court, to allow the possibility of such a catastrophic blow to our civil liberties. After Bush v. Gore and the decisions on not making public the documents and conversations at Cheney’s NEPDG. The Supreme Court has become co-opted by the executive and there is a chance they would agree with the “enemy combatant” status argument concerning a U.S. citizen allegedly attempting a technologically impossible act. Here is my burning question:
“Does it have to get worse before it gets better?”
Is it:
1.Better to have the Supreme Court unmasked and decried for allowing the executive to become tyrannical; thus making it apparent to everyone that the checks and balances in stalled by our founders have collapsed.
OR
2.The executive be scared of judicial review thus providing marginal protection from the police state (One won’t be held for MORE than 3 years without being charged).
And of course there is a third possible eventuality which is far worse:
3. The Supreme Court agrees that suspension of Habeas Corpus is constitutional. They should make the corruption of the court obvious and the tyranny of the executive apparent, but most people just don’t care.
There is a strong possibility people will just ignore it.
Using terrorism to justify such a worldview and patriotism to justify apathy individuals will compartmentalize away the existence of the fascist police state that will have started ruling over us when Habeas Corpus is suspended.
Our state may have become tyrannical at the point it suspends Habeas Corpus and reverses Ex Parte Milligan.
Will such a debate emerge at the point this happens? Or will a PR blitz and the “mainstream media” help everyone forget the constitutional rights they had?
Department of Pre-crime
bloombergNew York Times
From NY Times article:
“A police spokeswoman, Cpl. Michile Paradis, asked whether the group had actually had the three tons of chemicals in their possession, and if the police had ‘seized’ it, replied: ‘That’s difficult to answer. They made arrangements to have it delivered and they took delivery.’”
They cannot be charged with possession of these chemicals or actually engaging in a terrorist act.Instead the only thing they can feasibly be charged with is conspiracy. We will see what they actually are charged with.
Another from NY Times: “In court, he said, government lawyers broke with tradition and did not present a synopsis of the reasons for their chages, arguing that they had not had time to prepare it. It will, however, be presented at another hearing on Tuesday.”
Thats right you read correctly: Lawyers at a loss for words.So “the crown” has not charged these individuals with anything yet.The papers allude to “anti-terrorism” charges based on a law passed in 2001.
These individuals never engaged in a terrorist attack. We still do not know where this “3 tons of ammonium nitrate” is or if it even existed.We do not know if it did exist whether or not the RCMP used it to dangle in front of them in order to arrest them. All articles state that the RCMP and FBI were watching this group of peope who attend the mosque of Qayyum Abdul Jamal.
More from NY Times:”One senior counterterrorism official said there had been extensive contact between American and Canadian authorities in the past several days”
If the ammonium nitrate does exist and was sold by terrorists:Why the fuck did they bust a buncha students? They should be following that vein wherever it goes. 3 tons of ammonium nitrate! Who is selling that amount of explosives? The threat is obviously far worse than they’re letting on and why did they bust these people? When they did they ruined their opportunity to take down an illicit arms network that can actually fence and move 3 tons of ammonium nitrate!
If the ammonium nitrate does exist and was sold by RCMP/RBI:This is an example of entrapment, there is no evidence that these individuals would have sought explosives if they had not been offered and entrapped by undercover agents.
If the ammonium nitrate doesn’t exist:Then they’re being charged for something they could never have done. Maybe a conspiracy charge could stick, but anything else is ridiculous.
My main concern is that being charged with breaking an “anti-terrorist” law is basically a catch-all. This threatens every person in Canada, the US, and the rest of America.
This whole scenario reeks of set-up, which means they could have been entrapped or without undercover involvement they never would have attempted to procure explosives.
If its not a set-up then there is a massive illicit arms network that has been allowed to operate and move on unscathed. Which means we have put ourselves in greater danger by arresting the small fish for PR, when the real threat exists in the arms network
From NY Times article:
“A police spokeswoman, Cpl. Michile Paradis, asked whether the group had actually had the three tons of chemicals in their possession, and if the police had ‘seized’ it, replied: ‘That’s difficult to answer. They made arrangements to have it delivered and they took delivery.’”
They cannot be charged with possession of these chemicals or actually engaging in a terrorist act.Instead the only thing they can feasibly be charged with is conspiracy. We will see what they actually are charged with.
Another from NY Times: “In court, he said, government lawyers broke with tradition and did not present a synopsis of the reasons for their chages, arguing that they had not had time to prepare it. It will, however, be presented at another hearing on Tuesday.”
Thats right you read correctly: Lawyers at a loss for words.So “the crown” has not charged these individuals with anything yet.The papers allude to “anti-terrorism” charges based on a law passed in 2001.
These individuals never engaged in a terrorist attack. We still do not know where this “3 tons of ammonium nitrate” is or if it even existed.We do not know if it did exist whether or not the RCMP used it to dangle in front of them in order to arrest them. All articles state that the RCMP and FBI were watching this group of peope who attend the mosque of Qayyum Abdul Jamal.
More from NY Times:”One senior counterterrorism official said there had been extensive contact between American and Canadian authorities in the past several days”
If the ammonium nitrate does exist and was sold by terrorists:Why the fuck did they bust a buncha students? They should be following that vein wherever it goes. 3 tons of ammonium nitrate! Who is selling that amount of explosives? The threat is obviously far worse than they’re letting on and why did they bust these people? When they did they ruined their opportunity to take down an illicit arms network that can actually fence and move 3 tons of ammonium nitrate!
If the ammonium nitrate does exist and was sold by RCMP/RBI:This is an example of entrapment, there is no evidence that these individuals would have sought explosives if they had not been offered and entrapped by undercover agents.
If the ammonium nitrate doesn’t exist:Then they’re being charged for something they could never have done. Maybe a conspiracy charge could stick, but anything else is ridiculous.
My main concern is that being charged with breaking an “anti-terrorist” law is basically a catch-all. This threatens every person in Canada, the US, and the rest of America.
This whole scenario reeks of set-up, which means they could have been entrapped or without undercover involvement they never would have attempted to procure explosives.
If its not a set-up then there is a massive illicit arms network that has been allowed to operate and move on unscathed. Which means we have put ourselves in greater danger by arresting the small fish for PR, when the real threat exists in the arms network
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Racial profiling in the United States: Is Justice Blind?
The most important problem facing law enforcement today is the issue of Racial Profiling. Statistics do not lie and neither do radical changes in social order. Not since the 1960s has the country been closer to the brink of a race war. Rodney King and the subsequent acquittals of police officers, the O.J. Simpson trial, and recent riots in cities such as Cincinnati all have one common theme: a distrust of law enforcement officials by urban residents. Throughout the course of my research I have come across facts that continually support the belief that race is one of the most important factors in the justice system. Essentially the reason for this disparity is the conditioning that police officers have been subjected to for years. This conditioning in turn spawned a mental picture of what an offender is, this picture soon became the scapegoat of our entire society. Certain individuals deny that racial profiling is a reality and if they do acknowledge its’ existence they argue that it is impossible to stop. These myths need to be debunked, because this unequal enforcement of justice makes a farce of everything the United States stands for.
Dred Scott was the first well known supreme court case that reaffirmed the law that African-Americans are less than human. In this case a slave went to the north and returned to the south, filed a court case for his freedom and was turned down by the courts. This court decision basically said once a slave always a slave, today historians blame it on being sensitive to the southerners. It was basically the next logical step for a constitution guaranteeing equality and a policy that guarantees inequality. The next landmark decision was Homer Adolph Plessy v. The State of Louisiana, this decision decided that Jim Crow laws were in fact constitutional. Homer Plessy was an individual who was 1/8th African and was forced to sit in the “Colored” car. He filed a court case arguing for equality, since the train did not leave Louisina, it did not fit in to the strict definition the court had at the time of federalism, so judge Ferguson felt that there was not a violation. The court needed to give all citizens equality in the public realm, but it also needed to reaffirm the widely held belief that African-Americans were less than human. The court accomplished this by instituting the “separate but equal” era of race policy. The separate part of this phrase became much more important than the equal facet. Schools, restaurants, and restrooms were divided between white and colored. These facilities existed before the Plessy decision in 1896, but the decision essentially legitimizes the practice. This era lasted for 60 years until the Brown vs. Board of education decision. This period of time is incredibly important in understanding our current racial problems. This long period of time which was only a few generations ago, built in to the collective American psyche an image that African-Americans are less than a white American. Most importantly that they are bestial and dirty, therefore they could not use public swimming pools or a white person’s water fountain. These are not light ideologies, to fuel these beliefs there must be a healthy dose of dehumanizing. Lynchings were still happening in the south and beatings of African-Americans was very common.
About 50 years ago, in 1954 the Supreme Court decided in Brown v. Board of Education that public schools had to be integrated. One could argue this is the single most important supreme court case since Marbury v. Madison. For people in the south this was a 180 degree turn around and for people in the north it was a massive change from the status quo. In the decade that is known for its resistance to change and the image of the stereotypical white nuclear suburban family. Brown v. Board had a tough time being enforced, but the executive branch did its’ best to enforce it. When Governor Wallace declared “…segregation forever!” and attempted to block African-American students from entering the University, the National Guard was sent to enforce the court decision.
The court also brought in to focus an important issue when it came to segregation. The difference between De Facto and De Jure segregation. De Jure is segregation required by the law, while De Facto segregation is the unintended result of environmental and social factors. By deciding Brown v. Board the court basically destroyed De Jure segregation. An issue that then became very important was busing to fight against De Facto segregation, there are many problems with busing itself and there are probably better ways to stop De Facto segregation. The government at least was not upholding the inequality that was mandated by the Plessy decision.
The time after Brown v. Board is widely referred to as the Civil Rights Era. Between this time and 1964 there was a great deal of social change. An important thing to remember is social change is a long, incremental, and nearly impossible thing to accomplish. People are very resistant to change especially when they had been conditioned since their birth that not only were Blacks less than human, but the supreme court recognizes and agrees with this! It was unheard of for a black woman to refuse to sit in the back of the bus and even more unheard of for white people to travel with blacks fighting for civil rights. The remnants of the ku klux klan and southern law enforcement officers worked together to deny blacks their civil rights. At least that is all they were charged with, because all trials against murderers, bombers, and conspirators were decided by an all white, all male jury. These individuals for the most part agreed with the individuals who had committed these heinous acts, because they had been conditioned in the same way. People walked free, the most famous of these incidents is the murder of three freedom riders. Two white males and one black male, had been traveling on integrated bus lines to make sure it was truly integrated. These individuals were dragged out of the car and murdered by Klan members. This resistance to change is very important in understanding our current problem with racial profiling.
In 1964 the civil rights act was passed, essentially the legislative follow up to the Brown v. Board decision and the activists creating social change. This era is important because there has not been a significant court or legislative action dealing with race since then. The closest is the Whren decision which said it was ok to use race as a factor in policing as long as it is not the only factor(Cox Cohan). As Richard Bennet explained to us, the incarceration rate has been steadily increasing at a much faster rate than before. The point of origin for this phenomenon was the 1964 civil rights act. As Bennet argued I began to formulate a hypothesis. These rights were not given to minorities, instead they had been withheld for countless years in basic violation of our constitution. Since being withheld for countless years(you only have to look back 150 years for slavery) our culture has been conditioned to think of African-Americans as lesser beings. The Plessy decision just codified this belief and Brown v. Board all of a sudden told the public everything they knew and had been told was wrong. So after equal rights were guaranteed to be enforced by the federal government, this “group” of “Coloreds” became a group undesirable to society, but it was unlawful to act on this belief. This is the state of America’s collective psyche today.
Since the Civil Rights Act the incarceration rate has steadily increased, compared to its relatively stable pre-1964 rate(Bennet). The people in power needed something to keep those slaves from becoming equal. Far from a rational decision, it become a common psychological reaction to label this group criminals or to at least imagine criminals as looking a certain way.
“…racial profiling doesn’t happen because data justifies the practice but rather because those with power are able to get away with it, and find it functional to do so as a mechanism of social control over those who are less powerful. By typifying certain ‘others’ as dangerous or undesirable,those seeking to maintain divisions between people whose economic and social interests are actually quitesimilar can successfully maintain those cleavages.(Wise)”
The ruling class in this case is White America and the dangerous undesirable group is former slaves. After so many years of being told that the reason they treated this group of people like trash, is because they were animals like dogs and cats. Now all of a sudden these “animals” are equal to them in the eyes of the law. Either one can understand they themselves are evil for treating human beings like animals or they can understand that this group is still less than human and the government is wrong. Now one can easily understand, which entity is it easier to blame this on: yourself or the government? It is obviously that faceless entity known as the government, so racism survives, to be taught to the next generation(Greenblatt).
The police are just a random sampling of the population with a few qualifications: for the most part these individuals come from working or middle class families and many have relatives that were law enforcement officers. So policemen are being told by others before the civil rights act, before Brown v. Board, and even before Plessy that Blacks were less than human. This conditioning does not all of a sudden stop when the government says that it is not true. The thing that was greatly cut down on were terrorist actions, like the bombing of the 16th street Baptist church in Birmingham Now discrimination in jobs were illegal, where could this shared value of racism go? The answer is law enforcement, although today I do consider racial profiling racist, I do not consider the policemen who profile racist. It is simple, if one is discriminated in a job or if they are beaten for being black, that individual simply brings the issue to court. For a victim of racial profiling, you are already a criminal, you cannot say you were discriminated against, because no one will listen. So it happens once, twice, and soon it becomes a common practice. After many years the public and police begin to have a picture of what a criminal looks like. Understanding the root causes of racial profiling helps us understand the problem we face today, because we have seen a long line of improvements in the quest for equal protection under the law. Also the important thing to understand is that we all share responsibility, so it makes the problem hard to accept.
Many individuals seem to have a perception of racial profiling that it probably exists, but only in specific areas like the south or large cities. The truth is that all across our country there is a disproportionately large amount of minorities arrested(as well as searched), convicted, and incarcerated.
“His office investigated the issue for four months before he officially admitted that New Jersey state troopers were regularly engaging in racial profiling. The office also acknowledged that although the racial profiling issue has gained state and national attention, the underlying conditions that foster disparate treatment of minorities have existed for decades…The report found that the problem of racial profiling was real, and not simply imagined.(Meeks)”
The most noticeable difference is in drug possession crimes. African-Americans make up 12% of the U.S. population and 13% of monthly drug users. Well this is to be expected for the proportion of drug use to fluctuate a few points around its’ proportion to the general population. So one would expect that the rate of arrests, convictions, and incarcerations would go back and forth between 6% and 20%. Well it turns out 35% of drug arrests are African-Americans. Maybe for some reason there is just a few more drug users per capita that are African-American that the survey missed in the monthly drug users. Now the next step in the justice process the verdict, at this step in the process African-Americans make up 55% of those convicted of drug possession. Now the judges turn, they have justice in mind, they’ll keep drug users out of jail and in treatment programs so they can rid themselves of their addiction. It turns out African-Americans make up 74% of those incarcerated for drug possession(Walker). At the point of the proportin of drug arrests one may think its just a little bit not to bad a violation, but by the time one understands that 74% of people incarcerated for drugs are African-American we must understand that this problem is pervasive.
Some people argue that minorities are disproportionately distributing drugs or that minorities are impoverished so they have to resort to a life of crime. These are hindsight justifications, the truth is that even if minorities were disproportionately distributing drugs how could they make up 74% of people who possess drugs when they are 12% of the population, this is basically an assumption that all young black males are drug users. This assumption is faulty, because the evidence shows they are only 13% of monthly drug users(Walker). The argument that poverty creates an environment in which crime is the easy way out is true. Crime is a short term answer to poverty, but I know that most impoverished individuals whatever race work very hard to keep their head above water. To assume that a child born in a poverty stricken neighborhood will end up a criminal is not logical. Also to assume that minorities come from impoverished areas is in itself ignorant and prejudiced. As we have seen no matter what social standing a person comes from if they are a minority they are treated negatively by the justice system(Ramirez).
One example of this is what people call DWB, or Driving While Black. In a case the ACLU took, a black prosecutor was driving back to Washington DC after attending a funeral with his family. He was in a hurry to make a trial the next day. He was pulled over in the rain and asked if he would submit to a search. The driver stated that he knew his rights and did not want his car searched. The family was forced to wait there as they brought a drug dog to sniff out the car. As their car was searched the family stood out in the rain. When the attorney arrived in his office he called the ACLU and they filed a case against the police(Meeks). The case led to document that had been circulating among the police that there were lots of drug shipments going through their highway and the perpetrators are usually black and usually in a rent-a-car(Jost). Well the attorney was black and he was in a rent-a-car, but to everyone’s astonishment he was not a drug smuggler. This is just one isolated incident, but if one looks at the ACLU site it quickly becomes obvious that there are cases filed in many states. Although some of them may be exaggerated or simply not true, some of them are true and give us a glimpse in to what it feels like to be singled out and intimidated because of your race.
A recent study found that 9 out of 10 individuals incarcerated in Maryland on drug offenses are African-American(JPI). Also on any given day 42% of African-American men age 18-35 in Washington DC are under the control of the justice system. This is defined as being either on probation, parole, in jail, or in prison. Also one-sixth of African-American men(defined as over age 16) are arrested each year(Walker). The disparity is not only in drug crimes either, African-Americans make up half of all state and federal prisoners. They also make up two-thirds of federal prisoners incarcerated for drugs(Walker).
Certain people think that the racism within the system is a myth. That in actuality it is polices that ranking officers have their officers follow(Fredrickson). For instance to order officers to pull over black people driving rent-a-cars, because they have arrested some black people driving rent-a-cars for drug possession. Some argue this is good policing, like crime mapping you can pick up a pattern. They don’t think of it as racial profiling, it just makes sense. The truth is just because 13 of the 16 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi Arabian and all 16 were Muslim, does not mean that we should search Saudi Muslims a lot more than other individuals when boarding planes. This seems rational because its based on empirical analysis, but instead it puts us more at risk. If law enforcement is too busy searching innocent minorities for drugs and airport security officers are too busy searching innocent Muslims for shoe bombs, no one is catching the real criminals. This is the primary effect that racial profiling has on the justice system in the United States. By focusing on individuals because of their race we are not incarcerating those dangerous to society, we’re incarcerating a race of people. By letting through the criminals everyone in society is endangered by racial profiling.
The secondary effect of Racial Profiling is alienation of the group that is affected. Minorities become dehumanized just as badly if not worse than having to sit on the back of the bus or not eat at lunch counters. With family and friends being searched illegally. Then disproportionately arrested, convicted, and incarcerated its easy to understand the justice system has marginalized this group. Beyond the statistical facts and personal experiences with the justice system, there is the media. The O.J. Simpson trial, the Rodney King beating and subsequent acquittal, and the recent beating in Cincinnati that left a man dead these all create and fuel a perception of the justice system. People who are affected by these tragedies respond in anger, rioting and destroying their own neighborhoods. Many individuals of all races have let the media frame racial profiling without understanding the facts(Lamberth). These very few highly publicized cases convince skeptics that racial profiling is a myth created by the media and convince people who believe in racial profiling that incidents are much more violent than usual. This is interesting because increased perception seems to polarize opinions on racial profiling, when it should unite them. The answer to this in my opinion is to use less sensationalism when covering these stories, to see it as a symptom of the larger problem of racial profiling and not just a fluke.
The newest form of Racial Profiling involves Muslims. This specifically deals with airport security and suspension of habeas corpus. Since the attacks on 9/11 airport security has become controlled by the military. They are operating under orders to look for suspicious persons, since the mental picture of what a hijacker looks like is already ingrained in them, the look for a certain type of person. This person usually wears a cloth on their head, has a certain skin color, and maybe even an accent. Also American citizens detained in Guantanimo bay without being given access to an attorney or communication with their families. These people are held there specifically because they are Muslim and are suspected of knowing certain people. This is fine to arrest and change someone with a crime, but to imprison these people with the term “Enemy Combatants” is a stretch. It becomes obvious that this policy is tilted when one sees that virtually all the prisoners are Muslim. Also racial profiling affects other minorities like Latinos, as it turns out 30% of federal mandatory minimums are given to Latinos(FAMM). Also from many peoples experiences we can understand racial profiling can work in reverse. When a Caucasian is driving in a neighborhood the law enforcement perceive to be a “minority” neighborhood, they are pulled over on the basis of race. The assumption is for the most part based on drug searches.
Now we understand that racial profiling is pervasive, we understand it affects every race, and we know that this problem is exacerbated by drug war policies and media sensationalism. We have a basic understanding of racism in the United States and a recognition that racism has survived.
Many individuals are resistant to the idea of racial profiling, because they feel it scapegoats law enforcement for a societal problem they aren’t responsible for. These individuals are right and wrong. To scapegoat law enforcement officers is wrong and sometimes these claims can come across that way, especially if they are unfounded claims(like many cases very well might be). The truth is law enforcement is responsible for the problem, but just as responsible as everyone else. The police commit small acts of disproportionate arresting, the public with juries commits a few more small acts of disproportionate convictions, and the judge comes down on minorities a little harder. All these subtle differences have a cumulative affect and create a horribly unbalanced justice system.
The people in the system are not racist, they are just products of social conditioning. We are all products of social conditioning, but many of us are not exposed to certain cultures. For instance the culture of law enforcement is very interesting. As Ronald Hampton discussed with us every different station has different values and objectives. Their superior officer gives them orders and they follow them. To lead to this disproportionate arrest rate the police in many jurisdictions must have a subtle shared value of what an offender looks like. These values are pieced together from training, experience, and being taught by previous generations of officers. With arrest rates for drug possession more than twice the rate of consumption for African-Americans this is the most rational explanation. Police officers are not racist, they have just been arresting blacks for so long they’ve created a self-fulfilling prophecy. Again even if they recognize their mistakes, there aren’t that many, just a little lopsided in the enforcement.
Many think that police are the number one problem in addressing racial profiling. The public and the judge are just as important though. Through the jury system, an offender is judged by his/her peers. They determine guilt and as the statistics in Samuel Walker’s book show us they are convicting a higher rate of black people than white people. These juries are samples of the population and are sometimes minorities themselves. As it turns out in society in general no matter what race you are, the conditioning exists to some degree that you believe a certain type of person commits certain types of crimes. Also these juries are viewing trials which are usually good prosecutors with their own future in mind and unskilled defenders, because the defendant can’t afford a better attorney. So they convict a little higher percentage than would be expected.
The judges then have a chance to balance the scales of justice. If more African-Americans are being sentenced why not give a larger percentage non-prison rehabilitation. The statistics don’t take a downturn though, instead they continue to rise. As the number finally becomes a whopping 74% of drug users incarcerated being African-American.
The problem does not rest squarely on any single entities shoulders. Instead the problem is ingrained in our culture and everyone is responsible. So how can such a huge problem ever be addressed?
The first step towards reducing Racial Profiling, is to have every station in the United States record the race of the people they pull over and search. If the current practices continue we will be able to pinpoint certain jurisdictions that use race as the most important factor in determining probable cause. This can lead to a federal lawsuit for violating people’s civil rights. If the current practices don’t continue, because people realize they are being monitored the problem will be solved at the law enforcement level. Frederick Taylor is an organizational theorist known for his popularizing of the theory of Scientific Management, which is a belief that there is a best way to manage any organization. Taylor did a study in the workplace and found out that the more he dimmed the lights the harder people worked, until it got too dark to work. When the study was done he concluded that the people had worked harder, simply because they knew they were being studied. I think that if a police officer is convinced not to search someone, because he is scared of legal repercussions, then that person was not worth searching. The collection of traffic stop/search/arrest data will lead to stricter enforcement of probable cause and eliminate the gap between the 14% of drug users are African-American and 35% of arrestees are African-American.
The next step has to deal with the jury and prosecutor. The convictions are a result of the prosecutors dropping a larger percentage of Caucasian drug cases and public perceptions of drug use. To reduce this disparity we must limit the prosecutorial discretion at some level. Many cases the prosecutor is convinced the person is bad and just throws counts at them to see what will stick. Also all jurors should be made aware of the disparity in conviction rates. This may help them look through their own conditioned prejudice.
For the judges these individuals already have a tight grasp of the law and should not be contributing to this disparity. Simply put these judges need to be aware that they are somehow incarcerating a much higher rate of African-Americans than Caucasians, especially for drug crimes. This may also be contributed to by mandatory minimums. Hurting the judge’s discretion, forcing incarceration for drug crimes instead of rehab(FAMM).
Racial Profiling is a symptom of a larger societal prejudice(Fagan). If we can reduce the disparity and set our goal to eliminate it completely we can cure this symptom. This is a positive step in insuring everyone equal protection under the law. Racial profiling should not be used to determine probable cause for searching or arresting. It does not matter if 100% of plane hijackers in history are Muslim, this does not justify violating the rights of every Muslim. Separate but equal is also not very long ago, we must remember that racism didn’t all of a sudden die in 1964, instead it became something under the surface. It is perpetuated by an unequal justice system and sometimes it boils over and leads to riots.
To catch the real criminals we must stop searching innocents, we must stop marginalizing racial groups with our law enforcement, and we have to accumulate data to gain a greater understanding of the problem. I myself have been conditioned throughout my lifetime, I try to remain open minded and look through the prejudice, obviously this can never happen.
Prejudice and racism will never cease existing, what we need to do is eliminate it from our government. This is a plausible goal and without reaching it I fear we may be taking steps backward in regards to civil rights. Simply put without justice there can be no peace. Racial disparity in the justice system is unjust and affects everyone no matter what race.
Works Cited
Ayres, Ian “Outcome Tests Racial Disparities In Police Practices” Justice Research and Policy Fall, 2002 Vol. 4 pg. 131-142
Bain, Bryonn “Tree Days in NYC jails” The Village Voice Sep 24, 2003 Vol. 48 Iss. 39
Carrick, Grady “Police Response to Racial Profiling” Law and Order Oct, 2001 Vol. 49 Iss. 10
Cox, Stephen M. “Racial Profiling: Refuting Concerns About Collecting Race Data on Traffic Stops.” Law and Order Oct, 2001 Vol. 49 Iss. 10
Cox Cohan, Carolyn, Professor at American University
Criminal Justice Publications “Minority Police- Tramping Through a Racial Minefield” Police Magazine Mar, 1979 Vol. 2 Iss. 2
Fagan, Jefferey “Law, Social Science, and Racial Profiling.” Justice Research and Policy Fall, 2002 Vol. 4 pg. 103-129
Fredrickson, Darin D. and Siljander, Raymond P. “Racial Profiling” 2002
Greenblatt, Alan “Are Blacks Still Handicapped By Racism?” The CQ Researcher Jul 11, 2003 Vol. 13 No. 25
Harris, David A. “Racial Profiling Revisited: ‘Just common sense’ in the Fight Against Terror?” Criminal Justice Summer, 2002 Vol. 17 Iss. 2
Hampton, Ronald. Executive Director National Black Police Association, American University Sep 5 2003
Harris, David “Driving While Black: Racial profiling on Our Nation’s Highways” http://www.aclu.org/profiling/report/index.html 1999
Harris, David A. “Stories, The Statistics and the Law: Why ‘driving while black’ matters” Minnesota Law Review Dec, 1999 Vol. 84 Iss. 2
Garret, Ronnie L. “Changing Behavior Begins With Data: Collecting Traffic Stop Data is a Means to Identify Profiling and Stop it in Its Tracks.” Law Enforcement Technology Apr, 2001 Vol. 28 Iss. 4
Jost, Kenneth “How Can Abuses Be Prevented?” The CQ Researcher Mar 17, 2000 Vol. 10 No. 10
Justice Policy Institute study on Maryland Sentencing, http://www.justicepolicy.org/article.php?list=type&type=66
Kennedy, Randall. “Blind Spot Racial Profiling Meet Your Alter Ego: Affirmative Action” The Atlantic Monthly Apr. 2002 pg 24
Kurlander, Neil “Software to Track Traffic Stop Data” Law Enforcement Technology Aug, 2000 Vol. 27 Iss. 7
Lamberth, Karl and Clayton, Jerry “Addressing Racial Profiling” Chief of police May, 2003 Vol. 17 Iss. 3 Pg 21, 24-25
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights United States “Wrong then, Wrong now: Racial Profiling Before and After September 11, 2001” Http://www.civilrights.org/publications/reports/racial_profiling/Racial_profiling_report.pdf 2001
Masci, David and Marshall, Patrick “Is The Governments Crackdown On Terrorism Too Harsh?” The CQ Researcher Dec 14, 2001 Vol. 11 No. 43
McAuliffe, John C. “Preventing Racial Profiling” Campus Law Enforcement Journal Nov, 2000 Vol. 30 Iss. 6
Meehan, Albert and Ponder, Michael “Race and Place: The Ocology of Racial Profiling African American Motorists.” Justice Quarterly Sep, 2002 Vol. 19 Iss. 3
Meeks, Kenneth “Driving While Black Highways, Shopping Malls, Taxi Cabs, Sidewalks, What to do if you are a Victim of Racial Profiling” Broadway books New York, 2000
National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives United States “A Noble Perspective: Racial Profiling, A symptom of Biased-Based Policing” National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives May 3, 2001
Nebraska Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice United States “Nebraska Crime Commission Update.” National Institute of Justice 2001
New Jersey Attorney General “State Police Review Team Regarding Allegations of Racial Profiling: Interim Report” Report by New Jersey Attorney General Apr 20, 1999
O’Reilly, James T. “Police Traffic Stops and Racial Profiling: Resolving Management, Labor and Civil Rights Conflicts.” 2002
Petrocelli, Matthew; Piquero, Alex; and Smith, Michael “Conflict theory and Racial Profiling: An Empirical Analysis of Police Traffic Stop Data.” Journal of Criminal Justice Jan, 2003 Vol. 31 Iss. 1
Police Assessment Resource Center “Racial Profiling” http://www.vera.org/publication_pdf/162_249.pdf 2002
Ramirez, Deborah; McDevitt, Jack; and Farrell, Amy “Resource Guide on Racial Profiling Data Collection Systems: Promising Practices and Lessons Learned” http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/bja/184768.pdf Nov 2000
Rashed, Dina “U.S. Experts Testify to Racial, Religious profiling in the US” Global Information Network Oct 21, 2003
Rivera, Richard G. “Nine ways to Prevent Racial Profiling” Law and Order Oct, 2001 Vol. 49 Iss. 10
Russell, Katheryn “’Driving While Black’: Corrollary Phenomena and Collateral Consequences” Boston College Law Review May, 1999 Vol. 40 Iss. 3
Sanow, Ed “Overcoming the Perception of Racial Profiling” Law and Order May, 2001 Vol. 49 Iss. 4
Schott, Richard G. “Role of Race in Law Enforcement: Racial Profiling or Legitimate Use?” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin Nov, 2001 Vol. 70 Iss. 11 pg. 24-32
Scoville, Dean “View Askew: A Sideways Look at Racial Profiling” Police Aug, 2000 Vol. 24 Iss. 8
Shepard Engel, Robin; Calnon, Jennifer M.; and Bernard, Thomas J. “Theory and Racial Profiling : Shortcomings and Future Directions in Research.” Justice Quarterly June, 2002 Vol. 19 Iss. 2
Smith, Michael R. and Alpert, Geoffrey P. “Searching for Direction: Courts, Social Science and the Adjudication of Racial Profiling Claims.” Justice Quarterly Dec, 2002 Vol. 19 Iss. 4 pg. 673-703
Sorensen, Jon; Hope, Robert; and Stemen, Don “Racial Disproportionality in State Prison Admissions: Can Regional Variation be Explained by Differential Arrest Rates?” Journal of Criminal Justice Jan, 2003 Vol. 31 Iss. 1 pg. 73-84
Stone, Christopher “Race, Crime, and the Administration of Justice” National Institute of Justice Apr, 1999
Strandberg, Keith W. “Racial Profiling” Law Enforcement Technology Jun, 1999 Vol. 26 Iss. 6
University of Chicago Press “Assessment of the Black Female Prisoner in the South” SIGNS 1977 Vol. 3 iss. 2
US General Accounting Office “Racial Profiling Data Available on Motorist Stops.” http://www.gao.gov Mar, 2000
Walker, Samuel. Sense and Nonsense about Crime and Drugs 2001 Wadsworth Thomson Learning
Weitzer, Ronald and Tuch, Steven “Perceptions of Racial Profiling: Race, Class, and Personal Experience.” Criminology May, 2002 Vol. 40 Iss. 2
Wise, Tim “Racial Profiling and its Apologists” Z Magazine Mar 2002 pg 91-94
Withrow, Brian L. and Jackson, Henry “Race-Based Policing: Alternatives for Assessing the problem.” Crime and Justice in America: Present Realities and Future Prospects 2002
Wood, Peter B. and May, David C. “Racial differences in perceptions of the severity of sanctions: A comparison of prison with Peter B. Wood, David C. May” Justice Quarterly Sep, 2003 Vol. 20
Dred Scott was the first well known supreme court case that reaffirmed the law that African-Americans are less than human. In this case a slave went to the north and returned to the south, filed a court case for his freedom and was turned down by the courts. This court decision basically said once a slave always a slave, today historians blame it on being sensitive to the southerners. It was basically the next logical step for a constitution guaranteeing equality and a policy that guarantees inequality. The next landmark decision was Homer Adolph Plessy v. The State of Louisiana, this decision decided that Jim Crow laws were in fact constitutional. Homer Plessy was an individual who was 1/8th African and was forced to sit in the “Colored” car. He filed a court case arguing for equality, since the train did not leave Louisina, it did not fit in to the strict definition the court had at the time of federalism, so judge Ferguson felt that there was not a violation. The court needed to give all citizens equality in the public realm, but it also needed to reaffirm the widely held belief that African-Americans were less than human. The court accomplished this by instituting the “separate but equal” era of race policy. The separate part of this phrase became much more important than the equal facet. Schools, restaurants, and restrooms were divided between white and colored. These facilities existed before the Plessy decision in 1896, but the decision essentially legitimizes the practice. This era lasted for 60 years until the Brown vs. Board of education decision. This period of time is incredibly important in understanding our current racial problems. This long period of time which was only a few generations ago, built in to the collective American psyche an image that African-Americans are less than a white American. Most importantly that they are bestial and dirty, therefore they could not use public swimming pools or a white person’s water fountain. These are not light ideologies, to fuel these beliefs there must be a healthy dose of dehumanizing. Lynchings were still happening in the south and beatings of African-Americans was very common.
About 50 years ago, in 1954 the Supreme Court decided in Brown v. Board of Education that public schools had to be integrated. One could argue this is the single most important supreme court case since Marbury v. Madison. For people in the south this was a 180 degree turn around and for people in the north it was a massive change from the status quo. In the decade that is known for its resistance to change and the image of the stereotypical white nuclear suburban family. Brown v. Board had a tough time being enforced, but the executive branch did its’ best to enforce it. When Governor Wallace declared “…segregation forever!” and attempted to block African-American students from entering the University, the National Guard was sent to enforce the court decision.
The court also brought in to focus an important issue when it came to segregation. The difference between De Facto and De Jure segregation. De Jure is segregation required by the law, while De Facto segregation is the unintended result of environmental and social factors. By deciding Brown v. Board the court basically destroyed De Jure segregation. An issue that then became very important was busing to fight against De Facto segregation, there are many problems with busing itself and there are probably better ways to stop De Facto segregation. The government at least was not upholding the inequality that was mandated by the Plessy decision.
The time after Brown v. Board is widely referred to as the Civil Rights Era. Between this time and 1964 there was a great deal of social change. An important thing to remember is social change is a long, incremental, and nearly impossible thing to accomplish. People are very resistant to change especially when they had been conditioned since their birth that not only were Blacks less than human, but the supreme court recognizes and agrees with this! It was unheard of for a black woman to refuse to sit in the back of the bus and even more unheard of for white people to travel with blacks fighting for civil rights. The remnants of the ku klux klan and southern law enforcement officers worked together to deny blacks their civil rights. At least that is all they were charged with, because all trials against murderers, bombers, and conspirators were decided by an all white, all male jury. These individuals for the most part agreed with the individuals who had committed these heinous acts, because they had been conditioned in the same way. People walked free, the most famous of these incidents is the murder of three freedom riders. Two white males and one black male, had been traveling on integrated bus lines to make sure it was truly integrated. These individuals were dragged out of the car and murdered by Klan members. This resistance to change is very important in understanding our current problem with racial profiling.
In 1964 the civil rights act was passed, essentially the legislative follow up to the Brown v. Board decision and the activists creating social change. This era is important because there has not been a significant court or legislative action dealing with race since then. The closest is the Whren decision which said it was ok to use race as a factor in policing as long as it is not the only factor(Cox Cohan). As Richard Bennet explained to us, the incarceration rate has been steadily increasing at a much faster rate than before. The point of origin for this phenomenon was the 1964 civil rights act. As Bennet argued I began to formulate a hypothesis. These rights were not given to minorities, instead they had been withheld for countless years in basic violation of our constitution. Since being withheld for countless years(you only have to look back 150 years for slavery) our culture has been conditioned to think of African-Americans as lesser beings. The Plessy decision just codified this belief and Brown v. Board all of a sudden told the public everything they knew and had been told was wrong. So after equal rights were guaranteed to be enforced by the federal government, this “group” of “Coloreds” became a group undesirable to society, but it was unlawful to act on this belief. This is the state of America’s collective psyche today.
Since the Civil Rights Act the incarceration rate has steadily increased, compared to its relatively stable pre-1964 rate(Bennet). The people in power needed something to keep those slaves from becoming equal. Far from a rational decision, it become a common psychological reaction to label this group criminals or to at least imagine criminals as looking a certain way.
“…racial profiling doesn’t happen because data justifies the practice but rather because those with power are able to get away with it, and find it functional to do so as a mechanism of social control over those who are less powerful. By typifying certain ‘others’ as dangerous or undesirable,those seeking to maintain divisions between people whose economic and social interests are actually quitesimilar can successfully maintain those cleavages.(Wise)”
The ruling class in this case is White America and the dangerous undesirable group is former slaves. After so many years of being told that the reason they treated this group of people like trash, is because they were animals like dogs and cats. Now all of a sudden these “animals” are equal to them in the eyes of the law. Either one can understand they themselves are evil for treating human beings like animals or they can understand that this group is still less than human and the government is wrong. Now one can easily understand, which entity is it easier to blame this on: yourself or the government? It is obviously that faceless entity known as the government, so racism survives, to be taught to the next generation(Greenblatt).
The police are just a random sampling of the population with a few qualifications: for the most part these individuals come from working or middle class families and many have relatives that were law enforcement officers. So policemen are being told by others before the civil rights act, before Brown v. Board, and even before Plessy that Blacks were less than human. This conditioning does not all of a sudden stop when the government says that it is not true. The thing that was greatly cut down on were terrorist actions, like the bombing of the 16th street Baptist church in Birmingham Now discrimination in jobs were illegal, where could this shared value of racism go? The answer is law enforcement, although today I do consider racial profiling racist, I do not consider the policemen who profile racist. It is simple, if one is discriminated in a job or if they are beaten for being black, that individual simply brings the issue to court. For a victim of racial profiling, you are already a criminal, you cannot say you were discriminated against, because no one will listen. So it happens once, twice, and soon it becomes a common practice. After many years the public and police begin to have a picture of what a criminal looks like. Understanding the root causes of racial profiling helps us understand the problem we face today, because we have seen a long line of improvements in the quest for equal protection under the law. Also the important thing to understand is that we all share responsibility, so it makes the problem hard to accept.
Many individuals seem to have a perception of racial profiling that it probably exists, but only in specific areas like the south or large cities. The truth is that all across our country there is a disproportionately large amount of minorities arrested(as well as searched), convicted, and incarcerated.
“His office investigated the issue for four months before he officially admitted that New Jersey state troopers were regularly engaging in racial profiling. The office also acknowledged that although the racial profiling issue has gained state and national attention, the underlying conditions that foster disparate treatment of minorities have existed for decades…The report found that the problem of racial profiling was real, and not simply imagined.(Meeks)”
The most noticeable difference is in drug possession crimes. African-Americans make up 12% of the U.S. population and 13% of monthly drug users. Well this is to be expected for the proportion of drug use to fluctuate a few points around its’ proportion to the general population. So one would expect that the rate of arrests, convictions, and incarcerations would go back and forth between 6% and 20%. Well it turns out 35% of drug arrests are African-Americans. Maybe for some reason there is just a few more drug users per capita that are African-American that the survey missed in the monthly drug users. Now the next step in the justice process the verdict, at this step in the process African-Americans make up 55% of those convicted of drug possession. Now the judges turn, they have justice in mind, they’ll keep drug users out of jail and in treatment programs so they can rid themselves of their addiction. It turns out African-Americans make up 74% of those incarcerated for drug possession(Walker). At the point of the proportin of drug arrests one may think its just a little bit not to bad a violation, but by the time one understands that 74% of people incarcerated for drugs are African-American we must understand that this problem is pervasive.
Some people argue that minorities are disproportionately distributing drugs or that minorities are impoverished so they have to resort to a life of crime. These are hindsight justifications, the truth is that even if minorities were disproportionately distributing drugs how could they make up 74% of people who possess drugs when they are 12% of the population, this is basically an assumption that all young black males are drug users. This assumption is faulty, because the evidence shows they are only 13% of monthly drug users(Walker). The argument that poverty creates an environment in which crime is the easy way out is true. Crime is a short term answer to poverty, but I know that most impoverished individuals whatever race work very hard to keep their head above water. To assume that a child born in a poverty stricken neighborhood will end up a criminal is not logical. Also to assume that minorities come from impoverished areas is in itself ignorant and prejudiced. As we have seen no matter what social standing a person comes from if they are a minority they are treated negatively by the justice system(Ramirez).
One example of this is what people call DWB, or Driving While Black. In a case the ACLU took, a black prosecutor was driving back to Washington DC after attending a funeral with his family. He was in a hurry to make a trial the next day. He was pulled over in the rain and asked if he would submit to a search. The driver stated that he knew his rights and did not want his car searched. The family was forced to wait there as they brought a drug dog to sniff out the car. As their car was searched the family stood out in the rain. When the attorney arrived in his office he called the ACLU and they filed a case against the police(Meeks). The case led to document that had been circulating among the police that there were lots of drug shipments going through their highway and the perpetrators are usually black and usually in a rent-a-car(Jost). Well the attorney was black and he was in a rent-a-car, but to everyone’s astonishment he was not a drug smuggler. This is just one isolated incident, but if one looks at the ACLU site it quickly becomes obvious that there are cases filed in many states. Although some of them may be exaggerated or simply not true, some of them are true and give us a glimpse in to what it feels like to be singled out and intimidated because of your race.
A recent study found that 9 out of 10 individuals incarcerated in Maryland on drug offenses are African-American(JPI). Also on any given day 42% of African-American men age 18-35 in Washington DC are under the control of the justice system. This is defined as being either on probation, parole, in jail, or in prison. Also one-sixth of African-American men(defined as over age 16) are arrested each year(Walker). The disparity is not only in drug crimes either, African-Americans make up half of all state and federal prisoners. They also make up two-thirds of federal prisoners incarcerated for drugs(Walker).
Certain people think that the racism within the system is a myth. That in actuality it is polices that ranking officers have their officers follow(Fredrickson). For instance to order officers to pull over black people driving rent-a-cars, because they have arrested some black people driving rent-a-cars for drug possession. Some argue this is good policing, like crime mapping you can pick up a pattern. They don’t think of it as racial profiling, it just makes sense. The truth is just because 13 of the 16 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi Arabian and all 16 were Muslim, does not mean that we should search Saudi Muslims a lot more than other individuals when boarding planes. This seems rational because its based on empirical analysis, but instead it puts us more at risk. If law enforcement is too busy searching innocent minorities for drugs and airport security officers are too busy searching innocent Muslims for shoe bombs, no one is catching the real criminals. This is the primary effect that racial profiling has on the justice system in the United States. By focusing on individuals because of their race we are not incarcerating those dangerous to society, we’re incarcerating a race of people. By letting through the criminals everyone in society is endangered by racial profiling.
The secondary effect of Racial Profiling is alienation of the group that is affected. Minorities become dehumanized just as badly if not worse than having to sit on the back of the bus or not eat at lunch counters. With family and friends being searched illegally. Then disproportionately arrested, convicted, and incarcerated its easy to understand the justice system has marginalized this group. Beyond the statistical facts and personal experiences with the justice system, there is the media. The O.J. Simpson trial, the Rodney King beating and subsequent acquittal, and the recent beating in Cincinnati that left a man dead these all create and fuel a perception of the justice system. People who are affected by these tragedies respond in anger, rioting and destroying their own neighborhoods. Many individuals of all races have let the media frame racial profiling without understanding the facts(Lamberth). These very few highly publicized cases convince skeptics that racial profiling is a myth created by the media and convince people who believe in racial profiling that incidents are much more violent than usual. This is interesting because increased perception seems to polarize opinions on racial profiling, when it should unite them. The answer to this in my opinion is to use less sensationalism when covering these stories, to see it as a symptom of the larger problem of racial profiling and not just a fluke.
The newest form of Racial Profiling involves Muslims. This specifically deals with airport security and suspension of habeas corpus. Since the attacks on 9/11 airport security has become controlled by the military. They are operating under orders to look for suspicious persons, since the mental picture of what a hijacker looks like is already ingrained in them, the look for a certain type of person. This person usually wears a cloth on their head, has a certain skin color, and maybe even an accent. Also American citizens detained in Guantanimo bay without being given access to an attorney or communication with their families. These people are held there specifically because they are Muslim and are suspected of knowing certain people. This is fine to arrest and change someone with a crime, but to imprison these people with the term “Enemy Combatants” is a stretch. It becomes obvious that this policy is tilted when one sees that virtually all the prisoners are Muslim. Also racial profiling affects other minorities like Latinos, as it turns out 30% of federal mandatory minimums are given to Latinos(FAMM). Also from many peoples experiences we can understand racial profiling can work in reverse. When a Caucasian is driving in a neighborhood the law enforcement perceive to be a “minority” neighborhood, they are pulled over on the basis of race. The assumption is for the most part based on drug searches.
Now we understand that racial profiling is pervasive, we understand it affects every race, and we know that this problem is exacerbated by drug war policies and media sensationalism. We have a basic understanding of racism in the United States and a recognition that racism has survived.
Many individuals are resistant to the idea of racial profiling, because they feel it scapegoats law enforcement for a societal problem they aren’t responsible for. These individuals are right and wrong. To scapegoat law enforcement officers is wrong and sometimes these claims can come across that way, especially if they are unfounded claims(like many cases very well might be). The truth is law enforcement is responsible for the problem, but just as responsible as everyone else. The police commit small acts of disproportionate arresting, the public with juries commits a few more small acts of disproportionate convictions, and the judge comes down on minorities a little harder. All these subtle differences have a cumulative affect and create a horribly unbalanced justice system.
The people in the system are not racist, they are just products of social conditioning. We are all products of social conditioning, but many of us are not exposed to certain cultures. For instance the culture of law enforcement is very interesting. As Ronald Hampton discussed with us every different station has different values and objectives. Their superior officer gives them orders and they follow them. To lead to this disproportionate arrest rate the police in many jurisdictions must have a subtle shared value of what an offender looks like. These values are pieced together from training, experience, and being taught by previous generations of officers. With arrest rates for drug possession more than twice the rate of consumption for African-Americans this is the most rational explanation. Police officers are not racist, they have just been arresting blacks for so long they’ve created a self-fulfilling prophecy. Again even if they recognize their mistakes, there aren’t that many, just a little lopsided in the enforcement.
Many think that police are the number one problem in addressing racial profiling. The public and the judge are just as important though. Through the jury system, an offender is judged by his/her peers. They determine guilt and as the statistics in Samuel Walker’s book show us they are convicting a higher rate of black people than white people. These juries are samples of the population and are sometimes minorities themselves. As it turns out in society in general no matter what race you are, the conditioning exists to some degree that you believe a certain type of person commits certain types of crimes. Also these juries are viewing trials which are usually good prosecutors with their own future in mind and unskilled defenders, because the defendant can’t afford a better attorney. So they convict a little higher percentage than would be expected.
The judges then have a chance to balance the scales of justice. If more African-Americans are being sentenced why not give a larger percentage non-prison rehabilitation. The statistics don’t take a downturn though, instead they continue to rise. As the number finally becomes a whopping 74% of drug users incarcerated being African-American.
The problem does not rest squarely on any single entities shoulders. Instead the problem is ingrained in our culture and everyone is responsible. So how can such a huge problem ever be addressed?
The first step towards reducing Racial Profiling, is to have every station in the United States record the race of the people they pull over and search. If the current practices continue we will be able to pinpoint certain jurisdictions that use race as the most important factor in determining probable cause. This can lead to a federal lawsuit for violating people’s civil rights. If the current practices don’t continue, because people realize they are being monitored the problem will be solved at the law enforcement level. Frederick Taylor is an organizational theorist known for his popularizing of the theory of Scientific Management, which is a belief that there is a best way to manage any organization. Taylor did a study in the workplace and found out that the more he dimmed the lights the harder people worked, until it got too dark to work. When the study was done he concluded that the people had worked harder, simply because they knew they were being studied. I think that if a police officer is convinced not to search someone, because he is scared of legal repercussions, then that person was not worth searching. The collection of traffic stop/search/arrest data will lead to stricter enforcement of probable cause and eliminate the gap between the 14% of drug users are African-American and 35% of arrestees are African-American.
The next step has to deal with the jury and prosecutor. The convictions are a result of the prosecutors dropping a larger percentage of Caucasian drug cases and public perceptions of drug use. To reduce this disparity we must limit the prosecutorial discretion at some level. Many cases the prosecutor is convinced the person is bad and just throws counts at them to see what will stick. Also all jurors should be made aware of the disparity in conviction rates. This may help them look through their own conditioned prejudice.
For the judges these individuals already have a tight grasp of the law and should not be contributing to this disparity. Simply put these judges need to be aware that they are somehow incarcerating a much higher rate of African-Americans than Caucasians, especially for drug crimes. This may also be contributed to by mandatory minimums. Hurting the judge’s discretion, forcing incarceration for drug crimes instead of rehab(FAMM).
Racial Profiling is a symptom of a larger societal prejudice(Fagan). If we can reduce the disparity and set our goal to eliminate it completely we can cure this symptom. This is a positive step in insuring everyone equal protection under the law. Racial profiling should not be used to determine probable cause for searching or arresting. It does not matter if 100% of plane hijackers in history are Muslim, this does not justify violating the rights of every Muslim. Separate but equal is also not very long ago, we must remember that racism didn’t all of a sudden die in 1964, instead it became something under the surface. It is perpetuated by an unequal justice system and sometimes it boils over and leads to riots.
To catch the real criminals we must stop searching innocents, we must stop marginalizing racial groups with our law enforcement, and we have to accumulate data to gain a greater understanding of the problem. I myself have been conditioned throughout my lifetime, I try to remain open minded and look through the prejudice, obviously this can never happen.
Prejudice and racism will never cease existing, what we need to do is eliminate it from our government. This is a plausible goal and without reaching it I fear we may be taking steps backward in regards to civil rights. Simply put without justice there can be no peace. Racial disparity in the justice system is unjust and affects everyone no matter what race.
Works Cited
Ayres, Ian “Outcome Tests Racial Disparities In Police Practices” Justice Research and Policy Fall, 2002 Vol. 4 pg. 131-142
Bain, Bryonn “Tree Days in NYC jails” The Village Voice Sep 24, 2003 Vol. 48 Iss. 39
Carrick, Grady “Police Response to Racial Profiling” Law and Order Oct, 2001 Vol. 49 Iss. 10
Cox, Stephen M. “Racial Profiling: Refuting Concerns About Collecting Race Data on Traffic Stops.” Law and Order Oct, 2001 Vol. 49 Iss. 10
Cox Cohan, Carolyn, Professor at American University
Criminal Justice Publications “Minority Police- Tramping Through a Racial Minefield” Police Magazine Mar, 1979 Vol. 2 Iss. 2
Fagan, Jefferey “Law, Social Science, and Racial Profiling.” Justice Research and Policy Fall, 2002 Vol. 4 pg. 103-129
Fredrickson, Darin D. and Siljander, Raymond P. “Racial Profiling” 2002
Greenblatt, Alan “Are Blacks Still Handicapped By Racism?” The CQ Researcher Jul 11, 2003 Vol. 13 No. 25
Harris, David A. “Racial Profiling Revisited: ‘Just common sense’ in the Fight Against Terror?” Criminal Justice Summer, 2002 Vol. 17 Iss. 2
Hampton, Ronald. Executive Director National Black Police Association, American University Sep 5 2003
Harris, David “Driving While Black: Racial profiling on Our Nation’s Highways” http://www.aclu.org/profiling/report/index.html 1999
Harris, David A. “Stories, The Statistics and the Law: Why ‘driving while black’ matters” Minnesota Law Review Dec, 1999 Vol. 84 Iss. 2
Garret, Ronnie L. “Changing Behavior Begins With Data: Collecting Traffic Stop Data is a Means to Identify Profiling and Stop it in Its Tracks.” Law Enforcement Technology Apr, 2001 Vol. 28 Iss. 4
Jost, Kenneth “How Can Abuses Be Prevented?” The CQ Researcher Mar 17, 2000 Vol. 10 No. 10
Justice Policy Institute study on Maryland Sentencing, http://www.justicepolicy.org/article.php?list=type&type=66
Kennedy, Randall. “Blind Spot Racial Profiling Meet Your Alter Ego: Affirmative Action” The Atlantic Monthly Apr. 2002 pg 24
Kurlander, Neil “Software to Track Traffic Stop Data” Law Enforcement Technology Aug, 2000 Vol. 27 Iss. 7
Lamberth, Karl and Clayton, Jerry “Addressing Racial Profiling” Chief of police May, 2003 Vol. 17 Iss. 3 Pg 21, 24-25
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights United States “Wrong then, Wrong now: Racial Profiling Before and After September 11, 2001” Http://www.civilrights.org/publications/reports/racial_profiling/Racial_profiling_report.pdf 2001
Masci, David and Marshall, Patrick “Is The Governments Crackdown On Terrorism Too Harsh?” The CQ Researcher Dec 14, 2001 Vol. 11 No. 43
McAuliffe, John C. “Preventing Racial Profiling” Campus Law Enforcement Journal Nov, 2000 Vol. 30 Iss. 6
Meehan, Albert and Ponder, Michael “Race and Place: The Ocology of Racial Profiling African American Motorists.” Justice Quarterly Sep, 2002 Vol. 19 Iss. 3
Meeks, Kenneth “Driving While Black Highways, Shopping Malls, Taxi Cabs, Sidewalks, What to do if you are a Victim of Racial Profiling” Broadway books New York, 2000
National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives United States “A Noble Perspective: Racial Profiling, A symptom of Biased-Based Policing” National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives May 3, 2001
Nebraska Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice United States “Nebraska Crime Commission Update.” National Institute of Justice 2001
New Jersey Attorney General “State Police Review Team Regarding Allegations of Racial Profiling: Interim Report” Report by New Jersey Attorney General Apr 20, 1999
O’Reilly, James T. “Police Traffic Stops and Racial Profiling: Resolving Management, Labor and Civil Rights Conflicts.” 2002
Petrocelli, Matthew; Piquero, Alex; and Smith, Michael “Conflict theory and Racial Profiling: An Empirical Analysis of Police Traffic Stop Data.” Journal of Criminal Justice Jan, 2003 Vol. 31 Iss. 1
Police Assessment Resource Center “Racial Profiling” http://www.vera.org/publication_pdf/162_249.pdf 2002
Ramirez, Deborah; McDevitt, Jack; and Farrell, Amy “Resource Guide on Racial Profiling Data Collection Systems: Promising Practices and Lessons Learned” http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/bja/184768.pdf Nov 2000
Rashed, Dina “U.S. Experts Testify to Racial, Religious profiling in the US” Global Information Network Oct 21, 2003
Rivera, Richard G. “Nine ways to Prevent Racial Profiling” Law and Order Oct, 2001 Vol. 49 Iss. 10
Russell, Katheryn “’Driving While Black’: Corrollary Phenomena and Collateral Consequences” Boston College Law Review May, 1999 Vol. 40 Iss. 3
Sanow, Ed “Overcoming the Perception of Racial Profiling” Law and Order May, 2001 Vol. 49 Iss. 4
Schott, Richard G. “Role of Race in Law Enforcement: Racial Profiling or Legitimate Use?” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin Nov, 2001 Vol. 70 Iss. 11 pg. 24-32
Scoville, Dean “View Askew: A Sideways Look at Racial Profiling” Police Aug, 2000 Vol. 24 Iss. 8
Shepard Engel, Robin; Calnon, Jennifer M.; and Bernard, Thomas J. “Theory and Racial Profiling : Shortcomings and Future Directions in Research.” Justice Quarterly June, 2002 Vol. 19 Iss. 2
Smith, Michael R. and Alpert, Geoffrey P. “Searching for Direction: Courts, Social Science and the Adjudication of Racial Profiling Claims.” Justice Quarterly Dec, 2002 Vol. 19 Iss. 4 pg. 673-703
Sorensen, Jon; Hope, Robert; and Stemen, Don “Racial Disproportionality in State Prison Admissions: Can Regional Variation be Explained by Differential Arrest Rates?” Journal of Criminal Justice Jan, 2003 Vol. 31 Iss. 1 pg. 73-84
Stone, Christopher “Race, Crime, and the Administration of Justice” National Institute of Justice Apr, 1999
Strandberg, Keith W. “Racial Profiling” Law Enforcement Technology Jun, 1999 Vol. 26 Iss. 6
University of Chicago Press “Assessment of the Black Female Prisoner in the South” SIGNS 1977 Vol. 3 iss. 2
US General Accounting Office “Racial Profiling Data Available on Motorist Stops.” http://www.gao.gov Mar, 2000
Walker, Samuel. Sense and Nonsense about Crime and Drugs 2001 Wadsworth Thomson Learning
Weitzer, Ronald and Tuch, Steven “Perceptions of Racial Profiling: Race, Class, and Personal Experience.” Criminology May, 2002 Vol. 40 Iss. 2
Wise, Tim “Racial Profiling and its Apologists” Z Magazine Mar 2002 pg 91-94
Withrow, Brian L. and Jackson, Henry “Race-Based Policing: Alternatives for Assessing the problem.” Crime and Justice in America: Present Realities and Future Prospects 2002
Wood, Peter B. and May, David C. “Racial differences in perceptions of the severity of sanctions: A comparison of prison with Peter B. Wood, David C. May” Justice Quarterly Sep, 2003 Vol. 20
Sunday, July 18, 2004
Might as well start a blog
So I'm the only one that'll probably ever read this but whatever.
"Terror is a product yah push
"Terror is a product yah push
I'm a truth addict oh $hit I gotta head rush
sheep tremble here come the votes
thrown from the throat new cages and scapegoats"
-Rage Against the Machine "VietNow"
-George Bush Jr. Has control of one of the two largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons, but cannot pronounce the word NUCLEAR. (new-klee-err) not (New-cue-ler). We all know someone must have mentioned this to him by now. So what did he do? Ignore them? Is he just to stupid? Or is it because the average apathetic ignorant will say they don't know how to pronounce it either so its a PR move to appear affable? Its probably just the arrogance that all bad things he has done slide out of the public consciousness as soon as he exploits 9/11 for political gain, its been working well, but the public is starting to catch on(just in time for the election EXACTLY like his oil baron father)
-According to the NODCP in Samuel Walker's book: "Sense and Nonsense about crime and drugs" 74% of those incarcerated for drug crimes in the United States are African-American, while this minority is 12% of the population and 13% of drug users. The drug war is a system of institutionalized slavery that has been used to oppress African-Americans since they were given political equality in the 1964 civil rights act. Since 1964 the prison population has quadrupled, the Prison Industrial Complex is growing at an incredible rate and privatization means that even businesses want a chance to lock people in cages for extended periods of time(because prisons will never close with the drug war being endless and all, privatized prison companies make a great stock investment).
Its very easy to stop racial profiling: Step 1:record the race of all traffic stops, searches, and arrests; Step 2: make records public; Step 3: public takes care of rest.
Its very easy to stop the incarceration of perpetrators of victimless crime: step 1: legalize all narcotics, step 2: legalize prostitution, step 3: legalize euthanasia
-Part of the coalition of individuals who vote republican are people that call themselves free marketers, these individuals are strong believers in Adam Smith's theories of an invisible hand that balances the market. These individuals voted to elect George Bush Jr. Who subsequently created a protectionist policy for steel, in a blatant attempt to win this swing state(Pennsylvania) when re-election comes. Also a huge amount of taxpayer dollars are being given as corporate welfare to the oligopoly known as the airline industry, this will sure help the free market's balance.
*If you support a free market George Bush Jr. Is not for you*
-Also part of this coalition are people who fear and hate bureaucracy and a large federal government, these individuals also voted for Governor George Bush Jr., who subsequently presided over the largest expansion of the federal government in history.
*If you are against expanding the federal government George Bush Jr. is not for you*
-The republican party strategists and the Bush Jr. Administration have decided to hold their convention later than any convention in history(September) and a few blocks from ground zero. They are NOT in any way trying to use the nation's worst tragedy in years to bolster their public support.
*If you think exploiting 9/11 for political gain is immoral the Republican Party is not for you*
-Homeland security asked for special powers to separate political conventions from the public, because of am ambiguous terrorist threat(I believe its called "chatter"). This is no way motivated by the massive amounts of people mobilized to protest at the Republican National convention(otherwise known as the 2004 battle of NYC), and the very few that will protest at the DNC.
*If you think dissent and freedom of speech should only be allowed when they praise the status quo the Republican party is for you*
-Along with these emergency powers there needs to be the ability to postpone elections. So if terrorists disrupt the democratic process, Homeland Security should have the power to do the same. Ashcroft admits there is "no specific intel"(real quote) about any plans to disrupt elections or the conventions, but of course there is what everyone has feared for hundreds of years: chatter.
*If you think the government needs to take powers from congress, the courts, and the people and centralize this power within the executive branch of the government, then the Republican party is for you*
-The US should give Iraqis full custody of Saddam so they can try their own tyrant, the only problem is they'll probably kill him, but it is their choice. I don't support capital punishment no matter how atrocious the crimes, which is why I oppose the death penalty when George Bush Jr. and Rumsfeld are tried for war crimes(for specifically violating the geneva conventions through well documented torture of prisoners). I instead support life without parole, hopefully he will then read a history book and learn about Vietnam, France's war in Algeria, USSR in Afghanistan, the American revolutionary war, etc... and learn not to send people in to an imperalist bloodbath that is unwinnable, because of the guerilla tactics used and the lack of public support in the occupied country.
*If you like torture of Innocents and history doomed to repeat itself then the Bush Jr. Administration is for you*
-Do you think when Rumsfeld went to Iraq to congratulate Saddam on his chemical weapons use in Halabjah, that he would be invading him 20 years later and trying him for the crime the US supported before and after?
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/press.htm
-Reagan was so optimistic: He really believed Iran-Contra wouldn't be his legacy, but with so many of your administration indicted its hard to look clean. Remember a few ultimate ironies of Reagan's presidency:
1.Reagan could "not recall" many key facts when testifying about Iran-Contra and later developed alzheimers.
2. Reagan was a religious fundamentalist quoting scripture and a republican, but he supported stem-cell research.....After he got alzheimers.
3. Nancy Reagan started the campaign: "Just say no":During the Iran-Contra affair the administration hired thugs to fly the arms to the death squads of Nicaragua, once there they thought "why in the hell would I fly back with an empty cargo plane?", So they filled their planes with Cocaine and brought it back to the United States. It found its way to California, just in time for the 1986 crack epidemic that brought us the new weapon to oppress minorities: Mandatory Minimum Sentencing laws(like locking them up longer will stop the profitability of the drug trade).
-The same criminals that worked for Nixon are still in power, The people that used terror to gain political capital with McCarthyism are trying the same method, using terror to gain political capital with threats of imminent terror. The parties don't matter when it comes down to protecting our liberties and the continued survival of humanity. Unilateral blatantly imperialist actions only anger the entire international community. The unabashedly Orwellian administration is so surreal sometimes its incredible: cutting veterans benefits on memorial day, Dick swearing at a senator on the same day a bill that raises the fine for swearing is passed on broadcasts, justifying intervention by pointing out a UN charter was violated when in fact intervention violates a UN charter, or arguing that religious fundamentalists like Bin Laden are a danger, but Ashcroft and Falwell are infallible.
The era did not start with September 11th, it started the day the US decided to give the terrorists exactly what they want: a response that went fully overboard. ok lets see when does civil and violent disobedience work: civil disobedience in the 60s sometimes took the form of sit-ins at lunch counters. In this form of protest of Plessy v. Ferguson(JimCrow) black and white civil rights activists would sit at a lunch counter together. The local teens and young white men then proceeded to dump food and abuse these individuals(Imagine a young Strom Thurmond and a young Trent Lott and you get the idea) We all know Trent believes African-Americans are less then human and therefore animals, but then this abuse is captured on camera and the picture begs the question:"Who is the real animal?"
Ok now when does violent protest work? Lets take Arafat the only man to address the UN with a gun in his belt. This individual may not openly admit it now, but he was an accomplice in acts of asymmetrical warfare against Israel. Of course any country has the right to defend itself from a blatant clear and imminent danger. In this example though the PLO used suicide bombing tactics(which enact violence on the individual thus the suicide part of the phrase, but also projects a great deal of violence and death outward indiscriminately, and thus the bombing facet of the phrase). After a campaign of suicide bombing Israel's reaction seemed overwhelming and international opinion placed Arafat at the head of a legitimate organization and he started to shun violence as a means to a Palestinian state. The violence gained him legitimacy only as long as the reaction was so atrocious it made the initial attack look like someone sneezed on the country then the act of terrorism was a success. Also this helped restrain future attacks, because of Arafat's legitimacy he was able to try his best to rein in some of the organizations previously violent to use non-violent means.
sheep tremble here come the votes
thrown from the throat new cages and scapegoats"
-Rage Against the Machine "VietNow"
-George Bush Jr. Has control of one of the two largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons, but cannot pronounce the word NUCLEAR. (new-klee-err) not (New-cue-ler). We all know someone must have mentioned this to him by now. So what did he do? Ignore them? Is he just to stupid? Or is it because the average apathetic ignorant will say they don't know how to pronounce it either so its a PR move to appear affable? Its probably just the arrogance that all bad things he has done slide out of the public consciousness as soon as he exploits 9/11 for political gain, its been working well, but the public is starting to catch on(just in time for the election EXACTLY like his oil baron father)
-According to the NODCP in Samuel Walker's book: "Sense and Nonsense about crime and drugs" 74% of those incarcerated for drug crimes in the United States are African-American, while this minority is 12% of the population and 13% of drug users. The drug war is a system of institutionalized slavery that has been used to oppress African-Americans since they were given political equality in the 1964 civil rights act. Since 1964 the prison population has quadrupled, the Prison Industrial Complex is growing at an incredible rate and privatization means that even businesses want a chance to lock people in cages for extended periods of time(because prisons will never close with the drug war being endless and all, privatized prison companies make a great stock investment).
Its very easy to stop racial profiling: Step 1:record the race of all traffic stops, searches, and arrests; Step 2: make records public; Step 3: public takes care of rest.
Its very easy to stop the incarceration of perpetrators of victimless crime: step 1: legalize all narcotics, step 2: legalize prostitution, step 3: legalize euthanasia
-Part of the coalition of individuals who vote republican are people that call themselves free marketers, these individuals are strong believers in Adam Smith's theories of an invisible hand that balances the market. These individuals voted to elect George Bush Jr. Who subsequently created a protectionist policy for steel, in a blatant attempt to win this swing state(Pennsylvania) when re-election comes. Also a huge amount of taxpayer dollars are being given as corporate welfare to the oligopoly known as the airline industry, this will sure help the free market's balance.
*If you support a free market George Bush Jr. Is not for you*
-Also part of this coalition are people who fear and hate bureaucracy and a large federal government, these individuals also voted for Governor George Bush Jr., who subsequently presided over the largest expansion of the federal government in history.
*If you are against expanding the federal government George Bush Jr. is not for you*
-The republican party strategists and the Bush Jr. Administration have decided to hold their convention later than any convention in history(September) and a few blocks from ground zero. They are NOT in any way trying to use the nation's worst tragedy in years to bolster their public support.
*If you think exploiting 9/11 for political gain is immoral the Republican Party is not for you*
-Homeland security asked for special powers to separate political conventions from the public, because of am ambiguous terrorist threat(I believe its called "chatter"). This is no way motivated by the massive amounts of people mobilized to protest at the Republican National convention(otherwise known as the 2004 battle of NYC), and the very few that will protest at the DNC.
*If you think dissent and freedom of speech should only be allowed when they praise the status quo the Republican party is for you*
-Along with these emergency powers there needs to be the ability to postpone elections. So if terrorists disrupt the democratic process, Homeland Security should have the power to do the same. Ashcroft admits there is "no specific intel"(real quote) about any plans to disrupt elections or the conventions, but of course there is what everyone has feared for hundreds of years: chatter.
*If you think the government needs to take powers from congress, the courts, and the people and centralize this power within the executive branch of the government, then the Republican party is for you*
-The US should give Iraqis full custody of Saddam so they can try their own tyrant, the only problem is they'll probably kill him, but it is their choice. I don't support capital punishment no matter how atrocious the crimes, which is why I oppose the death penalty when George Bush Jr. and Rumsfeld are tried for war crimes(for specifically violating the geneva conventions through well documented torture of prisoners). I instead support life without parole, hopefully he will then read a history book and learn about Vietnam, France's war in Algeria, USSR in Afghanistan, the American revolutionary war, etc... and learn not to send people in to an imperalist bloodbath that is unwinnable, because of the guerilla tactics used and the lack of public support in the occupied country.
*If you like torture of Innocents and history doomed to repeat itself then the Bush Jr. Administration is for you*
-Do you think when Rumsfeld went to Iraq to congratulate Saddam on his chemical weapons use in Halabjah, that he would be invading him 20 years later and trying him for the crime the US supported before and after?
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/press.htm
-Reagan was so optimistic: He really believed Iran-Contra wouldn't be his legacy, but with so many of your administration indicted its hard to look clean. Remember a few ultimate ironies of Reagan's presidency:
1.Reagan could "not recall" many key facts when testifying about Iran-Contra and later developed alzheimers.
2. Reagan was a religious fundamentalist quoting scripture and a republican, but he supported stem-cell research.....After he got alzheimers.
3. Nancy Reagan started the campaign: "Just say no":During the Iran-Contra affair the administration hired thugs to fly the arms to the death squads of Nicaragua, once there they thought "why in the hell would I fly back with an empty cargo plane?", So they filled their planes with Cocaine and brought it back to the United States. It found its way to California, just in time for the 1986 crack epidemic that brought us the new weapon to oppress minorities: Mandatory Minimum Sentencing laws(like locking them up longer will stop the profitability of the drug trade).
-The same criminals that worked for Nixon are still in power, The people that used terror to gain political capital with McCarthyism are trying the same method, using terror to gain political capital with threats of imminent terror. The parties don't matter when it comes down to protecting our liberties and the continued survival of humanity. Unilateral blatantly imperialist actions only anger the entire international community. The unabashedly Orwellian administration is so surreal sometimes its incredible: cutting veterans benefits on memorial day, Dick swearing at a senator on the same day a bill that raises the fine for swearing is passed on broadcasts, justifying intervention by pointing out a UN charter was violated when in fact intervention violates a UN charter, or arguing that religious fundamentalists like Bin Laden are a danger, but Ashcroft and Falwell are infallible.
The era did not start with September 11th, it started the day the US decided to give the terrorists exactly what they want: a response that went fully overboard. ok lets see when does civil and violent disobedience work: civil disobedience in the 60s sometimes took the form of sit-ins at lunch counters. In this form of protest of Plessy v. Ferguson(JimCrow) black and white civil rights activists would sit at a lunch counter together. The local teens and young white men then proceeded to dump food and abuse these individuals(Imagine a young Strom Thurmond and a young Trent Lott and you get the idea) We all know Trent believes African-Americans are less then human and therefore animals, but then this abuse is captured on camera and the picture begs the question:"Who is the real animal?"
Ok now when does violent protest work? Lets take Arafat the only man to address the UN with a gun in his belt. This individual may not openly admit it now, but he was an accomplice in acts of asymmetrical warfare against Israel. Of course any country has the right to defend itself from a blatant clear and imminent danger. In this example though the PLO used suicide bombing tactics(which enact violence on the individual thus the suicide part of the phrase, but also projects a great deal of violence and death outward indiscriminately, and thus the bombing facet of the phrase). After a campaign of suicide bombing Israel's reaction seemed overwhelming and international opinion placed Arafat at the head of a legitimate organization and he started to shun violence as a means to a Palestinian state. The violence gained him legitimacy only as long as the reaction was so atrocious it made the initial attack look like someone sneezed on the country then the act of terrorism was a success. Also this helped restrain future attacks, because of Arafat's legitimacy he was able to try his best to rein in some of the organizations previously violent to use non-violent means.
How about another example: the FARC; certain members of the FARC had been engaged in Guerilla warfare(Different from Terrorism, because to stage Guerilla warfare one must have property, military barracks, and a formal command structure, it is similar to terrorism in the fact that it is asymmetrical warfare [Another obvious delineation is the extent to which an organization will indiscriminately kill, since Guerilla warfare is essentially hit and run tactics on infrastructure, military and government; blowing up a whole bunch of random people on the street is not Guerilla warfare]). Some members denounced violence and started a party called the UP or Patriotic Union party. Their violent acts had made the public aware of their agenda and they used this to attempt to reform the government through peaceful means. (Many UP members were assassinated, hunted down by para-militaries that the government does not try THAT hard to keep under control, under the adage "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". Often these clandestine paramilitaries are the ones who can do the military's "dirty work". Although this example failed in the end, the violence did work to establish enough public opinion to get UP party members elected in the first place.
Sometimes violent action works though, it grants legitimacy to an opinion, by making people aware of it. It also reminds people that if they are marginalized and not given the right of self-determination through elections or even after this their opinions are not represented in the least, these individuals will take up arms to have their voices heard.
So what would be the ideal conditions for Osama Bin Laden in respect to 9/11, what would really help him achieve his agenda.
-Well for starters the leader of the country you attack can have direct business connections to your family which hurts said leaders credibility(just a bit) and makes sure conspiracy theories abound and will multiply over the years.
-A hardline presidency is needed to ensure a mandate from the reactionary constintuents, this condition was granted by the supreme court of the US in Bush v. Gore.
-The public media goes in to hibernation allowing a centralization of power in the executive branch and destroying the advantage democracy has when it comes to war: people who have to die for a war want to make sure it is well worth it, but congress granted sweeping power to the executive branch.
-Also it would help if the leader of the country attacked is a religious fundamentalist himself and has no problem justifying his war by peppering his speeches with references to his Christian God.
-The most important thing that helped Osama was the invasion of a country that was not involved with the endeavor of 9/11. This spreads terror throughout the world(people are deathly afraid of the United States) and anti-American sentiment
The only thing that can hurt Osama is if a rational leader who lets public interest and international relations be his guide rather than Jingoists and Religious fundamentalists, which are Bush Jr.s guides.
Sometimes violent action works though, it grants legitimacy to an opinion, by making people aware of it. It also reminds people that if they are marginalized and not given the right of self-determination through elections or even after this their opinions are not represented in the least, these individuals will take up arms to have their voices heard.
So what would be the ideal conditions for Osama Bin Laden in respect to 9/11, what would really help him achieve his agenda.
-Well for starters the leader of the country you attack can have direct business connections to your family which hurts said leaders credibility(just a bit) and makes sure conspiracy theories abound and will multiply over the years.
-A hardline presidency is needed to ensure a mandate from the reactionary constintuents, this condition was granted by the supreme court of the US in Bush v. Gore.
-The public media goes in to hibernation allowing a centralization of power in the executive branch and destroying the advantage democracy has when it comes to war: people who have to die for a war want to make sure it is well worth it, but congress granted sweeping power to the executive branch.
-Also it would help if the leader of the country attacked is a religious fundamentalist himself and has no problem justifying his war by peppering his speeches with references to his Christian God.
-The most important thing that helped Osama was the invasion of a country that was not involved with the endeavor of 9/11. This spreads terror throughout the world(people are deathly afraid of the United States) and anti-American sentiment
The only thing that can hurt Osama is if a rational leader who lets public interest and international relations be his guide rather than Jingoists and Religious fundamentalists, which are Bush Jr.s guides.
Governor George Bush Jr. may have singlehandedly brought more recruits to Al-qaida then Bin laden's ideology ever could have.
I'm not sure I know why i'm starting a blog.
I just want to have something I can point to when my grandkids ask "What did you do during the Religious Zealots Era, when governments spent massive percentages of the budget on missiles to kill other human beings across the world who had different religious beliefs? "
and I can answer "Some people thought it was alright to kill for their religion or political beliefs. Some people even hid behind symbols such as the Crucifix or the Flag, but your grandfather saw right through the disguise and saw it for what it was: naked self-interest for oil and continuted world domination, perpetuated by the elites using the lower class as the cannon fodder. Most importantly it was violence not enacted in self-defense which is no better than the third reich's blitzkrieg."
More importantly I have blood all over my hands, I look around on trains and in elevators and this is what I see coating peoples hands: the blood of innocent Iraqis and Afghanis. As a democracy we all share responsibility for the path our country takes. It is hard for me psychologically to know that my government is systematically torturing citizens of another country, because of their religion. I need to feel like i'm doing something to not be complicit in the atrocities of overt imperalism and I will never perpetuate a violent action for political purposes on any human being, so maybe if I just complain a whole lot to the black hole of this blog I'll feel better(no altruism involved).
I also remember the Democrats are not our freinds, but if Gore had been elected this Iraq occupation would have never even been thought about. No one in government would have pushed for it and no one in the public would have pushed for it. So we need to take feasibility of morality in to account or should I say the Teleological calculus of our actions. By voting for Nader you can vote your mind, but those means lead to an end of ongoing jingoism. So the lesser of two evils is all we can deal with at this point. It may help change the two-party system even by slowly bringing Nader more and more votes, but throughout these many hardline presidencies the people will be suffering and not just mentally, they will go lose limbs(and life) for imperalism in Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. So you cannot deny that the lesser of two evils is better than Governor George Bush Jr. who still holds the record for most executed under any governor in history even though he didn't even finish his second term, never granting a stay of execution even to mentally ill and mentally disabled individuals.
Some fox news anchor was espousing the value of war today how it creates great men and offers the opportunity for glory. Does my generation believe that war is a moral end in and of itself?
The thought is chilling, well anyway better enlist to become an officer before the draft is put back in to place in 2005 compliments of George Bush jr.
"Know your enemy"
-Rage
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible only make violent revolution inevitable."
-JFK
-Jimothy J. Jones the Second
any factual inaccuracies let me know)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)