After the Civil War jails and penitentiaries became destroyed, during this whole event emancipation increased, more than doubled. An increase in crime and violence became came so much while reconstruction occurred. The state recurred to institutions, where the leasing of convicts was the only option available for their convenience. Since most convicts were black, very few whites cared of what occurred to them, as mentioned before. As Oshinsky noted, leased convicts didn’t get to serve their time when it came to ten years or more (Oshinsky, 1996 pp.46).
By the 1980’s, people in America witnessed a massive drug epidemic. The introduction of crack, also known as cocaine, exploded during this time and became a critical issue for the youth. Drug use, abuse and misuse became the problem of the decade as the war on drugs escalated, increasing in nonblack and black communities. Many people blame rap and hip hop music for this epidemic due to rapper’s songs and music videos were highlighting and encouraging the use of drugs. The movies, Straight Outta Compton and New Jack City both demonstrate and bring awareness to the struggles and the reality of drug wars as well as police brutality and unfairness against the black community.
According to the article, The Drug War, Mass Incarceration, and Race “ Black people comprise 13 percent of the U.S. population,10 and are consistently documented by the U.S. government to use drugs at similar rates to people of other races.11 But black people comprise 31 percent of those arrested for drug law violations,12 and nearly 40 percent of those incarcerated”. Despite the fact that colored people are minorities in the country still, make up 1/3 of the people arrested because of the drug policy. The policy effective created to target the minorities by making the cocaine the main focus of the drug. “America of the poor, where, amid hopelessness and lack of education, people will suffer the worst consequences of cocaine”(Kerr, 1) which in many poor communities lived the colored minorities, this made it easier for the police officer to target and arrest the
Though the creation of certain policies criminalized drug use and began to target minority communities predominantly African American and Latino. It used a campaign with the message of violence and danger that needed to be controlled within the African American and minority
Back then blacks were convicted of crimes the most because of their
The races started to gain the same rights whether they were white or African Americans. According to John Buescher no state can deny anyone of their rights of life, liberty, and property (Buescher). Now it was not just the whites who had those 3 main rights the African Americans gained those rights as well and they became a more equal society with whites. The whites do not only have those 3 rights now, but they also could now vote and be a part of the voting process. John Buescher stated, any citizen could now vote no matter what race.
Since, the majority of African-Americans live in areas of drug involvement, they are more likely to be racially profiled and investigated. This has created an uneven ethnic ratio in prisons and produced stereotypes that affect children that prevent them from becoming abiding citizens.
One of the most detrimental things that happen to the black community was the declared “war on drugs” which lead to mass incarceration. The war on drugs was a direct target on minorities. It was a failed attempt to eradicate the drug problem in the United States. African-Americans did not see policy changes on drugs until
The safety of blacks was slowly lowering as the southerners, or democrats, were once again dehumanizing them. With this progress, came violence. Blacks finally had a platform that they could utilize to the best of their abilities and finally make a change not only for them, but for everyone else that opposed them. But the resistance of change only grew larger, resulting in
Like it is mentioned in the movie 13th “The so called war on drugs was a war on communities of color”. So, now black people are being arrested much more than White people even though the drug use is close to the same as Angela F. Chan points out in her article for the Huffington Post. “Even though Black people use drugs at the same rate as White people, they are incarcerated for drug crimes at 20 to 50 times the rate of White people in some states”. A law that was passed during the war on drugs was mandatory sentencing.
There is no difference between whites and blacks using or dealing drugs, however blacks are four to eleven times more likely to be arrested for drug offenses, according to the Human Rights Watch. This is a repetition of history, as African American communities are yet again disproportionally
Essentially, although drugs have been held accountable for gang violence and other acts of violence that have occurred within communities, the illegality of drugs indeed may have aggravated the situation. In addition, it has become evident that one of the primary objectives of the war on drugs, which is to limit supply and demand, has been largely ineffective. CSDP (2007) “ According to the United Nations, profits in illegal drugs are so inflated that three-quarters of all drug shipments would have
While then it was affecting slaves, Black people were still being discriminated against nearly two centuries later. It was time to make a
What made matters worse is when the neighborhoods became extremely territorial between rival gangs. Events that took place in those neighborhoods resulted in hundreds, if not, more deaths inside of these areas. Murder and drug trafficking became frequent regardless of President Reagan’s infamous war on drugs campaign. Another line in Lamar’s song states, “You sabotage my community, makin' a
Some may not be too familiar with the war on drugs and the effects it has had on the society we live in. The war on drugs was started by the Nixon administration in the early seventies. Nixon deemed drug abuse “public enemy number one”. This was the commencement of the war on drugs, this war has lasted to this day and has been a failure. On average 26 million people use opioids.
