Below, according tot he 2010 US Census, is what the US looks like racially. I made all these graphs myself, so you should do a really good job of admiring them.
Pay attention to this part: black people and white people use drugs at the same amount--and Latino people, and others, but this book is really focused on black people and white people, and so shall I be in this sweet post. So say we all-- so black people and white people use and sell drugs the same amount, at the same rates. White teens maybe even do it more than black teens! That means the rates of drug use across race looks like this:
Ratios. I owe my math teachers an apology, although I'm not quite sure that this is what they had in mind for my sweet math skillz. But whatever.
Here is the thing. Black people and white people use and sell drugs the same amount, or maybe white people do it MORE. But let's give white people a break and say it's the same. But black people and white people do not go to prison at the same rates. Not even close. Super far. Not even in the same universe far. There is a bunch of data about how horrible this is (see the book for the Horrible Data.) But we don't even need to wait for the Horrible Data to know that it IS FUCKED UP. IT IS FUCKED UP. If white people and black people do something bad the same amount, and there are over 5 times more white people than black people in the country, then jails should be full of 5 times more white people than black people. But they ARE NOT. THEY ARE NOT.
In some states, 80-90% of drug offenders going to jail are black. There is no state that is 80-90% black. Not even close. According to the Human Rights Watch, black people are 10.1 times more likely to be arrested for a drug charge than white people. That looks like this:
Let's play FAQs:
Q: What the fuck is going on here?
A: Racism! It's not most people's fault, but it's the reason for all this horrible crap!
Q: How is this happening?
A: Police and judges and everyone have chosen to arrest black people from ghettos instead of white people in white places for using and selling drugs! And they are super into arresting people for drugs! They are doing it a million times more than they used to, even though people aren't using drugs a million times more than they used to!
Q: Are all police horribly racist? What about my dad/brother/aunt who is a nice police person?
A: Not on purpose they aren't! And some of them not at all! But they get billions of dollars in federal grants to arrest drug people, military equipment from the Pentagon, and they get to keep 80% of the cash, property, and stuff they seize on drug busts. They are all getting their funding cut, so arresting black drug offenders is a way to stay afloat! Also, the media says black people = bad, so we all sort of believe it, even though we shouldn't. Even police people and judges and such.
Q: Drugs are bad! Those people SHOULD be arrested!
A: That was not a question! But 80% of arrests in the 1990s were for WEED, and 4 out of 5 arrests are for possession, NOT SELLING. Have YOU ever possessed weed? I have. Obama has. Pretty much everybody has! So there!
Q: I'm smart, I read the book title. What does this have to do with Jim Crow?
A: Even once you're out of prison from your drug conviction, you have a lot of things that you can't do, like vote (most of the time), get food stamps or public housing, or even get a job most of the time (which is extra hard to deal with without food stamps and public housing!) That means you are basically FUCKED FOREVER. And since you are 10 times more likely to be black than white, that means black people are 10 times more likely to be FUCKED FOREVER than white people. This whole thing is a really complex and layered system that FUCKS OVER BLACK PEOPLE. LARGELY ON PURPOSE. That sounds like Jim Crow to me!
For a better and more thorough and much much much more awesome and horrifying analysis of all of this, please please please read the book. We all gotta. We all gotta fix this shit, but we can't until we really know how broken it is. Read it, people.
