It’s not recent or revolutionary news that people of color and minorities face discrimination and disproportionate criminal offenses via discriminatory laws and practices. But until I watched the documentary 13th some years back, directed by Ava DuVernay, I was oblivious just to how far the extent it reached and especially how intertwined race was with the war on drugs. It made me sad but more than anything, it made me mad.
As the documentary goes on to highlight, the 13th amendment, while ending slavery, brought upon a criminalization of the African race, “from slave to criminal.” How do we get off as a nation as a people as representatives of this land, saying how great and wonderful our justice system is, all while silencing the cries that tell us how disadvantaged and out of balance our colored citizens are? We don’t all face discrimination and lack of justice but that doesn’t mean we ignore those faced by others, for that is worse than being an oppressor; it’s being an accomplice to the injustice.
The war on drugs made it apparent that there was a racial agenda in our political institutions when offenses for the more expensive cocaine (used predominantly by White people) was far lesser than that for crack (used predominantly by African Americans). It was always racially charged. And that’s exactly how we see things today. As the NAACP reports, “African Americans and whites use drugs at similar rates, but the imprisonment rate of African Americans for drug charges is almost 6 times that of whites,” but “African Americans represent 12.5% of illicit drug users, but 29% of those arrested for drug offenses and 33% of those incarcerated in state facilities for drug offenses.”
There are higher arrest and incarceration rates for people of color (primarily Latinos and African Americans) not based on actual higher crime rates but due to policing focused on communities of color and areas with those of color and lower socioeconomic statuses. We don’t need to see direct laws that put those of color at a disproportionate disadvantage for arrests and incarcerations. We just have to look at the mass criminalization of people of color. It’s assumed that there is criminal intent and thus, cause and that in itself is proof of systematic racial control. They’re criminalized simply for existing and being of color.
And the problem is it didn’t end or start with the war on drugs. It’s a concept that’s been a part of a social and political identity for as long as time can tell.
And as Montgomery McFate, known for her research and analysis in defense and national security and war studies, says, “the police are no longer content to enforce the law and thus to conserve it; the invent it, they publish ordinances, they intervene whenever the legal situation isn’t clear to guarantee security… the police invent law… each time the law is indeterminate enough to give them the chance.” Racism is institutionally ingrained and so while our justice system can have the appearance of being just across all races, it can very much so be up to the discretion of law enforcement (as we see case after case).
Ultimately, it’s ingrained in our institutions and our political systems to discriminate. And that is what is the problem.
It’s not simply an issue of the past, as we can see with the blatant hate crimes and ubiquitous discrimination and incommensurate legal charges against people of color. Yes, our institutions have changed and evolved and in a sense grown and bettered themselves, but we are still far from a truly just (or even moderately) justice system. It’s naive and does no good in productivity in regards to bettering and repairing our institutions (social and political) by dismissing claims (that are clearly supported and proven time and again) of disproportional racially charged discrimination in our institutions.
We shouldn't have to see headline after headline of children of color being shot to death by police on the news or the statistics on how disproportionately colored youth are being incarcerated and arrested. There will never be justice for those children of color that felt the misery, their parents, the families, the communities, for every single person of color that experienced institutional racism and discrimination via our righteous and supposedly just and fair legal system until it is acknowledged just how institutional racism impacts our justice system (making it NOT just) to be able to repair this horrendous damage and move forward to a better America. “Once an institution becomes aware of the discriminatory impact of its policies and practices and yet fails to change the policies and practices, then the institution is no longer a “reluctant racist” but an “overt racist." America, let’s not just be aware of the issue; let’s fix it.
