Quote:
Originally Posted by Caltex
Tell me, in what way is the U.S. Government enforcing racially oppressive policies today? Instead of making statements with a condescending tone, name what policies are wrong, so that it can actually be debated. I need no help on being "enlightened" if that entails being an apologist for one man's hateful statements.
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Let's start with the criminal justice system.
Justice On Trial
Racial profiling:
One study in Maryland showed that 70% of drivers stopped on I-95 were black, when blacks constituted only 17.5% of drivers, as well as speeders overall.
Volusia Co., FL: Again, 70% of the traffic stops on the interstate were either black or hispanic, while only 5% of the drivers on that road were black or hispanic. Furthermore, those minority stops accounted for 80% of the vehicle searches, and minorities were detained for longer periods than whites.
In sworn testimony, DEA agents have stated their belief that most drug couriers are black females, and that being Hispanic or black was part of the profile they used to identify drug traffikers. DEA: that's federal racism.
A Demember 1999 report by the New York State Attorney General found that of 175,000 "stop and frisk" searches conducted by the NYPD from January of 1998 through March of 1999, almost 84% were of blacks and Hispanics, despite the fact that those groups constitute less than 1/2 of the city's population. By contrast, only 13% of the stops were of white New Yorkers, who comprise 43% of the city's population.
The rationale for profiling that blacks use drugs at a higher rate than whites is false: According the US Department of Health and Human Services National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, Preliminary Results from 1997, for the last 20 years, drug use rates among black youths have consistently been
lower per capita than drug use rates among white youths.
Now I don't know about you, but if I am a law-abiding citizen, and I
knew that every time I was stopped and questioned by the police while minding my own business, it was becasue of my skin color, don't you think I'd be seeing the country's racial values and the racial divide through a completely different set of lenses? You and I can go pretty much where we please, when we want. The same cannot be said for blacks and minorities of color in the US. The studies and facts bear it out. Just 11 days ago,
a Geneva-based UN rights body strongly criticized the Bush administration for failing to meet international standards on racial justice and equality.
From 1988-1994, the US Attorney's Office with jurisdiction over Los Angeles prosecuted hundreds of blacks and Hispanics for Federal crack cocaine charges, but failed to prosecute a single white person on those same charges, while several hundred whites were prosecuted at the same time for crack charges in the state court system. A 1992 US Sentencing Commission Report determined that
only minorities were prosecuted for crack offenses in over half of the federal judicial districts that handled crack cases. From 1992-1994, in New York, Texas, California, and Pennsylvania combined, only 8 whites were convicted on crack charges. Over that same two-year period,
none were convicted in Denver, Boston, Miami, Chicago, Dallas, and Los Angeles. Meanwhile, thousands of minorities were sentenced to mandatory sentences averaging 84 months, with no possibility of parole.
Read the study I link at the beginning. You will see a consistent and methodic pattern of racial discrimination in the judicial system in the US.
The judicial system is but one area. If you want more, it's just a google search away.