Leonard Pitts, Jr., is one of the most thoughtful columnists around today. His recent column deals with the 'war on drugs' and its disproportionate effect on young African-American males. The ffect is insidious: African-American men incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses are saddled with felony records, which allows them to be legally discriminated against when it comes to employment, educaton, housing, voting, etc. The result: a new racial legal caste system.
Pitts notes that African-Americans and whites use and sell drugs in roughly equal percentages, which means that in terms of sheer numbers, whites far outnumber African-Americans in terms of drug use and distribution.
This 'legal caste system' is explored in a recent book by attorney Michelle Alexander titled, The New Jim Crow. Here she is discussing her book:
I'll close with a couple e of revealing quotes from Pitts' column:
"You have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks.The key is to devise a system that recognizes this all while appearing not to." -- Richard M. Nixon, as quoted by H.R. Haldeman, supporting a get-tough-on-drugs strategy
'They give us [black people] time like it's lunch down there. You go down there looking for justice, that's what you find: just us. " -- Richard Pryor
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