Racial Profiling in Drug Warfare - Essay Example

16 October 2007 Racial Profiling on drug warfare Racial profiling is one of the problems affected the society. Racial profiling is based on stereotypes used historically by some members of dominant society to maintain its control and subjugation of African Americans and other ethnic minorities. The aim of drug warfare is to protect society from illegal activities of international criminals and prevent drug dealing. Thesis Race and ethical differences become the main factors used by police to identify potential drug dealers and criminals. To many white observers racial oppression no longer seems important because it is no longer a matter of legal segregation. Racism seems to be gone or declining because there are at least a few African Americans and Caucasians in numerous professional or managerial positions in many historically white institutions. However, one can recognize the modest changes in white racist domination in the United States without downplaying the strong relationship between being black and being a target of serious racial discrimination. In one way or another, all black Americans and Caucasians continue to suffer discrimination because white domination of black Americans and other people of color remains a major organizing principle for group life in the United States. According to statistical results "Although African Americans comprise only 12.2 percent of the population and 13 percent of drug users, they make up 38 percent of those arrested for drug offenses and 59 percent of those convicted of drug offenses causing critics to call the war on drugs the "New Jim Crow" (Race and the Drug War n.d.). The racial hierarchy is supported by a range of dominant-group prejudices and stereotypes, yet it is perpetuated most centrally by the discrimination carried out by many whites on a recurring basis. Age-old patterns of racial inequality-of unjust enrichment and unjust impoverishment-are reproduced by the daily routines of antiblack discrimination. For instance, "During the height of the war on drugs, from 1986 to 1991, the number of white drug offenders in state prisons increased by 110 percent. The number of black drug offenders grew by 465 percent" (Shaw 2000). Police pays a special attention to African-Americans and Caucasians because of ethical differences and stereotypes. It should be no surprise then, that African Americans are often depicted as criminals in mass media. Crime in America is often portrayed in blackface, seemingly suggesting not only that African Americans and Caucasians are likely to be involved in crime, but that they are responsible for most of the crime in America today. "Racial profiling is the law enforcement practice of substituting skin color for evidence as grounds for suspicion" (Race and the Drug War n.d.). Contemporary patterns of discrimination are grounded in the benefits that whites have historically secured. All forms of racial discrimination transmit the legacy of the past, that of slavery and legal segregation. Today discriminatory practices reproduce and reinforce the unjust impoverishment and enrichment of the past. Discrimination also reflects and perpetuates the age-old racist ideology, with its associated array of anti-black images and attitudes. When blacks and Caucasians encounter whites in a broad array of contemporary settings, they often meet negative beliefs about their abilities, values, and orientations. Racial barriers persist today because a substantial majority of whites harbor anti-black sentiments, images, and beliefs and because a large minority are very negative in their perspectives. When most whites interact with black Americans at work, in restaurants, on the street, at school, or in the media they tend to think about the latter, either consciously or unconsciously, in terms of racist stereotypes inherited from the past and constantly reiterated and reinforced in the present (Daum 65). Police may actively persecute blacks, or they may engage in an array of avoidance behaviors. Discrimination can be self-consciously motivated, or it can be half-conscious or unconscious and deeply imbedded in an actor's core beliefs. At the level of everyday interaction with black Americans, most whites can create racial tensions and barriers even without conscious awareness they are doing so. Stereotyped images of black men and Caucasians as criminals probably motivate this and similar types of defensive action. Systemic racism is thus a system of oppression made up of many thousands of everyday acts of mistreatment of black Americans and Caucasians by white Americans, incidents that range from the subtle and hard to observe to the blatant and easy to notice. These acts of mistreatment can be nonverbal or verbal, nonviolent or violent (Daum 32). Moreover, many racist actions that crash in on everyday life are, from the victim's viewpoint, unpredictable and sporadic. Such actions are commonplace, recurring, and cumulative in their negative impact. In a specific setting, such as an employment setting, a white person in authority may select another white person over an equally or better qualified black person because of a preconceived notion that whites are more competent or because of discomfort with people perceived as somehow different (Homberger 2001). Given the right circumstances, most police officers have the ability to put black Americans "in their place," to frustrate or sabotage their lives for racist reasons. However, the patterns of discrimination vary. Police malpractice is based on the stereotype that bpoverty and low income cause African-Americans and Caucasians to be engaged in drug dealing. The nation's racial hierarchy is routinely supported and reproduced by the actions of a broad array of government agents. White police officers have historically played, and still play, a major role in the violent repression of black Americans, including those who seek to protest racism. The data on police violence in U.S. history are chilling. For example, in the years 1920-1932 substantially more than half of all African Americans killed by whites were killed by police officers. In recent decades, police harassment and violence applied to drug dealers have been openly resisted by black Americans (Kay 65). Analysis of black community riots for the years 1943 to 1972 indicates that the immediate precipitating event of many uprisings was the killing or harassment of black men by white officers. Rioters openly protested this practice. This reaction to police harassment can also be seen in more recent rioting by black citizens, such as in Los Angeles and Miami in the 1980s and 1990s. In spite of some improvements in policing since the 1970s, police violence and mistreatment have continued to oppress black communities. A Gallup survey found that over half the African Americans polled thought most police officers viewed African Americans as criminal suspects and would be likely to arrest the wrong person for crime. In addition, a quarter of black men indicated they had been harassed by the police when driving through white areas (Miller 54). This type of differential policing is sometimes defended as so-called statistical, or rational, discrimination. Many law enforcement agencies engage in the practice of screening by visual racial markers. In a recent account from a black flight attendant we see the impact of this stereotyped policing. For instance, "Of all felony drug convictions in state courts throughout the United States in 1998, 53% were of African Americans and only 46% were o Caucasians, with "Hispanics" included in the "White" category" (Race, Class and the War on Drugs 2000). Under the U.S. Constitution citizens have a right to be secure from unreasonable search and seizure. An officer must have a reasonable suspicion to stop someone. The "reasonable" suspicion in this case seemed to be based mainly on the woman's skin color. There is other evidence of racial discrimination. For example, there is differential punishment for two types of cocaine use. "Before the enactment of federal mandatory minimum sentencing for crack cocaine offenses, the average federal drug sentence for African Americans was 11 percent higher than for whites. Four years later, the average federal drug sentence for African Americans was 49 percent higher" (Race and the Drug War n.d.). Segregated neighborhoods heat the problem of racial profiling in drug warfare. For the most part blacks live separately from whites, and the latter are often separated from other Americans of color as well. Moreover, if we look closely, we can see whites and blacks moving about their daily routines, but we will likely find that blacks are more likely to cross the racial/territorial boundaries of towns and cities than whites. On the average, blacks spend much more time interacting with whites than whites spend interacting with blacks. There is a clear racial demography and topography to U.S. towns and cities. Several research studies have shown that all metropolitan areas in both the North and the South have a high degree of racial profiling (Perry 43). Between 1980 and 1990 there were only small decreases in the level of white-black profiling in thirty major metropolitan areas, less change than there was for the decade from 1970 to 1980. Researchers have calculated indices of profiling for these cities and estimated that, on the average, two-thirds of the black residents of the southern metropolitan areas and more than three-quarters of those in northern metropolitan areas would have to move from their present residential areas if one wished to create proportional desegregation in housing arrangements by redistributing the black population in these areas. The high level of residential segregation from whites characterizes all groups of black Americans, including those in the middle class (Perry 54). A recent report on drug dealers and drug dealing offenders demonstrates that black and Caucasian youths with no prior record of crime are treated far more severely in the juvenile-justice system than whites, also with no prior criminal record, of comparable social class. "Minority youths are more likely to be arrested, held in jail, sent to juvenile or adult court for trial, convicted, and given longer prison terms. The racial disparities in the juvenile-court system are magnified with each additional step into the justice system" (Daum 69). In some cases, the racial disparities are stunning. For example, the report notes that although twenty-five percent of arrested white youths are sent to adult prison, nearly sixty percent of arrested black youths are. That is truly a wide racial disparity (Shaw 2000). The report concludes that these racial disparities lie not so much in overt discrimination on the part of prosecutors, judges, and other court personnel, but instead in the stereotypes that these decision makers rely on at each point of the juvenile-justice system. Being black or Caucasian, wearing low-hung, baggy pants, and sporting dreadlocks is likely to get a person quickly through the various stages of the juvenile-justice system and into prison. The report concludes that race, as distinct from the effect of social class, is "undeniably" a major factor in the dispensation of juvenile justice. It is important to note that African Americans are almost always depicted as criminals in mass media, hence illustrating the "black demon" stereotype. To successfully subjugate and exploit a group, negative stereotypes become tools of ideological formation that operate, in part, to suggest that the subordinate group is deserving of such treatment or status (Sachs 1715). he black demon stereotype is used by dominant society as a tool to maintain its power over African Americans (Sachs 1715). Since the 1960s, it is interesting to note that the international attack on all forms of discrimination has accelerated. The United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of racial Discrimination, implemented in 1969, defines discrimination as "any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms." This broad view accents not only distinctions on the basis of racial grouping, but also restrictions, preferences, and exclusion aimed at impairing human rights. It underscores the costs associated with being the target of discrimination (Miller 54). Thus, at the local level, there was increased police repression of aggressive dissent in the black community, such as the illegal attacks on black population by local police and FBI agents. The old racist images of dangerous black men and black welfare mothers were dusted off and emphasized by prominent white leaders who often spouted the rhetoric of equality at the same time. Moreover, the liberal wing of the white elite, which had provided some funding for the civil rights movement and other social movements, significantly reduced its support for these movements. Whites may respond to a new minority status with the old means of political and social repression. They may try to set up by force a racial apartheid system like that in the old South Africa, where the white minority used police and military forces to subordinate the majority-black population. In the United States we see some evidence of a renewed apartheid in the growing balkanization of residential patterns: since at least the 1970s many whites have moved away from large cities with growing populations of black, Asian, and Latino Americans to whiter suburban and exurban areas or into guarded-gated communities in those cities. In one interview study a white Californian stated that his ideal home would be on twenty acres, surrounded by a moat filled with alligators When large groups of whites gained jobs, income, property, status, or wealth unjustly under slavery and segregation, and then passed the advantage or wealth gained to later generations, that did not make the wealth and advantage inherited and enhanced today by their white descendants justly held. Each generation's racist arrangements not only create new opportunities for unjust enrichment but also provide. White privilege even embraces the assumption that white interpretations of the social world should be dominant. This can be seen, for example, in white interpretations of the drug and crime problems of black communities in central cities. In the mass media and elsewhere, whites tend to define these conditions in terms of the cultural, family, or moral inferiority of the black inhabitants but rarely care what residents of these areas think about such matters. White privilege also includes an entitlement to decipher a black person's reality and experience (Miller 87). In sum, negative images of African-Americans and Caucasians become the main cause of racial profiling in the war on drugs. The public's beliefs about crime, such as what types of people are more likely to commit crime, where crime is most likely to occur, and who is most likely to become a victim is directly related to the social construction of crime. Police have wide latitude in deciding when to enforce laws and make arrests. Their decision is greatest when dealing with minor offenses, such as disorderly conduct. Sociological research has shown that police discretion is strongly influenced by class and race judgments. The police and other agencies responsible for the war on drugs are more likely to arrest persons they perceive as troublemakers (African-Americans and Caucasians), and they are more likely to make arrests when the complainant is white. They are less likely to arrest middle-class, white, and prominent citizens. In addition, minority communities are policed much more intensively, which leads to more frequent arrests of those who live there. Works Cited 1. Daum, D. Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure. Back Bay Books, 1997. 2. Homberger, J.G. Let's Retire the Drug War. 2001. 3. Kay, A. The Agony of Ecstasy: Reconsidering the Punitive Approach to United States Drug Policy. Urban Law Journal 29 (2002): 65. 4. Miller, J. Bad Trip: How the War Against Drugs is Destroying America. Thomas Nelson, 2004. 5. Race, Class and the war on Drugs. 2002. 6. Race and the Drug War. Drug Policy. N.d. 7. Perry, J.-D. The Warfare: Drug Dealer, Drug Addict To Ordained Minister. Authorhouse, 2004. 8. Sachs, L. September 11, 2001: The Constitution during Crisis; a New Perspective. Urban Law Journal 29 (2002): 1715. 9. Shaw, Ch. A. War On Drugs Unfairly Targets African-Americans. 2000. Read More