The unfortunate reality is quite different. People of color, especially African-Americans, continue to face discrimination that has a regular impact on their life and well-being. Of course, it is difficult for most white folks to imagine this since we don't experience it for ourselves - and when you don't experience it on a regular basis it easy to discount the anecdotal stories or the flashes of media attention as exaggerated biases in perception. After all, I'm not racist, we think to ourselves, and most of the people I know don't seem to be racist so who is it then that is keeping people of color at such a disadvantage?
But the racism that exists in America today typically isn't the brazen and outspoken racism that existed in the Jim Crow era. It is much more subtle than that. It often exists at the level of subconscious biases that we don't even know - or are afraid to admit - that we have. The kinds of biases in perception that all people have - even otherwise good and kind people who would willingly give of themselves on behalf of others. It seems that one of the side effects of demonizing racism in our country is that we've convinced ourselves that only someone who is truly demonic could be racist when, in fact, all one has to be is human. It doesn't take lots of brazenly racist individuals to perpetuate racism. It only takes the subtly biased perceptions of those who hold power - those who control access to jobs, loans, housing, education, and the law - aggregated and multiplied millions of times over across our country to perpetuate a system of injustice that keeps whole groups of people at an overwhelming disadvantage in our society.
But the racism that exists in America today typically isn't the brazen and outspoken racism that existed in the Jim Crow era. It is much more subtle than that. It often exists at the level of subconscious biases that we don't even know - or are afraid to admit - that we have. The kinds of biases in perception that all people have - even otherwise good and kind people who would willingly give of themselves on behalf of others. It seems that one of the side effects of demonizing racism in our country is that we've convinced ourselves that only someone who is truly demonic could be racist when, in fact, all one has to be is human. It doesn't take lots of brazenly racist individuals to perpetuate racism. It only takes the subtly biased perceptions of those who hold power - those who control access to jobs, loans, housing, education, and the law - aggregated and multiplied millions of times over across our country to perpetuate a system of injustice that keeps whole groups of people at an overwhelming disadvantage in our society.
That is one of the reasons I've compiled the data below. It is my hope that something like this can be one lens that helps us to see what we might otherwise not be able to see.
Georgia ’s
district attorneys also invoked the “two strikes and you’re out” sentencing
scheme (life imprisonment for a second drug offense no matter how small) only
1% of the time against white defendants but 16% of the time against black
defendants. “The result was that 98.4 of those serving life sentences under the
provision were black.”[32]
Housing and Loans
“...blacks and Latinos experienced discrimination in
approximately half of their efforts to rent or buy housing….three housing
studies have shown that when paired with similar white counterparts, blacks are
likely to be shown fewer apartments, be quoted higher rents, or offered worse
conditions, and be steered to specific neighborhoods.”[1]
In a 2000 audit of twenty-three U.S. cities,
whites were given more information about rentals and were shown more potential
rental units and houses. The study also demonstrated an increase in geographic
steering by real estate agents which perpetuated segregation.[2]
“In 2000, national black isolation was 65 percent and
remained 80 percent or higher in cities such as Detroit ,
Newark , and Chicago . Due to higher white flight of
families with children to segregated suburbs, white children are the most
segregated (68.3 percent) by neighborhood.”[3]
“72 percent of black Americans born into the lowest economic
quartile of neighborhoods reside in poor areas as adults, compared with only 40
percent of whites. Furthermore, race is also the most salient predictor of
intergenerational downward residential mobility, with ‘the odds of downward
mobility 3.6 times as large as odds for whites.’”[4]
In a study in Detroit
“...53 percent of whites stated their preference for neighborhoods that are
‘all’ or ‘mostly’ white, only 22 percent of blacks preferred neighborhoods
described as ‘all’ or ‘mostly’ black. In fact, 62 percent of blacks preferred
neighborhoods described as ‘half and half.’”[5]
“...studies done in Chicago
and New York revealed discrimination in seven
out of ten lending institutions in Chicago
and in the one institution studied in New York City.[6] National
data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act shows that black applicants are
denied mortgages at least twice as frequently as whites of the same income and
gender. Finally, a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston found that after controlling for a
number of variables, blacks on average are denied loans 60 percent more times
than whites.” [7]
Education
The Civil Rights project at Harvard observed a trend
starting in 1986 toward the resegregation of schools in the U.S. Due to this
pattern throughout the 1990’s, schools were more segregated in the 2000-2001
school year than they had been in 1970.[8]
“Black students are suspended or expelled at triple the rate
of their white peers, according to the U.S. Education Department's 2011-2012
Civil Rights Data Collection, a survey conducted every two years. Five percent
of white students were suspended annually, compared with 16 percent of black
students, according to the report. Black girls were suspended at a rate of 12
percent -- far greater than girls of other ethnicities and most categories of
boys.
At the same time, minority students have less access to experienced
teachers. Most minority students and English language learners are stuck in
schools with the most new teachers. Seven percent of black students attend
schools where as many as 20 percent of teachers fail to meet licensure and
certification requirements. And one in four school districts pay teachers in
less-diverse high schools $5,000 more than teachers in schools with higher
black and Latino student enrollment.”[9]
Politics
There are currently 18 black members of the U.S. House of
Representatives (4.1% of the 435 total members).
There are currently 2 black senators in the U.S.
Senate (out of 100) which is the most it has ever had. There have only been 8
black senators in the history of the U.S. Senate.[10]
Blacks hold only about 1 to 2 percent of all elected offices
across every level of government in the U.S. [11]
“Since 2003, thirty four states have implemented voter ID
laws[12]… Although it is claimed that these
laws are race-neutral, research from the University of Delaware Florida and Pennsylvania ,
implemented these laws despite openly claiming that voter fraud was not a
problem…”[13]
Employment and Economics
In 2003, the median black family income was 61 percent of
the white median family income.
Even when blacks and whites of similar characteristics are
compared (work experience, education, etc.) the income gap between blacks and
whites was still found to be about 14 percent.[14]
Blacks earn less than whites at every educational level. In
fact, starting at the Associate’s degree level, the disparity between black and
white earners grows with each successive degree attained.[15]
On average a black man who has graduated from college earns
less than a white man who never finished high school.[16]
Even as blacks move up the occupational hierarchy, their
income falls further behind their white peers.[17]
In a study in Milwaukee ,
job applicants were divided into four groups: whites without a criminal record,
whites with a criminal record, blacks without a criminal record, and blacks
with a criminal record. White applicants with a criminal record were more likely
to be called back for an interview than black applicants without a criminal
record.[18]
“Blacks owned only 3 percent of U.S.
assets in 2001, even though they constituted 13 percent of the U.S.
population. In 2001, the median net worth of whites, $120,989, was over 6.3
times that of blacks, which was only $19,024. Calculation of mean net worth
reveals that, in 2001, the average black family had 17 cents for every dollar
of the average white family.”[19]
Every Day Perception
“A survey was conducted in 1995 asking the following
question: “Would you close your eyes for a second, envision a drug user, and
describe that person to me?” The startling results were published in the
Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education. Ninety-five percent of respondents pictured
a black drug user, while only 5 percent imagined other racial groups.”[20]
“One study suggests that the standard crime news ‘script’ is
so prevalent and so thoroughly racialized that viewers imagine a black
perpetrator even when none exists. In that study, 60 percent of viewers who saw
a story with no image falsely recalled seeing one, and 70 percent of those
viewers believed the perpetrator to be African American.” [21]
“One study, for example, involved a video game that placed
photographs of white and black individuals holding either a gun or other object
(such as a wallet, soda can, or cell phone) into various photographics
backgrounds. Participants were told to decide as quickly as possible whether to
shoot the target. Consistent with earlier studies, participants were more
likely to mistake a black target as armed when he was not, and mistake a white
target as unarmed, when in fact he was armed.” [22]
Law Enforcement
One third of all black males born today can expect to serve
some time in jail if current trends continue.
“Eight to nine percent of all blacks are arrested every
year….Although blacks have always been overrepresented in the inmate
population,... this overrepresentation has skyrocketed since 1960. By 1980, the
incarceration rate of blacks was six times that of whites.”[23]
“Almost one in four black men aged 20 to 30 are under the
supervision of the criminal justice system any given day.”[24]
“The rate of incarceration of blacks for criminal offenses
is over eight times greater than that of whites, with 1 in 20 black men, in
contrast to 1 in 180 white men, in prison.”[25]
“...according to the Federal Judicial Center, in 1990 the
average sentences for blacks on weapons and drug charges were 49 percent longer
than those for whites who had committed and been convicted of the same crimes -
and that disparity has been rising over time.”[26]
“... of the people killed by police, over half are black;
the police usually claim that when they killed blacks it was ‘accidental’ because
they thought that the victim was armed although in fact the victims were
unarmed in 75 percent of the cases…”[27]
“Whites who kill blacks in Stand Your Ground states are far
more likely to be found justified in their killings. In non-Stand Your Ground
states, whites are 250 percent more likely to be found justified in killing a
black person than a white person who kills another white person; in Stand Your
Ground states, that number jumps to 354 percent.”[28] 24
states have adopted these laws since 2000.[29]
“... the probability of arrest for cases [of rape] in which
the victim was white and the suspect black was 0.336, for cases of white
suspects and black victims the probability dropped to 0.107. Blacks represent
65 percent of those exonerated for rape and half of the exonerations of men
convicted of raping white women, even though less than 10 percent of rapes of
white women are by black men.”[30]
“The Baldus study researched more than 2000 murder cases in Georgia and
“found that defendants charged with killing white victims received the death
penalty eleven times more often than defendants charged with killing black
victims. Georgia
prosecutors seemed largely to blame for the disparity; they sought the death
penalty in 70 percent of cases involving black defendants and white victims,
but only 19 percent of cases involving white defendants and black victims.
Sensitive to the fact that numerous factors besides race can influence the
decision making of prosecutors, judges, and juries, Baldus and his colleagues
subjected the raw data to highly sophisticated statistical analysis to see if
nonracial factors might explain the discrepancies. Yet even after accounting
for thirty-five nonracial variables, the researchers found that defendants
charged with killing white victims were 4.3 times more likely to receive a
death sentence than defendants charged with killing blacks.”[31]
“One widely cited study was conducted by the San Jose
Mercury News. The study reviewed 700,000 criminal cases that were matched by
crime and criminal history of the defendant. The analysis revealed that
similarly situated whites were far more successful than African American and
Latinos in the plea bargaining process; in fact, ‘at virtually every state of
the pretrial negotiation, whites are more successful than nonwhites.’”[33]
“A report in 2000 observed that among youth who have never
been sent to a juvenile prison before, African Americans were more than six
times as likely as whites to be sentenced to prison for identical crimes.”[34]
“In New Jersey ,
the data showed that only 15 percent of all drivers on the New Jersey Turnpike
were racial minorities, yet 42 percent of all stops and 73 percent of all
arrests were of black motorists - despite the fact that blacks and whites
violated traffic laws at almost exactly the same rate. While radar stops were
relatively consistent with the percentage of minority violators, discretionary
stops made by officers involved in drug interdiction resulted in double the
number of stops of minorities. A subsequent study conducted by the attorney
general of New Jersey
found that searches on the turnpike were even more discretionary than the
initial stops - 77 percent of all consent searches were of minorities. The Maryland studies produced similar results: African
Americans comprised only 17 percent of drivers along a stretch of I-95 outside
of Baltimore ,
yet they were 70 percent of those who were stopped and searched. Only 21
percent of all drivers along that stretch of highway were racial minorities,
yet those groups comprised nearly 80 percent of those pulled over and searched.
What most surprised many analysts was that, in both studies whites were
actually more likely than people of color to be carrying illegal drugs or
contraband in their vehicles. In fact, in New Jersey , whites were almost twice as
likely to be found with illegal drugs or contraband as African Americans, and
five times as likely to be found with contraband as Latinos.”[35]
In Feb 2007, the NYPD released stats showing that they
stopped 508,540 pedestrians in the previous year - 1,393 per day. More than
half of those stopped were African American.[36]
“A criminal record today authorizes precisely the forms of
discrimination we supposedly left behind- discrimination in employment,
housing, education, public benefits, and jury service. Those labeled criminals
can even be denied the right to vote.”[37]
“Two-thirds of people detained in jails report annual
incomes under $12,000 prior to arrest. Predictably, most ex-offenders find
themselves unable to pay many fees, costs, and fines associated with their
imprisonment, as well as their child-support debts (which continue to
accumulate while a person is incarcerated). As a result, many ex-offenders have
their paychecks garnished. Federal law provides that a child-support
enforcement officer can garnish up to 65 percent of an individual’s wages for
child support. On top of that, probation officers in most states can require
that an individual dedicate 35 percent of his or her income toward the payment
of fines, fees, surcharges, and restitution charged by numerous agencies.
Accordingly, a former inmate living at or below the poverty level can be
charged by four or five departments at once and can be required to surrender
100 percent of his or her earnings.” [38]
“No other country in the world disenfranchises people who
are released from prison in a manner even remotely resembling the United States .
In fact, the United Nations Human Rights Committee has charged that U.S.
disenfranchisement policies are discriminatory and violate international law.
In those few European countries that permit limited post-prison
disqualification, the sanction is very narrowly tailored and the number of
people disenfranchised is probably in the dozens or hundreds. In the United States ,
by contrast, voting disqualification upon release from prison is automatic,
with no legitimate purpose, and affects millions.” [39]
The War on Drugs
“Convictions for drug offenses are the single most important
cause for the explosion in incarceration rates in the United States .
Drug offenses alone account for two-thirds of the rise of the federal inmate
population and more than half of the rise in state prisoners between 1985 and
2000. Approximately a half-million people are in prison or jail for a drug
offense today, compared to an estimated 41,100 in 1980 - an increase of 1,100
percent. Drug arrests have tripled since 1980. As a result, more than 31
million people have been arrested for drug offenses since the drug war began.
To put the matter in perspective, consider this: there are more people in
prisons and jails today just for drug offenses than were incarcerated for all
reasons in 1980. Nothing has contributed more to the systemic mass
incarceration of people of color in the United States than the War on
Drugs.”[40]
“...arrests for marijuana possession -a drug less harmful
than tobacco or alcohol - accounted for nearly 80 percent of the growth in drug
arrests in the 1990’s,”[41]
“In two short decades, between 1980 and 2000, the number of
people incarcerated in our nation’s prisons and jails soared from roughly
300,000 to more than 2 million. by the end of 2007, more than 7 million - were
behind bars, on probation, or on parole.”[42]
In 1984, Congress passed a law allowing federal law
enforcement agencies to keep all the proceeds from drug related asset
forfeitures and to allow state and local police to retain 80 percent of such
forfeitures. ”Between 1988 and 1992, law enforcement seized over $1 billion
dollars in such assets. These forfeiture laws have in turn allowed big time
drug dealers to essentially “buy” reductions in sentences. “In Massachusetts,
for example, an investigation by journalists found that on average a “payment of
$50,000 in drug profits won a 6.3 years reduction in a sentence for dealers,”
while agreements of $10,000 or more bought elimination or reduction of
trafficking charges in almost three-fourths of such cases.” This results in the
reality that most people serving time for drug charges are doing so for
relatively minor offenses. [43]
In many cases, individuals charged with these minor offenses
are too poor to afford quality legal representation, or in some cases any legal
representation at all. “In Virginia ,
for example, fees paid to court-appointed attorneys for representing someone
charged with a felony that carries a sentence of less than twenty years are
capped at $482. And in Wisconsin ,
more than 11,000 poor people go to court without representation every year
because anyone who earns more than $3,000 per year is considered able to afford
a lawyer.”[44]
“In 1986, Congress passed The Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which
established extremely long mandatory minimum prison terms for low-level drug
dealing and possession of crack cocaine. The typical mandatory sentence for a
first-time drug offense in federal court is five or ten years. By contrast, in
other developed countries around the world, a first-time drug offense would
merit not more than six months in jail, if jail time is imposed at all.” Prior
to this act, “the longest sentence Congress had ever imposed for possession of
any drug in any amount was one year.”[45]
“A conviction for the sale of five hundred grams of powder
cocaine triggers a five-year mandatory sentence, while only five grams of crack
triggers the same sentence.” 93 percent of convicted crack offenders are black,
5 percent are white. Powder cocaine users are predominantly white.[46]
Contrast this with alcohol use. “...drunk drivers were responsible
for approximately 22,000 deaths annually, while overall alcohol related deaths
were close to 100,000 a year. By contrast, during the same time period, there
were no prevalence of statistics at all on crack, much less crack-related
deaths…. The total of all drug-related deaths due to AIDS, drug overdose, or
the violence associated with the illegal drug trade, was estimated at 21,000
annually - less than the number of deaths directly caused by drunk drivers, and
a small fraction of the number of alcohol-related deaths that occur every
year…” In spite of this, the state level mandatory sentences (there are no
federal ones) for alcohol related offenses are “typically two days in jail for
a first offense and two to ten days for a second offense.” “Drunk drivers are
predominantly white and male. White men comprise 78 percent of the arrests for
this offense in 1990 when new mandatory minimums governing drunk driving were
being adopted. They are generally charged with misdemeanors and typically
receive sentences involving fines, license suspension, and community service.”[47]
“...in 1980, only 1 percent of all prison admissions
were parole violators. Twenty years later, more than one third (35 percent) of
prison admissions resulted from parole violation. To put the matter more
starkly: About as many people were returned to prison for parole violations in
2000 as were admitted to prison in 1980 for all reasons. Of all parole
violators returned to prison in 2000, only one-third were returned for a new
conviction; two-thirds were returned for a technical violation such as missing
appointments with a parole officer, failing to maintain employment, or failing
a drug test.”[48]
“People of all races use and sell illegal drugs at
remarkably similar rates. If there are significant differences in the surveys
to be found, they frequently suggest that whites, particularly white youth, are
more likely to engage in illegal drug dealing than people of color. One study,
for example published in 2000 by the National Institute on Drug Abuse reported
that white students use cocaine at seven times the rate of black students, use
crack cocaine at eight times the rate of black students, and use heroin at
seven times the rate of black students. That same survey revealed that nearly
identical percentages of white and black high school seniors use marijuana. The
National Household Survey on Drug Abuse reported in 2000 that white youth aged
12-17 are more than a third more likely to have sold illegal drugs than African
American youth. Thus the very same year Human Rights Watch was reporting that
African American were being arrested and imprisoned at unprecedented rates,
government data revealed that blacks were no more likely to be guilty of drug
crimes than whites and that white youth were actually the most likely of any
racial or ethnic group to be guilty of illegal drug possession and sales. Any
notion that drug use among blacks is more severe or dangerous is belied by the
data; white youth have about three times the number of drug-related emergency
room visits as their African American counterparts.” [49]
“Self-report data suggests about 14 percent of U.S. illegal
drug users are black; however, blacks constitute 35 percent of those arrested,
55 percent of those convicted, and 74 percent of those incarcerated for drug
possession.”[50]
“More than 353,000 people were arrested and jailed by the
NYPD between 1997 and 2006 for simple possession of small amounts of marijuana,
with blacks five times more likely to be arrested than whites.”[51]
[1] Eduardo
Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the
Persistence of Racial Inequality in America, Fourth Edition edition
(Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2013), Kindle loc 935-44.
[2] Margery A. Turner, Stephen
L. Ross, George C. Glaster, and John Yinger, Discrimination in
Metropolitan Housing Markets: National Results from Phase 1 HDS (Washington , D.C.
[3]Bonilla -Silva, loc
906-16. For more info see Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton, American
Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998).
[4]Bonilla-Silva, loc 923-29.
For more info see Patrick Sharkey et al., “The Intergenerational Transmission
of Context 1,” American Journal of Sociology, n.d., 113–931.
[5] Bonilla-Silva, loc
4832-38.
[6]Cathy Cloud and George
Galster, “What Do We Know about Racial Discrimination in Mortgage Markets?,” The
Review of Black Political Economy 22, no. 1 (1993): 101–20.
[7]Bonilla-Silva, loc 950-54.
Robert C. Smith, Racism in the Post Civil Rights Era: Now You See It,
Now You Don’t (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996).
[8]“Harvard Civil Rights
Project Reports Rise In School Segregation,” The Leadership Conference
on Civil and Human Rights, accessed January 7, 2015, http://www.civilrights.org/monitor/fall1999/art6p1.html
[9]Joy Resmovits, “American
Schools Are STILL Racist, Government Report Finds,” Huffington Post,
March 21, 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/21/schools-discrimination_n_5002954.html
[10]“The US Senate Will Now
Have More Black Members Than Ever in Its History: 2,” Mother Jones,
accessed January 7, 2015, http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/01/us-senate-will-now-have-more-black-members-ever-history-two
[11] Bonilla-Silva,
1085-6.
[12]Suevon Lee ProPublica et
al., “Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know About Voter ID Laws,” ProPublica,
accessed January 7, 2015, http://www.propublica.org/article/everything-youve-ever-wanted-to-know-about-voter-id-laws “There
have been only a small number of fraud cases resulting in a conviction. A
New York Times analysis from 2007 identified 120 cases filed by the
Justice Department over five years. These cases, many of which stemmed from
mistakenly filled registration forms or misunderstanding over voter
eligibility, resulted in 86 convictions.There are "very few
documented cases," said UC-Irvine professor and election law specialist
Rick Hasen. "When you do see election fraud, it invariably involves
election officials taking steps to change election results or it involves
absentee ballots which voter ID laws can't prevent," he said. An analysis
by News21, a national investigative reporting project, identified
10 voter impersonation cases out of 2,068 alleged election fraud cases since
2000 – or one out of every 15 million prospective voters.”
[13]Bonilla-Silva, loc
1072-76. Jamelle Bouie, “Pennsylvania Admits It: No Voter Fraud Problem,” The
Washington Post - Blogs, July 24, 2012, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/pennsylvania-admits-it-no-voter-fraud-problem/2012/07/24/gJQAHNVt6W_blog.html
[14]Bonilla-Silva, loc
1457-62. Reynolds Farley and Walter Recharde Allen, The Color Line and
the Quality of Life in America
[15]Jennifer Cheeseman Day
and United States , The
Big Payoff Educational Attainment and Synthetic Estimates of Work-Life Earnings,
Current Population Reports. Special Studies P23-210 (Washington , D.C: U.S. Dept. of Commerce,
Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. Census Bureau, 2002), http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/p23-210.pdf.
[16]Michele Norris, “Race in
America ,
50 Years after the Dream,” Time, accessed January 7, 2015, http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2149604,00.html.
[17]Eric Grodsky and Devah
Pager, “The Structure of Disadvantage: Individual and Occupational Determinants
of the Black-White Wage Gap,” American Sociological Review 66,
no. 4 (2001): 542–67.
[18]Bonilla-Silva, loc
1508-10. Devah Pager, “The Mark of a Criminal Record,” American Journal
of Sociology 108, no. 5 (2003): 937–75.
[19] Bonilla-Silva, loc
1529-32.
[20]Michelle Alexander, and
Cornel West, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness (The New Press, 2012), 106. Betty Watson-Jones, Dionne
Burston, “Drug Use and African Americans: Myth versus Reality,” Journal
of Alcohol & Drug Education 40, no. 2 (Winter 1995): 19.
[21]Franklin D. Gilliam Jr.
and Shanto Iyengar, “Prime Suspects: The Influence of Local Television News on
the Viewing Public,” American Journal of Political Science 44,
no. 3 (July 1, 2000): 560–73.
[22]Joshua Correll et al.,
“The Police Officer’s Dilemma: Using Ethnicity to Disambiguate Potentially
Threatening Individuals,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83,
no. 6 (December 2002): 1314–29.
[23] Bonilla-Silva, loc
1160-66.
[24]Derrick Bell, Faces
At The Bottom Of The Well: The Permanence Of Racism, Reprint edition (New
York, NY: Basic Books, 1993).
[25]Bonilla-Silva, loc
1232-36. Reese, Prison Race by Reese,Renford. [2006] Paperback (CaroIina,
2006). See also
“Compare
Arrest Rates,” accessed January 7, 2015, http://www.gannett-cdn.com/experiments/usatoday/2014/11/arrests-interactive/
[26]Farai Chideya, Don’t
Believe the Hype: Fighting Cultural Misinformation About African Americans (New
York: Plume, 1995).
[27]Lawrence
W. Sherman ,
“Execution Without Trial: Police Homicide and the Constitution,” Vanderbilt
Law Review 33 (1980): 71. Reliable data for the number of people
killed by police, whether black or otherwise, is woefully inadequate. See
Reuben Fischer-Baum, “Nobody Knows How Many Americans The Police Kill Each
Year,” FiveThirtyEight, accessed January 7, 2015,
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-many-americans-the-police-kill-each-year/.
[28]Bonilla-Silva, loc
1284-92. Sarah Childress, “Is There Racial Bias in ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws? –
Criminal Justice,” FRONTLINE, accessed January 7, 2015, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/criminal-justice/is-there-racial-bias-in-stand-your-ground-laws/.
[29]Cora Currier ProPublica
et al., “The 24 States That Have Sweeping Self-Defense Laws Just Like
Florida’s,” ProPublica, accessed January 7, 2015, http://www.propublica.org/article/the-23-states-that-have-sweeping-self-defense-laws-just-like-floridas.
[30]Bonilla-Silva, loc
1359-62. Douglas Smith, Christy Visher, and Laura Davidson, “Equity and
Discretionary Justice: The Influence of Race on Police Arrest Decisions,” Journal
of Criminal Law and Criminology 75, no. 1 (January 1, 1984): 234.
[31] Alexander, 109.
[32] Alexander, 114.
[33] Alexander, 117.
[34] Alexander, 118.
Eileen Poe Yamagata and Michael A Jobes, And Justice for Some:
Differential Treatment of Youth of Color in the Justice System) Washington , DC
[35]Alexander, 133-134. State
v Soto http://www.leagle.com/decision/19961084734A2d350_11076.xml.
David A. Harris, Profiles in Injustice : Why Racial Profiling Cannot Work (New
York: New Press, 2002). “In Volusia County, Florida, a reporter
obtained 148 hours of video footage documenting more than 1000 highway stops
conducted by state troopers. Only 5 percent of the drivers on the road were
African American or Latino, but more than 80 percent of the people stopped and
searched were minorities.” “Color Of Driver Is Key To Stops In I-95 Videos,” Orlando
Sentinel, accessed January 12, 2015, http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1992-08-23/news/9208230541_1_stop-and-search-sentinel-drivers-stopped.
“In Illinois, 30 percent of state police stops were of Latinos even though they
comprised only 8 percent of the state population, only 3 percent of personal
vehicle trips, and were less likely to have illegal contraband than whites.”
“Driving While Black: Racial Profiling On Our Nation’s Highways,” American
Civil Liberties Union, accessed January 12, 2015, https://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/driving-while-black-racial-profiling-our-nations-highways.
“In 2001 study in Oakland, blacks were found to be stopped by police twice as
often and searched three times as often as whites.”
“Oakland Police
Department Announces Results of Racial Profiling Data Collection Program,” American
Civil Liberties Union, accessed January 12, 2015, https://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/oakland-police-department-announces-results-racial-profiling-data-collection-program.
[36] Alexander, 134. Al
Baker and Emily Vasquez, “Number of People Stopped by New York Police Soars,” The
New York Times, February 3, 2007, sec. New York Region, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/03/nyregion/03frisk.html.
[37] “A task force of
the American Bar Association described the bleak reality facing a petty drug
offender this way; [The] offender may be sentenced to a term of probation
community service, and court costs. Unbeknownst to this offender, and perhaps
any other actor in the sentencing process, as a result of his conviction he may
be ineligible for many federally-funded health and welfare benefits, food stamps,
public house, and federal educational assistance. His driver’s license may be
automatically suspended, and he may no longer qualify for certain employment
and professional licenses. If he is convicted of another crime he may be
subject to imprisonment as a repeat offender. He will not be permitted to
enlist in the military, or possess a firearm, or obtain a federal security
clearance. if a citizen, he may lose the right to vote; if not, he becomes
immediately deportable.” Alexander, 141-142. Meda Chesney-Lind and Marc Mauer,
eds., Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass
Imprisonment, First Edition edition (New York: New Press, The, 2003).
[38]Alexander, 155.
“Repaying-Debts-Cvr – CSG Justice Center,” accessed January 12, 2015, http://csgjusticecenter.org/?attachment_id=20826.
[39]Alexander, 158. “Out of
Step With the World,” American Civil Liberties Union, accessed
January 12, 2015, https://www.aclu.org/voting-rights/out-step-world.
[40]Alexander, 60. Marc
Mauer, Race to Incarcerate (The New Press, 2006). Marc Mauer
and Ryan King, A 25-Year Quagmire: The “War on Drugs” and Its Impact on
American Society (Washington, D.C. : Sentencing Project, 2007), 2.
[41]Alexander, 60. Ryan S.
King and Marc Mauer, “The War on Marijuana: The Transformation of the War on
Drugs in the 1990s,” Harm Reduction Journal 3, no. 1 (February
9, 2006): 6.
[42] Alexander, 60.
Jessica Hallstrom The Pew Charitable Trusts Officer, “One in 31: The Long Reach
of American Corrections,” accessed January 13, 2015, http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/2009/03/02/one-in-31-the-long-reach-of-american-corrections.
[43]Alexander, 78-79. Eric
D. Blumenson and Eva S. Nilsen, Policing for Profit: The Drug War’s
Hidden Economic Agenda, SSRN Scholarly Paper (Rochester, NY: Social Science
Research Network, January 29, 2007), http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=959869.
[44] Alexander, 85.
Laura Parker, “8 Years in a Louisiana Jail But He Never Went to Trial,” USA
Today, Aug 29, 2005. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-08-29-cover-indigents_x.htm “In
2004, the American Bar Association released a report on the status of indigent
defense, concluding that, ‘All too often, defendants plead guilty, even if that
are innocent, without really understanding their legal rights or what is occurring.
Sometimes the proceedings reflect little or no recognition that the accused is
mentally ill or does not adequately understand English. The fundamental right
to a lawyer that Americans assume applies to everyone accuses of criminal
conduct effectively does not exist in practice for countless people across the
United States.” American Bar Association, Standing Committee on Legal Aid and
Indigent Defendants, Gideon’s Broken Promise: America’s Continuing
Quest for Equal Justice (Washington, D.C.: American Bar Association,
Dec. 2004).
[45] Alexander, 87, 90.
[46] Alexander, 112.
After standing for two decades, the sentencing disparity between crack and
powder cocaine has been reduced from 100-1 to 18-1 under Obama.
[47]Alexander, 206. C
Reinarman and H G Levine, Crack Attack: Politics and Media in America’s
Latest Drug Scare (From Images of Issues: Typifying Contemporary Social
Problems, P 115-137, 1989, Joel Best, Ed. -- See NCJ-124897) (United
States, 1989).
[48]Alexander, 95. Travis, BUT
THEY ALL COME BACK (Washington, D.C: Urban Institute Press, 2005).
[49]Alexander, 99. United
States Department of Health and Human Services. Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Services Administration. Office of Applied Studies, National
Household Survey on Drug Abuse, 2000: Version 5, October 11, 2002, http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/SAMHDA/studies/3262.
[50] Bonilla-Silva, loc
1239-42. Reese, Prison Race. The racial disparity in drug use,
arrest, and conviction has been widely documented. See also Salaki Knafo, “When
It Comes To Illegal Drug Use, White America Does The Crime, Black America Gets
The Time,” Huffington Post, September 17, 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/17/racial-disparity-drug-use_n_3941346.html.
and thesentencingproject.org
[51] Alexander,
136.Harry G. Levine and Deborah Peterson Small, Marijuana Arrest
Crusade: Racial Bias and Police Policy in New York City, 1997-2007 (New York : New York Civil
Liberties Union , 2008), 4.
