Preview

Drug War: Era Of Color Blindness

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
396 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Drug War: Era Of Color Blindness
Drug War Nightmare

Today’s society is known as the “Era of Color Blindness.” The war on drugs from the past to the future has not changed according to Michelle Alexander. The previous Jim Crowe law may be eradicated, but the law was brought back into effect by former president Ronald Reagan, known as the “War on Drugs.” The war on drugs that was put into effect by Ronald Reagan was targeted to lower class communities that had a violent crime rate. Focusing on the “Drug War” took light off a pressing issue known as racial caste in America by making harsher punishments for people who used or sold drugs. Even though the focus was in lower class communities it was also just as common in the middle to upper class communities. The “War on Drugs”

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Alexander describes America’s racial history in depth by covering slavery, the Civil War, reconstruction, and the Civil Rights Movement. The author also explains that The War on Drugs in the 1980s was not based on correct statistics about drug use, but rather to satisfy white people. During this time period, society was often harsher in criminal cases, especially with the media’s influence through…

    • 849 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Before reading the preface my view of “tough on crime” drug polices was that if drug offenders are charged for a drug crime it is considered a misdemeanor. I thought when offenders are release from prison they were mandatory to attend rehabilitation program to receive appropriate drug treatments. However, the “tough on crime” polices resulted in the large increase of federal and state prison for mass incarceration of black American in the war on drugs. My perspective on drug enforcement changed due to reading the preface of “The New Jim Crow”. I did not realize that drug war in ghetto communities was not because of where the violent offenders are located or people uses drugs. The drug war was focused was the increase of drug arrests on black…

    • 173 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    New Jim Crow Thesis

    • 903 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The rest of the book entails the effects of the War on Drugs. I found it particularly interesting how the justice system/police have sought different ways to take people to jail based on hunches on drugs or using minor traffic violations as an excuse to stop motorists for drug investigations- even when there is no profound evidence that the motorist has engaged in a drug crime. Also, it was interesting to read how the Supreme Court (whose responsibility is to protect minorities from majoritarian democracy) has placed somewhat of an infringement on minorities fourth amendment…

    • 903 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Prohibition vs War on Drugs

    • 2774 Words
    • 12 Pages

    Prohibition of Alcohol in the 1920©ˆs. These two major issues of their time may not…

    • 2774 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Drug War Shading

    • 70 Words
    • 1 Page

    The drug war has delivered significantly unequal outcomes crosswise over racial gatherings, showed through racial segregation by law authorization and lopsided drug war wretchedness endured by groups of shading. In spite, of the fact, that rates of drug utilize and offering are practically identical crosswise over racial lines, non-white individuals are much more inclined to be halted, looked, captured, indicted, sentenced and detained for drug law infringement than are…

    • 70 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “In many ways, the so-called war on drugs was a war on communities of color, a war on black communities, a war on Latino communities.” This statement was made by Angela Davis who appeared in the documentary, 13th. Next to unfair jail sentences, the war on drugs was the next hot topic of the documentary. 13th recognizes that the Nixon administration began the cycle of criminalizing African-Americans struggling with drug addictions, rather than increasing availed resources for treatment and rehabilitation. 13th also recognizes the United States’ 40th president, Ronald Reagan, to be the cause of this…

    • 657 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Drug Courts Case Study

    • 698 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Early efforts to meet the nation’s growing drug problem began in the 1970s. The U.S imposed stricter penalties for drug-related crimes, but was met with…

    • 698 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Although the drug crime rates were not on the rise, the Reagan administration reminded the people that it was essential to remain tough on drug related crime. The government’s insistence on tougher drug crime legislation during a time in which drug crime did not appear to be exceptionally damaging to American society indicates a possibility that the war on drugs was more related to racial politics than it was related to drug abuse and…

    • 790 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    War On Drugs In The 1960s

    • 662 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Ultimately the new “war on drugs” had a negative impact on American life during the mid 1980s-early 2000s due to the economic costs, the strain put on our justice system, and the civil liberty violations that occurred. As with any other war or bureaucratic endeavor, money must be heavily drawn upon and invested. When discussing the overall cost of this “war” through this time, congressman Lee Hamilton stated that, “Federal and local governments spend over $3 billion each year to fight drugs.” (cite) In his quote it becomes apparent that the United States had become highly invested and arguably obsessed in a seemingly impossible “war.”…

    • 662 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Justice System Failing

    • 1469 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Laura Dimon writes that in the 1990’s, marijuana possession made up almost 80% of the arrests that occurred. This is just one example of how the criminal justice system is broken. Laura Dimon also writes that four out of every five arrests for drugs was for drug possession, not drug dealing. According to Mike Lee, families were left torn apart by a “crime wave” that never actually existed. It was simply a cover story for the justice system to use to target colored people and people who live in the poorer communities. Rich white neighborhoods were not raided and stripped of all belongings. Rich, white neighborhoods were not persecuted for the use of cocaine. But black communities were regularly persecuted and torn apart for the smallest part of any type of drug. Crack is known as a white mans cocaine and crack actually carries a higher sentence than cocaine. Crack is cheaper to buy so the poorer people would buy crack. Larger amounts of cocaine carried a shorter prison sentence compared to lesser amounts of crack, many people believe this was because cocaine was found in rich, white communities, where as crack was found in the poverty stricken black communities. The justice system also has more drug users instead of drug dealers incarcerated. Instead of going for the real problem, the drug dealers, the justice system is going after the…

    • 1469 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Colorblindness

    • 764 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Since power and privilege predominantly lies in the hands of middle to upper class white folks, this ‘white privilege’ will not change if we decide to ignore the issue of race and racism. Since whites typically have the power, their point of view (which may be racism against blacks and other minorities) will continue to hold its place.…

    • 764 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The "war on drugs" started over 100 years ago in San Francisco, California when the first law against drugs was enacted to stop the "smoking of opium." In all actuality, this law was against the Chinese people living in the U.S., because they were known for smoking of the opium as a custom. The government feared that opium induced Chinese men would try to lure white women to them. The next drug that was considered illegal was cocaine. The law enacted against cocaine was against Negroes. The government feared that Negroes would use the drug and become violent and go on rampages of raping white women. (Schaffer, n.d.)…

    • 1178 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Following the start of Nixon’s drug war the incarceration rate has increased up to 700% in 2005, according to Pew researchers. "After a 700-percent increase in the US prison population between 1970 and 2005, you'd think the nation would finally have run out of lawbreakers to put behind bars," said the report by Pew's Public Safety Performance Project. But apparently we haven’t yet. In 2009 alone, 1.66 million Americans were arrested on drug charges, more than were arrested on assault or larceny charges. And 4 of 5 of those arrests were simply for possession.…

    • 714 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The war on drugs in the United States is an expensive and deadly ongoing battle that has not yet been won. The term war on drugs provides drug distributors with more income due to the illegal nature of drugs. Americans do not have readily available easy access to many types of drugs that are illegal. Because narcotics are illegal that is enough for many people to want drugs. This is a major problem faced today in our prison systems throughout the United States. Especially in the state of California where many people find their way into our criminal justice system due to many factors…

    • 1951 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Color blindness or also referred to as race blindness is the exclusion of race in the assessment of a human being. Color blindness is a new concept that strives to mineralize racial discrimination. Our society has strived to find a state of colorblindness but has yet to succeed. Past discriminations have hindered the progress of colorblindness in society. Due to racism in the past many hurdles were created for minorities to overcome in the present. Hurdles such as poverty and negative stereotypes. These hurdles in turn have made it hard for our society to truly become color blind. The racism from the past has made our society unable to truly practice colorblindness because it has caused individual, institutional, and systemic discrimination in the present.…

    • 1631 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays