Concern over drug convictions for blacks

Enki said:
I have some poor anecdotal data that I am submitting nonetheless, the only people I've seen selling dope in the open, on the street were black. This could easily be an anomaly of my neighborhood, the time of day I observe, my biases as an observer, etc

The inequality of who gets arrested would have to consider group behavior as well as simple demographics, I would think. I suspect law enforcement arrests those who are easy pickings before going after more difficult cases.
Click to expand...


I came to say something similar.

I'm from Chicago and the open air market is comprised almost entirely of black dealers.

Even if a cop pulls over a white kid and finds drugs on him, the cop would rather spend his time and the city's resources on going to the source--busting the dealer for distribution of a large quantity rather than someone for possession of a few bags or even a bundle. If the kid who bought the drugs is willing to out his dealer/do a controlled buy, he will likely be let go and the dealer will be arrested.
 
LawnChairSkank said:
Fuck that article, it's a bunch of bullshit. They wouldn't give me a public defender because I'm white. If I was black, I would have gotten one without a problem. Also, if I was black, my court fees wouldn't be so high. If I was black, I would only have to pay 5 dollars a month for probation instead of fifty. I was in a black neighborhood, and got arrested because I am white. Maybe this article is telling us something, that black people are more likely to use drugs than other people?
Click to expand...

It really disturbs me that you are unaware of the real reasons behind why you are gettin that kind of treatment. Ima just throw this crazy, wild idea out there for ya - They do it based on income.

I been to court, and I been white in a black neighborhood which led to gettin arrested. And I been qualified for a public defender, and Ive had to pay less, becuz my income was lower. it aint got shit-all to do with you bein white.

If you feel that you ARE 'low income', but you STILL didnt qualify for a public defender or reduced fees, then just imagine how poor those black guys you are so jealous of had to be in order to qualify.:|

Your post is so far from bein true that I am startin more and more to think that you were bein extremely sarcastic thru the whole post.

I cant even start with your "maybe blacks use more drugs!" arguement. Why, becuz that is so far from the truth that Im honestly , truly suprised that you could actually believe that black people use more drugs. Its known by almost everybody that the drug use rates of white people are stupid-high. white people use far more drugs than other races. look up even the most basic statistics and you will see that its almost common knowledge that white people are the overwhelming majority of drug users. this aint no made up shit, its just facts. It blows my mind that you could have wrote anything in your post in seriousness. Im just waiting for your "HA! GOTCHA! JUST KIDDIN!" reply. Cuz Im havin a hard time believing somebody could be that willfully ignorant.
 
perhaps poor people are just less intelligent about where/when they sell and use, making it easier to catch them.

in my experiance, while poor people get busted more, when the middle/upper class gets caught, it's in a big way, with lots of money and a large amount of product involved.
 
MyDoorsAreOpen said:
No. It was the fact that in all immigrant groups unable to make their migratory journey to the USA exclusively overland, most of those who are/were able to finagle transportation to the USA were among their home countries' brightest and most resourceful, and brought marketable skills to the table when they immigrated, that were passed on intergenerationally in ethnic enclaves.

Marketable skills, or at least tight bonds to people who have and are willing to share them, are what translate into upward social mobility.

Black Americans have not been subject to any of these selection pressures. They were forcibly selected from Africa, and subsequently in the antebellum South, for their physical prowess -- for human machines, if I may be so crude. And now that there are fewer and fewer needs for purely physical laborers in the US, this puts this group at a severe disadvantage.

Mexicans and Central Americans are the only immigrant groups that can compare, since they're some of the few national groups that are able to send large numbers who AREN'T their nations' best and brightest to the USA. If India had a land border with the US, trust me, Americans would not stereotype all Indians as smart and education-obsessed.
Click to expand...

wow. i never really considered it with that data in mind. things kinda make more sense now.

how could this be contrasted with members of the population that are "native"(by this i mean my completely personal definition of people who are descendants of those who established and made up the country before the civil war)?
 
^ In my experience, poor rural whites in the US are often descended from the earliest white settlers to that area, who came over in a pre-industrial era when it was possible, through the mechanisms of the mercantile economy at the time, for lower class people from Britain (and possibly France) to score transport and settlement in the newly expanding US.

The experiences of these English, Scottish, Scotch-Irish, and French rural settlers before the mid 1800s draw few analogies to those of later waves of European immigration, whose arrival had everything to do with the US rising as an industrial power. This first wave of white settlers were closer to present day Mexican and Central American settlers in terms of the skills they brought with them and passed along. But neither of these groups were nearly as impoverished in their skills sets and cultural capital as black slaves and their descendants.

Knowing your nation's history is the key to understanding why things are the way they are today there, no matter what nation you're a citizen of.
 
Last edited:
I'll take Weezy F. Baby's take on the whole thing. Most street-level crime happens in low socioeconomic neighborhoods so they patrol there. That's usually where crack is sold, where it carries harsher penalties than powdered coke, which is not sold on the streets as often by street-level dealers. Basically, it's easier to find a 17 year old black kid with a pocket full of crack and a .22. Of course, this is only anecdotal info coming from my experiences in "the hood." And white people get picked on when going into a neighborhood, even if they are not seeking drugs. As a reporter for a local paper, I got questioned why I was in a bad neighborhood and I angrily told them that I was there to do a story about sewage probs, flashed my Assoc. Press badge and they let me go on my way.
 
I live in a fairly nice neighborhood (a high concentration of white students and other young whites) -- however, less than a 5 minute drive away from my neighborhood is a bad-ass ghetto. There are no cops in my neighborhood, ever. However, you go a mile or two down the road to the hood and the place is crawling with cops -- I can't even go to the gas station at night without being harassed for being a "white boy in the hood." I'm not kidding, one time the cops pulled up and started blasting that "Boys in the hood" song by Dynamite Hack (the white boy version with acoustic guitar haha :D) and they were just staring at me playing this song while I was pumping my gas -- it was pretty funny, actually, but I could tell they were very pissed off that I was openly in the ghetto at night, and I obviously do not belong there.

They're crawling the walls in the bad neighborhood 24/7, just waiting for the next person to harass. The cops wonder why black people generally dislike them? Its because they regularly ruin black people's lives, there's no justice going on in the bad side of town, only exploitation.

I completely agree with MDAO, there needs to be decent dignified work for people who want it. Working at McDonalds for minimum wage isn't what I'm talking about, either -- they need a real, decent living wage that they could support a family on. That's the only way this situation will get any better.
 
There always going to be people wanting the easy route though, which for many is pushing drugs and killing people. These are people like you and me, they arent disabled in anyway, theres absolutely no reason they cant get a job - if will smith can - anyone can.
 
by the way - for those with thick sticks up their ass, that^^was satirical and not to be taken seriously (aka a tasteless joke). there's a fine line between a BLACK PERSON and a NIGGER. people...welcome to the real world. the KKK started right down the street from me, though I'm not a member and never will be. sure i'm proud to be white, just as blacks should be proud to be black, etc. but in all honesty, black people here are the most common criminals (not just burglars let alone "bigbaddrugdealers" but murderers and rapists). they can go to jail and rot to death in there for all I care. ALWAYS stand up for your beliefs, and whatever color you are, have enough sense to NOT break the law unless you wanna go to jail. if you're a REAL "hardass",,, then you'll always eventually get caught....peace & love
 
I think there are many factors at work in regards to why blacks are incarcerated/arrested more often, starting with education. While it is, as was mentioned above, possible for someone in the 'hood' to do well in school and achieve higher education, there are several roadblocks in the way of most of these kids, beginning with lesser quality schools, which has only become worse under No Child Left Behind. Second, money. Black families in the inner city often have far less funds with which to send their kid to college, and if the kid has to pay their own way without a scholarship, it can become very tough.


Also, everyday I'm sure many of these families struggle with providing basic needs, ie food, shelter, clothing. The lure of selling drugs and making quick cash is often too tempting to many blacks in these seemingly desolate situations. Is it feasible for a 16 year old kid to do well in school, especially well enough to get a scholarship, work a job to save up for college, and have to help out the family with financials/possibly raising a younger sibling? No, not really. Is it easy to be a corner boy? Yeah, it is.


Are the sentences for crack and powder fair? Not really. It is essentially the same drug, however I think it is obvious that in many cases crack is far more damaging in many ways.
 
^ you make for a good point. here in Tennessee, crack is mainly associated with the blacks, and obviously it's bad...but meth (which is the worst drug on the planet IMO) is nearly ALWAYS associated with white trash and deteriorates your body quicker than anything...this state is the meth capital of the USA. i used to be able to get it easier than pot, booze, or anything else. anyhoo, i hate being racial, but i've never known a black person to associate with crystal. i mean thats good, but powder is somewhere in between the two. anyway, it doesn't matter. honestly, out of the many times i've been to jail, there are always more black folks than anyone else, however i will go no further cuz that could really be for various reasons unknown to me. (i.e. racist judges etc)
 
^^I think Oklahoma is the Meth capital of the world myself. I lived there for a year and that's all there was. Coke, Ecstasy and Meth. But mostly meth.
 
Shit.. I love jumpin on the chance to bitch about the goverment but I think it has more to do with income level, i'm sure race plays a factor but not to the extent the article hints at.. African-americans make up far greater percentage of the lower class than they do our population as a whole.. I'm sure they're are plenty of racist fucks in the system but saying race is why the rate of african american drug users that get arrested is so much higher than white drug users is just ridiculous.. Cops go after low income, white or black.
 
moonyham said:
We, the 'white people' did not steal the maori's land.. we traded it for guns and alcohol!^


As to 'knowing every black man to ever live'... well.. i dont have to know every black person who ever lived, to know that i will never trust a random civvie walking down teh street who is black over a random civvie walking down the street who is white. I dont care what you say, almost every fucking islander/black person ive met(and ive met alot.. i use to go to a 90% PI school) is either 1: a thief 2: dishonest as fuck 3: a drug dealer 4: violent(mostly this).

So what ever.. i dont need to know every black person to know that they are, on average, alot more trouble than white people.

I mean im not saying ALL black/brown people are like this.. ive got pacific islander and ethiopian mates.. although they are kind of violent and threaten to kill alot of people and i use to do some certain crim activities with them :\


-theres a reason why the joke 'whats the biggest marae in NZ' is so funny when you hear 'mt eden prison'. It's becuase its fucking true.

(a marae is like, a church/place for maoris to hangout sort of thing)
Click to expand...






Every black person you've ever known was a criminal??? That doesn't say shit about African Americans... It just means you're a shady motherfucker that doesn't socialize outside his race unless it's drug related. Fucking generalize about all black people because you your too busy at your Klan rallies, and worshiping hitler, or whatever it is you old school racists do, to meet a black person that you weren't purchasin drugs off of...
 
Enki said:
I am checking it out, but studies based on self reporting about matters that are illegal or stigmatized are very problematic. Treatment program enrollment in the United States is influenced by wealth, connectedness to resources and insurance issues. ER visits seem potentially the best indicator of things mentioned but its still extrapolation and affected by culture and resources.
Click to expand...

You make an excellent point. Most of the drug dealers I've encountered in my life have been white, never looking in the least bit shady. Most of the people I knew were white, and from middle income families. Some nearly died od'ing, but they escape these statistics because they can afford rehab.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top