A few days ago, [my brother] told me a story
about how he was driving in his neighborhood, and was pulled over for
driving 30 mph in a 25 mph zone. Not content to give him a ticket and
send him on his way, the officer took him out of the car, handcuffed
him, and made him wait in the back of his squad car until he was
satisfied he could not arrest him for anything. [He] was not charged
with anything, but he was given a ticket for speeding. As a means to
protest this treatment, [he] went to court to fight the ticket. The
docket ahead of him was very full, and [he] noticed something
striking: Almost everyone ahead of him was black.
Racism in criminal prosecution is not a new thing.
It has been part of the fabric of America since the beginning, and it
is a significant contributor to generational poverty in the black
community. When we were growing up, Mom and Dad were always very aware
of police while we were driving. If my mom would see a police car, she
would utter a coded message to my dad and he would do his best to blend
in and be inconspicuous. The fact he was arrested multiple times for
"Driving While Black" probably had a lot to do with it.
I-502 seeks to decriminalize marijuana sales, and I
am prepared to agree that it will not improve society to make marijuana
more widely available. In fact, I think it will be bad for society to
encourage more drug use.
But here are the facts:
- Seattle has one of the highest rates of racial disparity in drug arrests in the United States. Blacks drug arrest rate is 13 times higher, even though there are more white drug users in Washington State than there are black people in Washington State.
- On drug offenses alone, 3.5 times as many blacks are imprisoned as whites in Washington State.
- Prosecutors are 75% less likely to recommend alternative sentences for black defendants than for similarly situated white defendants.
- Black drivers are 2.5 times more likely to be searched than white drivers.
When
you are arrested and convicted, your future prospects and potential
income are dramatically reduced for the rest of your life. A recent
Princeton study found that the chances of getting a job as a black
person with a criminal record are vanishingly small, although they found
that if you are a white person with a criminal record, you have a
better chance of getting a job than a black person without one. This is
borne out in the black unemployment rate, which has been double white
unemployment for decades, and today is 14.4%.
I think every one of us would agree we want to end
generational poverty and institutional racism. I think we are also
concerned about problem drug use.
The question
is - Will the potential, theoretical problems of increased drug
liberalization be so much worse than the problem the black community
faces right now, and has lived with for generations?
I urge you - Support I-502, and take advantage of a
rare opportunity to apply a potent corrective to a horrible social
problem, and the terrible injustice of unequal law enforcement. Please
feel free to forward this to anyone and everyone, and please be sure to
vote. Also, if you want to know more about racial inequality in law
enforcement in Washington State, this report is very well-researched,
and comprehensive: http://www.law.washington.
Love you all,
Bro
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