Good discussion Namma, Fred and others. I think One of the arguments regarding black incarceration rate has to do with the disproportionate way justice is meted out. Do blacks commit more crime therefore the higher percentage of blacks in prison? Or does law enforcement focus disproportionately on blacks rather than enforcing law more equally among races and communities (ethnic, geographic), hence the higher percentage of blacks incarcerated (& on death row)?
I’m not sure I care a whole lot about the guy (black or white) who just got busted for growing his own bud in the basement for personal use. But, the folks who are responsible for the collapse of Enron, Arthur Andersen, Worldcom, etc. - we’re talking about thousands of people who lost jobs, and benefits and retirement income - why are people like Kenneth Lay still walking around free?
Surely, the “white” collar crime in this example caused far more damage than someone incarcerated for a “typical ghetto” crime?
Bodo[/quote]
Can I get an “AMEN” in here??? You hit the nail on the head with your question/statement…
I didn’t mean to imply that you were too sensitive. I meant to suggest that whites (or other dominant groups) are often too sensitive. I think that’s why you get blasted about it, it would be a lot easier to talk about football instead of looking at the ways whites like me benefit from racism.
As a group, according to DOJ statistics, yes, they do.
“Rights” groups have been trying to prove this for years to no avail. If you are going to suggest racism, then you would have to say the system is equally racist against Whites who are on death row in greater numbers than their percentage of the prison population, but most leftist groups do not want to do this. They want to cherry-pick their statistics and that is why so many of these cases make headlines but rarely does the fact that they are often dismissed by the courts or authorities in charge of the investigations.
This also to my understanding is highly exaggerated. Those going to jail for drugs crimes are not doing a bud in their basement. They are being arrested for being in possession of large enough amounts of drugs to classify them as “dealers.”
The head of Enron was just sentenced to 25 years. Leona Helmsley was sentenced to four years. Martha Stewart was sentenced to six months in a bit of dodgy celebrity-attack mode prosecution. People are regularly sentenced to lengthy prison terms for white-collar crimes.
First, I think that we need to get rid of the assumption that only White people commit white-collar crimes and that Blacks do not and then that only Blacks commit ghetto crimes. While percentage-wise there is going to be a certain amount of weighting to justify your generalizations, you cannot play this both ways. If you are going to use those statistics to make your point, you are also going to have to use the same statistics to agree with the point that Blacks commit crimes at levels greater than their representation as a percentage of the total population.
Clearly, no matter how you want to look at this issue, the simple fact remains: Blacks suffer a far greater rate of dysfunctionalism than other ethnic groups. This means lower educational achievement, higher drug and alcohol abuse rates, more gangsterism, higher single parent family rates and on and on. But the same thing also is occuring in Native American families which were never enslaved. Now, the fact of this dysfunctionalism is not in dispute. The reasons for this, however, are.
During the 1970s and 1980s, the approach was to spend more money to “solve” the problem which was attributed to racist attitudes among the establishment which in turn led to lower opportunities for Black people. This led to higher welfare rates and even more Black poverty. In 1996, welfare reform was instituted. Black poverty rates dropped dramatically. If the same type of reform were implemented in education, I think that we would see similar improvement. Clearly, then, the issue was not one of money or lack of opportunities per se, but of shaping values. The single most important indicator that determines whether a child grow up in poverty is not skin color but being from a single-parent family. This is why marriage is so important and why even the Democrats have taken this under their wing. Strong families are the key to strong achievement. This is irrespective of race.
The problem is of course that if the parents are not motivated or well-educated, the children will be at a disadvantage. Compared with the highly ambitious and supportive parents of Indian, Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, Jewish children which have become a bit of a stereotype in and of themselves (there are naturally parents that are not supportive or smart), and you can see that many children not only of Blacks, Native Americans, Latinos but also poor Whites are going to suffer.
My solution would be to target poverty and not race. Poor Native Americans and poor Whites and poor Latinos and hell even poor Asians suffer and should be given assistance. What should not determine the level of assistance, however, is skin color. What we are seeing now is many children from middle and even upper-middle class Black families getting in to universities with lower scores even though they benefit from many of live’s advantages solely based on skin color. This is ludicrous and wrong both from a moral and from a justice point of view.
The fact that Black Americans as a group have a higher per capita income than the much-vaunted Swedes seems to indicate to me that there are plenty of opportunities for Blacks in America. What we need to do now is to ensure that several things happen for these positive trends to continue:
Encourage marriage and barring this ensure that fathers are financially and emotionally involved in their children’s lives.
Encourage school vouchers, which are supported by a two-thirds majority by Black parents so that children in failing schools can get the hell out. Education is key to success in life.
Stop funding or assisting groups based on skin color. Look at economic factors first and foremost.
Encourage and support responsible lifestyles. Parents who drink and do drugs are not going to be good parents and their children will suffer regardless of skin color.
Encourage and support proper role models. Rap stars and such may be fashionable and appeal to a wide segment of society both Black and White but adopting such attitudes and forms of dress is probably not going to help one get a job anymore than it would if you were a Goth or punk rocker.
I find you a bit neurotic on this subject. You can feel anyway you want about your feelings and how they make you feel but you cannot extrapolate those feelings to show that you have been denied your rights or that our society is essentially about conflict. I believe that from reading your posts, the conflict is to a large extent within you. How you choose to eventually deal with that will be what defines you as a human being. Good luck.
In the meantime, I will challenge you to compare customs and immigration searches with me. Wanna few Middle Eastern stamps in your passport? See how that turns heads. Also, I have always been a firm believer in bad vibes. Negative people often draw negative attention. Think about it. Is your body language hostile, tense? This is what security people are looking for you know.
[quote]1. Encourage marriage and barring this ensure that fathers are financially and emotionally involved in their children’s lives.
[/quote]I agree, yet I know several people who were raised in single parent homes, and have gone on to sucess. Sometimes, I don’t think that having both parents around is an indicator of future sucess,especially if the marriage is not healthy. It’s a good point fred but how do we mandate people’s moralities? How do we ensure that people are involved in their children’s lives? What are the measuring sticks? Personally, I feel as an African American woman, the government is already too involved in my personal business, starting with the Patriot Act all the way to having to deal with Abortion rights.
[quote]
2. Encourage school vouchers, which are supported by a two-thirds majority by Black parents so that children in failing schools can get the hell out. Education is key to success in life.[/quote]Education is the key to success? Or the key to being able to make sound choices in your life? What is the definition of sucess? For me being successful, it would be as an actress raking in 25 million a picture. And I don’t need a degree to do that. Growing up, I heard that over and over, get an education and you’ll be able to do what ever you want. I think that was a major mantra for many Blacks, but somewhere along the way,some would say beginning in the Regan Era, that mantra lost it’s grip. School vouchers I don’t agree with because it seems like you’ll have overburding schools and ignoring the problem. I’ve worked in the public school system in Chicago. It’s not that they need school vouchers there. What they need to do is stop having all these policies where the governements(city,state,federal) are more interested in giving tax breaks to big corporations to keep them in state,city,country. The system needs a MAJOR overhaul not another ‘solution’. Have these corporations that are getting tax breaks become involved in the education system by creating training/mentor programs. Or take their tax dollars and fund the school systems.
[quote]3. Stop funding or assisting groups based on skin color. Look at economic factors first and foremost.
[/quote] No arguement there.
[quote]
4. Encourage and support responsible lifestyles. Parents who drink and do drugs are not going to be good parents and their children will suffer regardless of skin color. [/quote]What’s a ‘responsible’ lifestyle, aside from not doing drugs and drinking? Again, how do we define how someone should live?
[quote]
5. Encourage and support proper role models. Rap stars and such may be fashionable and appeal to a wide segment of society both Black and White but adopting such attitudes and forms of dress is probably not going to help one get a job anymore than it would if you were a Goth or punk rocker.[/quote]Please don’t tell me that George Bush is a proper role model? What is a proper role model anymore? If Kobe Bryant and Shaq, keep a Black kid focused on an activity then they could be a proper role model. How someone influnces you is subjective. I have been influenced by all sorts of people. I think if the idea of personal choice was respected and breeded, then people might be more inclined to live lives that served their highest well beings. But we don’t encourage or honor people’s right to making a choice and to live their lives as they see fit.
I did not say all children from single-parent families. I said that being in a single-parent family is the biggest variable in deteriming child poverty. You are wrong. Having both parents around is the single most influential factor in determining poverty rates and this is directly related to success.
Require financial support from fathers. It’s called child support. Make sure that the laws are enforced.
Here we go with the hyperbole again. Please explain to me how “personally” the Patriot Act is even remotely involved in your life. As to abortion rights, do you feel that the US is keeping you from getting an abortion in Taiwan whenever you want one? Is it illegal or impossible to get one in the US? This argument is therefore irrelevant.
To getting a job.
Sound choices are also important and education is important to that as well.
Irrelevant. Having a job and being financially secure are what most people view as success and are most likely a part of any definition of success.
Given that this will not be a “realistic” alternative for most, I think that they had better stay in school so that they can find a job, one that most people will have to get until they become an “actress making $25 million a year.”
BS. You couldn’t prove this if you tried. This is more whining and whinging about Republican policies without any basis whatsoever in fact. The Black Middle Class expanded most under which president? Reagan so I find it very hard to see how your comments could gel. I suggest that you are and have been influenced by a great deal of misinformation by politically-motivated interests.
What? How is it overburdening a school when I take a portion NOT ALL of the tax money that the school is given to send a child to another one of their choice? How is choice bad? And if the schools claim that they need $6,000 per pupil and I take that pupil out of the school, ergo no more expense and I only take $2,000 of the money, that means $4,000 is left for the school even though it is doing nothing to educate that child.
[quote]
I’ve worked in the public school system in Chicago.[/quote]
In what capacity?
What do you base this on?
BS. The fact is that these schools still get (including private grant and federal funding outside the normal per pupil allotments) $8,000 to $9,000 per pupil. Private and religious schools get $2500 to $4500 per pupil in the Chicago area and do a much better job of educating their children. So what does tax policy have to do with anything? If anything, tax policies that keep companies in the state or city or wherever ensure greater PROPERTY taxes which is what school funding is based on. I suggest that you do not really understand this issue.
That sentence means nothing to the best of my ability to decipher it.
Maybe some have and maybe some haven’t. It is not the key relevance here. The key relevance is why public schools which get more funding than private ones still fail so abysmally. The question is why we celebrate competition in every sector of our economy but not education. Why shouldn’t the families involved be able to decide where their children go to school? Why is so much money being spent on out of class and administrative expenses if this is about our children’s education?
Why isn’t he?
Certainly not those who celebrate a life of substance abuse, violence and disrespect for women.
Fine. But not every Black or White kid is going to be a basketball star so I suggest that they may need someone to encourage them to make the right choices like getting an education and being responsible for their actions.
No pun intended, but truly this a matter of black and white to you, fred. While you can outdo me with statistics and references, I still have yet to see you see a point of view out side the relm of fact and science. There seems to be an emotional disconnect there.
[quote=“fred smith”]
I did not say all children from single-parent families. I said that being in a single-parent family is the biggest variable in deteriming child poverty. You are wrong. Having both parents around is the single most influential factor in determining poverty rates and this is directly related to success.[/quote]If you look at the statistics, yes. Little harsh to be saying that I’m wrong because I don’t completely agree with it.
How about requiring financial support from both parents? It’s becoming more common for men raise their children alone. But the child support arguement still doens’t make me see how this makes a person responsible for the rearing of the child. I could just send a check every month, and not give a damm about their emotional, spiritual, and physical well being.
Are we not talking about race in America? Where does TW enter the picture? :loco:
nama wrote:
Right Said Fred said:
[quote]To getting a job.[/quote] McDonald’s doesn’t require much of an education to get a job. Neither does being a janitor or a landscaper. What job are you talking about? Encouraging people to finish school and to gain skills that improve their quality of life is important. But the funny thing is as I’ve noticed as I get older, the bar has been raised higher and higher sometimes making it hard for people to make ends meet.
nama wrote:
Fred said:
How is this irrelevant to the discussion? Even in your definition, many people lament about not being successful.
fred said:
[quote]BS. You couldn’t prove this if you tried. This is more whining and whinging about Republican policies without any basis whatsoever in fact. The Black Middle Class expanded most under which president? Reagan so I find it very hard to see how your comments could gel. I suggest that you are and have been influenced by a great deal of misinformation by politically-motivated interests.[/quote]Aren’t we all influenced by a great deal of misinformation? I have to say that my reference to Regan, is largely from growing up under the adminstration and recalling what I read and remember from the time.
Fred said:
Again, I’m not well read/informed about school vouchers, so I shouldn’t have touched on this one. Yet, IMO, I think hypothetically that if people were allowed to choose their schools, then you’ll see a ‘mass migration’ situation, where some schools become over populated and classrooms larger therefore, adding more burden to teachers being able to effectively teach.
nama said:
[quote]
I’ve worked in the public school system in Chicago.[/quote] Fred asked:
[quote]In what capacity?[/quote]As a sub for 2 years,which gave me enough exprience to see a nice variety of the school system. Also, it helped that my father was an adminstrator in the system, along with his current girlfriend, who can’t stop talking to me about all the mess that goes on.
nama said:
fred said:
[quote]
That sentence means nothing to the best of my ability to decipher it.[/quote] What can’t you decipher? The fact that I am coming from the belief that another solution/opition is not the way to go?
fred said:
[quote]The question is why we celebrate competition in every sector of our economy but not education. Why shouldn’t the families involved be able to decide where their children go to school? Why is so much money being spent on out of class and administrative expenses if this is about our children’s education?[/quote] You are right in wondering why we don’t celebrate the education sector. Who knows why? Perhaps it becuase there is no immediate gain from it? That the quarterly output would be in 18 to 20 years?That it doesn’t seem profitable in the short term?
nama said:
fred said:
[quote]Why isn’t he?[/quote]I guess he could be for ex cons with felonies. He should a prison talk circuit when his presidency is over, entitled: “You too can rise to the top:A discussion on how to use your friends in high places to get you what you want and avoid resposiblity”:loco:
Nama wrote:
Fred said:
[quote]
Fine. But not every Black or White kid is going to be a basketball star so I suggest that they may need someone to encourage them to make the right choices like getting an education and being responsible for their actions.[/quote]Shaq just got his MBA, but interesting, that doesn’t make good advertisment for NIKE. It is very necessary now that we teach children how to be responsible for their actions, yet it’s hard when we see how the likes of ENRON, World COM,Martha Steward,O.J. Simpson, get a great lawyer and get off or get reduced jail time for their crimes. And let’s not forget the Loan scandal from the late 80’s involving another Bush kid. Yea, personal responsible is only relevant if you aren’t rich…
Nice emotional blackmail. I guess you just do not understand my “feelings” on the matter either so no matter what you say and no matter what facts you provide you are wrong because I “feel” you are? BS. Get working and find something to buttress your argument rather than taking this cheap cop out.
What else should we look at? Your feelings?
Whether you agree with it or not is irrelevant. The statistics indicate that this is true. So either you prove that it is not true or you will have to let it stand and in my view that makes your statement wrong, completely wrong.
Because the mothers are already supporting the children. The problem is not one of deadbeat moms but deadbeat dads. Stop finding exceptions to avoid discussing the overwhelming realties on the ground.
So what? The main problem is deadbeat dads not moms.
[quote]
But the child support arguement still doens’t make me see how this makes a person responsible for the rearing of the child. I could just send a check every month, and not give a damm about their emotional, spiritual, and physical well being. [/quote]
True but it’s better than no check at all. Ask the moms involved. While active fathers would be an ideal situation, the money is a major factor.
You are the one that said the Patriot Act and abortion rights PERSONALLY involved you? I am just struggling to understand how in the name of all that is holy that could be possible. I think that you are once again engaging in emotional hyperbole. Otherwise, prove it.
Working at McDonald’s is not the goal of most people I know. It does however provide a first step to learning time management and customer service skills. Later on, those with ambition can move on BUT these jobs and making people take them are better than the alternative which is sitting around in a crime-infested public housing unit doing drugs and drinking all day.
Fine. Have it your way. When you become an actress making $25 million per year, you can consider yourself successful. In the meantime, do you have a job? Are you working at McDonald’s?
I do not think I am and I usually have the statistics and facts to back up why I support or do not support a policy. Do you?
So if you recall reading it, find some facts to back up your views. I can.
Anytime you want to learn more, I can point you to some good sites.
If children are leaving the schools but 2/3rds of their tax-funded tuition behind, how the hell is it going to be more overcrowded? If a school is already failing, I think we can assume that the teachers are already not teaching effectively. Are you suggesting that students should be forced to stay in these schools because… what are you reasons again?
I also worked with the public school system in St. Paul Minnesota and forgive me if I tell you that whatever you, your father and his girlfriend “think” about the situation, I know the reality and can articulate it. Ask them why they don’t support vouchers and ask them how my reasoning is suspect and I will be happy to continue this discussion. But in the meantime, you have to ask yourself and them why if the schools are getting so much more money per capita than religious or private schools they are doing such a pisspoor effort and why students who are in these schools should have to remain given that we all recognize the importance of education in getting ahead.
No because the sentence that overhaul not another solution is needed is meaningless. An overhaul is a solution. The solution is to overhaul the system. The way to do that is not to spend more money which has been tried and failed for 40 years but to offer competition and accountability. Are you against competition and accountability?
Yet, I have no doubt that you chose which university you went to. Why? Would you prefer that this be decided for you in the future?
What crimes has Bush committed? This is loose talk with no factual basis or you know the drill… show me the facts.
Why should it? Do shampoo commercials care whether Liv Tyler has one too? He is a basketball player and as such this is the draw.
These are isolated examples but people do go to jail and they are punished. Also, just because the world is not always fair does not mean that I should sit around drinking all day and not try to get an education. Is that what you are suggesting?
You sure to spend a lot of time whining about this, but again, let’s see some proof not just allegations of judicial malfeasance involving the Bush “kid.” AND let me know how that would be a factor in your decision to work hard and get an education.
Well, I think it’s time to say goodbye to this conversation as I sense that my personal experiences, point of view, and observations, yet lack of statistics and references seem to be dwindling this conversation toward a mud slinging contest as to who’s right and wrong about race in America.
Fred you are quite snide in a majority of your posts when discussing this matter, which leaves me that at the conculsion that you have some stigmagas attached to those who don’t measure up to your standards. Be it that they are Black, Native America or lovely Germans who choose to hang around the pub all day. Which I find rather funny that you would pick on them, seeing how I had met you for the first time at a pub, where you had been for sometime, drinking wine.
You can quote all the statistics and facts you want fred. But humans aren’t something to dealt with as a number,and as we all know they can befalible due to unforseen factors and variables that aren’t added into the equation. How someone lives their life is their choice. Yet, what I have been trying to express thru out this conversation, a point of view from my expriences as an African American. I did not benifit from the welfare programs as both my parents have advanced degrees. I don’t care for you thinking of someone pointing out another side of the coin as whinning, but I have got used to dealing with males such as yourself, who are emotionally disconnected. You say you aren’t , but why the heavy use of statistics to back up your point of view? Or do you need someone else’s information and data to form a legitamate opinion?
I bid you farewell, and thank god, cause answering these posts wore me out!! Whew!! LOLL
I do not see that. I see you making a lot of assertions that you cannot back up and folding when challenged with statistical or factual information. Where’s the mud slinging? I am questioning you and your assertions.
Bullshit. You have not backed up your opinions to any degree. What stigmas? Am I being racist by asking you to defend your arguments?
Seems like at least a very minimum standard for having any kind of discussion that doesn’t neurotically dissolve into an airy discussion about “my feelings and how I feel about them.”
Who said that they should be? But I see that insisting that we cannot is highly convenient to your inability or unwillingness to give clarity to your point of view.
How utterly convenient. That means then that I would never be able to define any situation because of “unforeseen” variables? That means therefore that there are no standards to determine whether a policy works or not? What the hell? I have to wonder what kind of university would graduate anyone with this kind of argument. We can never truly know so we cannot say anything about anything because of “unforeseen variables.”
Fine so your experiences as an African American are your personal views. Are you saying because I am not Black that my views are less valid? That the statistics and facts and very specific experiences that I have shared are somehow not to be listened to because I am not Black?
Did I say you benefited from welfare programs? No. What I suggested much earlier is that you may have benefited more from hiring policies than you suffered from racial prejudice.
How do you determine that I am emotionally disconnected? We are talking about race and school vouchers and you are copping out by making this an “emotional disconnect” issue? You really are a piece of work. Emotionally disconnected? I am reading through your very own Web site and I am struggling to see where your expertise and advantages lie when it comes to emotional connectedness. That is a total cheap shot or a red herring or a strawman.
I love this. Anyone who uses statistics or backs their arguments up with facts is emotionally disconnected. Jesus Louise. Where in the world did you pick up this absolute BS from?
Better than relying upon my very narrow view of the world and how I feel about it.
I’ll be waiting if you ever do decide to come back to join in this conversation and you will be most welcome, but don’t lay this crap on me and expect me to respect you. You either stand up for your views by supporting them or you run off under these kind of cheap cop outs. You can say that you don’t know much about the subject so learn. When you met me for the first time you also saw me reading now fewer than five newspapers and three periodicals. Why don’t you try doing so regularly with even one?
You mentioned that the private schools do a better job than the public schools with less money. By less money, does that mean the tax dollars that the private schools get(if any) or does it include the tuition that the parents have to pay. I am assuming that people have to pay tuition to attend private schools but I may be wrong. I am just wondering if the private schools do get by on less money or if it’s just less public money.
I am saying total money available to a school per pupil including private tuition and government funding. Often, we hear about how public schools are short of funds etc. BUT we only get to see the direct public funding that they receive. They NEVER mention the many programs that are funded by the Microsoft, Gates, Ford foundations, etc. etc. So the actual amount of money that many public schools receive is actually even HIGHER. The failure is not about money, it is about accountability. We have seen this over and over and over again regardless of whether for welfare or education or job performance. Let’s bring accountability to education. Let’s have vouchers. The arguments are that this will take money away from the school system but that is an exaggeration since only a portion of the money gets to leave with the student usually a third or less. Then the other argument is that all the best students will leave and that the failure will be concentrated in one school BUT if the schools are already failing, why should any student have to stay and be sacrificed. Vouchers will only be used for FAILING schools.
FS: As a group, according to DOJ statistics, yes, they do. [/quote]
I have no proof for this assertion. I was merely explicating the view commonly held by minorities about this subject.
Fred, please provide a link to the DOJ statistics you mention, I am interested in looking at them.
“Rights” groups have been trying to prove this for years to no avail. If you are going to suggest racism, then you would have to say the system is equally racist against Whites who are on death row in greater numbers than their percentage of the prison population, but most leftist groups do not want to do this. They want to cherry-pick their statistics and that is why so many of these cases make headlines but rarely does the fact that they are often dismissed by the courts or authorities in charge of the investigations.[/quote]
Perhaps there is cherrypicking on both sides of the fence, I don’t know. But I don’t see a relationship between the demographics of general prison populations and death row populations. They are mutually exclusive aren’t they? People on death row are not drawn at random from the general prison population are they?
[quote]Using data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Bureau of the Census, we have calculated the rates at which different segments of the 20-29 age group come under the control of the criminal justice system. The analysis looks at the total number of persons in state and federal prisons, jails, probation, and parole, and compares rates of criminal justice control by race, sex, and ethnicity. Because of the unavailability of complete data in some categories of the analysis, the total rates of control should not be considered exact calculations, but rather, close approximations of the numbers of persons in the system. As described in “Methodology,” in all cases where data were lacking, conservative assumptions were used in making calculations. (Sufficient data were not available to analyze criminal justice control rates for Native Americans or Asian Americans.)
Our findings, as displayed in Tables 1 and 2, are as follows:
The findings of this study, particularly those pertaining to young Black men, should be disturbing to all Americans. Whatever the causes of crime be they individual or societal we now have a situation where one in four Black men of the new adult generation is under the control of the criminal justice system.
The implications of this analysis for social policy both within and outside the criminal justice system are farreaching:
[color=darkblue]Impact on the life prospects for Black males[/color]
The repercussions of these high rates of criminal justice control upon young Black men are greater than their immediate loss of freedom. Few would claim that today’s overcrowded corrections systems do much to assist offenders in becoming productive citizens after release. Despite the ideal that offenders can “pay their debt to society,” the fact is that most carry the stigma of being exoffenders for some time to come. Thus, given these escalating rates of control, we risk the possibility of writing off an entire generation of Black men from having the opportunity to lead productive lives in our society.
[color=darkblue]Impact on the Black community[/color]
For the Black community in general, nearly onefourth of its young men are under the control of the criminal justice system at a time when their peers are beginning families, learning constructive life skills, and starting careers. The consequences of this situation for family and community stability will be increasingly debilitating. Unless the criminal justice system can be used to assist more young Black males in pursuing these objectives, any potential positive contributions they can make to the community will be delayed, or lost forever.
A particularly ominous trend further emphasizes this point. At the same time that an increasing proportion of Black males ages 2029 have come under the control of the criminal justice system, Black male college enrollment fell by 7 percent in the decade from 197686. The cumulative effect of these separate measures is that fewer Black males are being prepared to assume leadership roles in their community. http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Other/sp/ybm1.htm[/quote]
[quote]The National Institute of Drug Abuse estimated that while [color=blue]12 percent of drug
users are black, they make up nearly 50 percent of all drug possession
arrests in the U.S.[/color] (The Black and White of Justice, Freedom Magazine, Volume 128)
According to the National Drug Strategy Network, although [color=blue]African Americans
make up less than one-third of the population in Georgia, the black arrest
rate for drugs is five times greater than the white arrest rate[/color]. In addition,
since 1990, African Americans have accounted for more than 75% of persons
incarcerated for drug offenses in Georgia and make up 97.7% of the people in
that state who are given life sentences for drug offenses.
In six California counties independently surveyed in 1995, [color=blue]100% of those
individuals sent to trial on drug charges were minorities, while the
drug-using population in those same counties was more than 60% white[/color]. (The
Black and White of Justice, Freedom Magazine, Volume 128)
A CNN article in 1996 sited U.S. government figures that show more than 90
percent of all federal prosecutions for crack cocaine in 1995 were of African
American defendants. In addition, unlike convictions for powered cocaine and
other drugs (which wealthy, Caucasian defendants are more likely to use), a
conviction for selling crack cocaine can carry a lengthy prison term without
benefit of parole.
I know some people might think that African Americans are arrested so often
for drug offenses because police officers target drug dealers and most blacks
fit that profile. If that is indeed the case, why did an analysis by the
Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles find that [color=blue]77% of the offenses
leading to the first conviction and 79% of the offenses leading to a second
drug conviction involved less than one gram of a controlled substance[/color]. In
addition, that same study found that 60% of the cases involved drug values of
less than $50. I’m sure Georgia isn’t the only state in which such statistics
hold true. http://www.peace.ca/truthaboutblackcrime.htm[/quote]
Again, if people wanna smoke some bud - what’s the big deal? :I have NEVER heard of a violent pothead, on the other hand there is such a thing as a belligerant (msp?) drunkard.
Furthermore, potheads aren’t out there robbing thousands of folks of their livelihoods and their retirement income. Nor are they bilking the State of California out of millions of dollars in electrical bills, and causing brown outs all over the state.
I have to say that my reference to Regan, is largely from growing up under the adminstration and recalling what I read and remember from the time.
I hope you weren’t a spelling or history teacher 