OPINION & EDITORIAL
Stop buying race narrative
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Also by Sam Clegg:
- Lack of good government harms UW (April 24, 2008)
- Feminists tip 'scale' of absurdity (April 17, 2008)
- Multicultural organizations emphasize politics of difference (April 9, 2008)
- Tomah ignores student's rights (April 3, 2008)
- Manning or O'Hagan: Do you want apathy or lies? (March 27, 2008)
Related Stories:
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- Letters to the editor - 2/7 (February 7, 2002)
- Identity politics stereotypes groups (November 8, 2005)
- Prison disparity racist? Not so fast (February 19, 2008)
- Recall ends, but CRG continues fight (December 13, 2005)
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by Sam Clegg
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Anyone who has kept tabs on Wisconsin government recently would most likely conclude the state Capitol, state and local police and even the court system must be chock-full of racists. After all, according to dual reports written by Human Rights Watch and The Sentencing Project published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Monday, blacks are 42 times more likely to be sent to prison for a drug offense than their white counterparts, making Wisconsin’s drug sentencing disparity the highest in the nation. The painful saga continues: According to the reports, blacks in Milwaukee are seven times more likely to be arrested for drug-related crimes, despite the fact that blacks and whites use the same amounts of drugs.
My colleague Ms. Shah would like you to believe that this is the figurative smoking gun, and that racism, despite the best efforts of Martin Luther King Jr. and his modern successors, is a beast that is alive and well.
To be fair, racism in Wisconsin’s justice system most certainly exists among a number of egregious criminals hiding behind a badge. But to expound on the cruelties of a few to argue that the justice system of an entire state is racist is nothing more than an abominable fashion statement, made solely for the benefit of angry constituencies.
Most poignant of all, however, is the manner in which being labeled some form of a subliminal racist has put a cultural taboo on the concept of further inquiry.
With that in mind, here it goes.
If one looks toward the argument that the law itself is racist, comparative analysis of the sentences meted out for methamphetamine and crack cocaine shows that the laws against crack cocaine are as racist against blacks as those for methamphetamine are against whites and Hispanics. And, at the federal level, during the brutal urban scourge of the 1980s for which crack was largely responsible, it was black U.S. congressmen calling for harsh sentences. Alton Waldon, a congressman from Queens at the time, declared, “For those of us who are black, this self-inflicted pain is the worst oppression we have known since slavery. … Let us … pledge to crack down on crack.”
Another troubling problem with the narrative of a racist justice system is the fact that, to some extent, police do simply what society tells them to do. The reports cited in the Journal Sentinel mention some possible justifications for the prison disparity. One of them is the fact that violence in inner-city neighborhoods where crack is sold is significantly more of a problem than the upper-class suburbs and rural areas, populated primarily by whites and hospitable to powder cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine.
Because police tend to devote their limited resources toward areas where violence is the biggest problem and away from areas in which victimless crime predominates — which they should — the disparity is an inevitability as opposed to a consciously racist plot.
It also makes empirical sense that majority black inner-city communities should be better protected — yes, I said protected — by police than the white-bred suburbs where drug violence is comparatively negligible.
This is the gaping hole in the fantasy of Wisconsin’s supposedly racist justice system: If a drug as devastating as crack cocaine is going to be illegal, it had better be pretty damned illegal.
The prevailing theory goes something like this: Drug is bad. Make drug illegal. For some darned incomprehensible reason, people start killing each other once drug is made illegal because they have no means of recourse in legal system. Enforce said drug law as harshly as possible so that socially optimal amount of death can occur as result of aforementioned drug law.
But there is an alternative, and it does not lie in ineffectually fiddling around with the number of years for which society decides to imprison its criminals.
This alternative lies in the vision of a time when, instead of shooting my drug dealer from the window of a car with the Tech 9 (which I, as a skinny white suburbanite who enjoys tennis, will never own), I can take him to court.
Better yet, there may come a time when the drug dealers of tomorrow can operate from behind the glass windows of a pharmacy, instead of the corner of University and Park streets near the front entrance of Chadbourne between five and seven p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Look for the skinny white kid holding a tennis racquet and twiddling self-consciously with the collar of his golf shirt. Cash only.
Sam Clegg (sclegg@badgerherald.com) is a freshman majoring in economics and political science.
Anonymous (May 8, 2008 @ 9:42am):
Your logic is inherently flawed. I would like to debunk it point by point, but I have better things to do. I'm not going to call you a racist, but you sure are good at borrowing their arguments - I think. Actually, I'm not really sure what you're trying to say in this piece. Better luck next year.
Anonymous (May 8, 2008 @ 10:14am):
Good work, blame the victims, justify racial profiling, and deny that racism exists. You are a class act, Sam.
Anonymous (May 8, 2008 @ 10:22am):
And, at the federal level, during the brutal urban scourge of the 1980s for which crack was largely responsible, it was black U.S. congressmen calling for harsh sentences. Alton Waldon, a congressman from Queens at the time, declared, "For those of us who are black, this self-inflicted pain is the worst oppression we have known since slavery. . Let us . pledge to crack down on crack."
Wait, I thought it was the white devils that were behind the crack/powder difference. Are you saying that not every bad thing is the exclusive fault of Whitey?
Anonymous (May 8, 2008 @ 11:26am):
I love the whole "a black person said it was okay" line of reasoning when it comes to the rock versus powder sentencing disparity. Must be okay then, huh?
Paul Heideman (May 8, 2008 @ 2:04pm):
A fitting coda to Sam's columns for the year, as it highlights once more Sam's tremendous abilities at non-sequitars and strawmen. First of all, Black congresspersons have always been vastly outnumbered by white, and for every Black politician calling for harsher sentences, one can easily find ten white ones who've built their entire careers around a "tough on crime" image. Second, the fact that Black police officers and Black congresspersons regularly further the oppression of African Americans in this country does nothing to disprove the fact that these policies are racist. After all, there was no shortage of Black overseers under slavery, yet I doubt even Sam would argue that it was a racist system.
Particularly tasteless is Sam's glib statement that police officers protect Black communities. Tell that to the families of Sean Bell, Joseph Guzman, Trent Benefield, Amadou Diallou, Timothy Stansbury, Kathryn Johnston, etc etc etc. All were unarmed African-Americans shot to death by the police.
Finally, Sam's entire column is lacking in any historical perspective. The entire "war on crime" which has so devastated Black communities was begun by Nixon in the late 1960s, cloaked in the language of "law and order." Lest Sam respond with his usual epithets about conspiracies, consider Nixon's chief of staff, JR Haldemann's, description of how the president âemphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the Blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to.â
Then in the 1980s Lee Atwater continued: âYou start out in 1954 by saying, âNigger, nigger, nigger.â By 1968, you canât say âniggerââthat hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, statesâ rights, and all that stuff. Youâre getting so abstract now [that] youâre talking about cutting taxes, and all these things youâre talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is [that] Blacks get hurt worse than whites.â
Anonymous (May 8, 2008 @ 2:57pm):
WORLD ENDS!!!
Blacks hardest hit.
Jack Craver (May 8, 2008 @ 4:45pm):
Sam, you're not that skinny. Frankly, you could probably use some more tennis.
Anonymous (May 8, 2008 @ 4:58pm):
you all entirely miss the point of quoting the black congressman. The point was not that a black person advocated for harsher crack laws, it was that the harsher crack laws were designed to help black communities. Getting the criminals and violence out of the black neighborhoods through harsher sentences was supposed to help black people.
Anonymous (May 8, 2008 @ 5:11pm):
"Particularly tasteless is Sam's glib statement that police officers protect Black communities."
I'm sure that black communities would be thrilled to have all of the police officers removed from their community. In fact I would be that you could get elected mayor of Milwaukee on that platform. Think about it. You'd be helping black communities by removing these terrible police officers and it would save the city money at the same time.
Anonymous (May 8, 2008 @ 6:22pm):
not a very good article, but at least it wasn't as spineless as suchita's
Paul Heideman (May 8, 2008 @ 9:37pm):
I would be more inclined to run on a platform of police officers being elected by the neighborhoods they served.
Anonymous (May 9, 2008 @ 4:15pm):
"police officers being elected"
Get rid of the police and let the elected Sheriff take care of all law enfocement!
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