1.2 Partie I, Chapitre II
Note24: Forman :P17-18 It is now widely
recognized that the drug war has caused tremendous damage--especially in the
low-income African American communities that have been its primary target.
Blacks are much more likely than whites to be arrested, convicted, and
incarcerated for drug offenses, even though blacks are no more likely than
whites to use drugs. Marijuana produces particularly blatant arrest
disparities: in Washington, D.C., the black arrest rate for marijuana
possession in 2010 was eight times that for whites, and in that same year, law
enforcement in the city made 5,393 marijuana possession arrests--nearly fifteen
arrests a day.'
Note 25: American Substance Study: The rates
of substance abuse among African Americans are similar to those of the general
population, although there are some slight differences. The biggest difference
is the use of marijuana which has been legalized in many states. Findings
from the 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health include: 26.9% of African
Americans have a substance use disorder compared to a rate of 7.4% among the
total population. 3.4% of African Americans have an illicit drug use disorder
compared to a rate of 3% among the total population. Past month illicit drug
use among African Americans (13.7%) is more than Caucasians (12%) and Hispanics
(9.7%). Past month marijuana use among African Americans (12.2%) is higher than
the general population (10.1%). African Americans report lower lifetime use of
cocaine (8.5%) compared to Caucasians (17.6%) and Hispanics (11.1%). Alcohol
use disorders are less common among African Americans (4.5%) than the total
population (5.4%). Binge drinking among African Americans (23%) is slightly
less common than in Hispanics (24.6%) and Caucasians (25.7%). The rate of heavy
drinking among African Americans (4.3%) is much less than the general
population (6.1%) and Caucasians (7.2%). The study also shows that although the
rate of illicit drug use is higher among African Americans, statistics show
that African Americans seek and receive specialty treatment for substance abuse
problems at a higher rate than the rest of the population. Among individuals in
need of substance abuse treatment, African Americans are more likely to receive
treatment at a specialty facility (15.2% vs. 9.6% for individuals from all
other ethnic groups).5 African Americans are also more likely to recognize the
need and seek treatment (2.8% vs. 1.4%).
Note 26: P 25: without taking heroin
into account, one cannot understand African American attitudes toward the drug
war. Heroin had long troubled D.C.--a 1955 government report called the city s
drug problem « serious and tragic and expensive and ominous --but by the
late 1960s, what had been a problem became an epidemic. Heroin began to devour
the city's poor black neighborhoods. Studies at the D.C. Central Detention
Facility (commonly known as the D.C. Jail) revealed the extent of the crisis:
in the early to mid-1960s, less than 3 percent of new inmates were addicted to
heroin, but beginning in 1967 the growth rate exploded, tripling by 1968, then
tripling again by February 1969. By June 1969, an astonishing 45 percent of the
men admitted to the jail were addicts. In the city itself, the number of
addicts rose from 5,000 in early 1970 to 18,000 by Christmas of that year. By
1971, there were about fifteen times more heroin addicts in Washington, D.C.,
than in all of England. These addicts were overwhelmingly likely to be young
black men.
Note 28:Forman P 26-46: A study of
Washington, D.C., and three other cities found that the average heroin addict
committed more than three hundred crimes a year.^» * The devastation in
these cities' poor black communities took many forms: as overdose deaths
skyrocketed, parents buried their children; as fear of robberies and burglaries
spread, residents stayed home with doors and windows bolted shut; as desperate
young addicts resorted to stealing from their kin, families were forced to turn
against their own. D.C.'s heroin epidemic produced two main responses. The
first came from the government: a public health effort, heavy on treatment and
light on law enforcement. This strategy was pioneered by Jerome Jaffe, the
director of the Nixon administration's Special Action Office for Drug Abuse
Prevention, who advocated « methadone maintenance,» the practice of
providing addicts with a free synthetic alternative to heroin in the form of
40- to 80-milligram « stabilization doses» of government-regulated
methadone. The second response to the epidemic was organized by local
activists, neighborhood leaders, and community groups. Among the most prominent
was a black nationalist named Hassan Jeru-Ahmed. Hassan--a high school dropout,
recovering addict, and former federal prisoner, Hassan had been converted by
his experience with addiction and crime into an unrelenting drug warrior.
Hassan founded the Blackman's Development Center (BDC) in May 1969, and it
quickly became one of the most active antidrug organizations in the city. The
BDC worked closely with Hassan's other organizations, the United Moorish
Republic and the Blackman's Volunteer Army of Liberation (Hassan called himself
the army's commanding officer ); at its peak, the BDC had more than seven
hundred members, many of them ex-addicts like Hassan.» *^ The BDC's anger
at DuPont and his Narcotics Treatment Administration (NTA) was rooted in
America's history of racial subjugation. Hassan and his colleagues believed
that whites wanted blacks to be addicted to narcotics, because it made them
passive; in the BDC's eyes, methadone maintenance was a thinly veiled attempt
to keep black people oppressed. Although Hassan advocated punitive action
against drug sellers, it is important to remember that he also called for
root-cause solutions to' the heroin epidemic (improving schools, fighting
racism) and an ethic of black responsibility that valued hard work, education,
and self-discipline. In this respect, he represented the « all of the
above» Hassan recounted, but the police would often refuse to take
action, citing « technicalities» and « red tape.» As
for the marijuana use, White teenagers could use marijuana without
jeopardizing their futures, Fauntleroy explained. After getting high, they
could always « return to enjoy the comforts of the suburbs.»
But poor black teenagers in the inner city had no room for error. Lacking a
middle-class cocoon to shield them from the consequences of marijuana use,
those « who have been born in frustration, who have suffered economic
deprivation, who have lived in substandard housing, who may have come from
families receiving welfare payments, who have no automobiles, etc.,»
might never recover from youthful rebellion. Such kids, Fauntleroy concluded
despairingly, will « have a difficult time securing any job, and having
been truants from school, will more or less drop out upon reaching the age of
sixteen.» So even if decriminalizing marijuana might save a black
adolescent from getting arrested, it all but guaranteed more serious problems
down the line: drug use, school failure, and crime. Those who had been arrested
or convicted rarely participated in debates over criminal justice policy, in
D.C. or nationally. They rarely told their stories. And their invisibility
helps explain why our criminal justice system became so punitive.
Note 29: Glenn: An important consequence of
racial stigma is « vicious circles» of cumulative causation:
self-sustaining processes in which the failure of blacks to make progress
justifies for whites the very prejudicial attitudes that, when reflected in
social and political action, ensure that blacks will not advance. The effects
of stigma are more subtle, and they are deeply embedded in the symbolic and
expressive life of the nation and our narratives about its origins and destiny.
The reasons for the development of racial stigma in the United States are in
large part historical. Fundamental to the processes of race-making in the
United States have been the institution of chattel slavery and the associated
rituals and customs that supported the master-slave hier- archy and dishonored
the slave. The social meaning of race that emerged in American political
culture was closely connected with the dishonorable status of enslavement.
Note 31: Zimmerman 28: Over 30 years of
educational research has found that African American children generally
underperform compared to their Asian and European American peers on academic
indicators (for a review, see Gregory, Skiba, &Noguera, 2010; Vanneman,
Hamilton, Anderson, &Rahman, 2009). Although larger institutional and
systemic inequalities contribute to this underachievement (e.g., Felice, 1981;
Gillborn, 2003; Kozol, 1991), psychological factors resulting from
discrimination are also culpable (e.g., Neblett, Philip, Cogburn, &Sellers,
2006). In addition, stereotype threat has been found to negatively affect the
performance of African American college students (Alter, Aronson, Darley,
Rodriguez, &Ruble, 2010). Stereotype threat is the detrimental impact on
performance that occurs when an individual's poor performance is at risk of
confirming a task-relevant stereotype (e.g., Schmader, 2010; Steele, 1997)
Stereotype threat has been implicated as one cause of school disengagement and
the resulting poor school achievement for African American students (e.g.,
Crocker, Major, & Steele, 1998; Majors et al., 1998). For example,
undergraduates devalue academic domains following repeated exposure to
stereotype threatening situations (Aronson, Fried, & Good, 2002; Major et
al., 1998; Major & Schmader, 1998), and high school students have been
found to disidentify with academics over time in similar situations (Cokley,
McClain, Jones, & Johnson, 2012; Forbes, Schmader & Allen, 2008). The
most serious outcomes of long-term disidentification include dropping out of
school and displaying disruptive behavior in the classroom (Klem & Connell,
2004). Thus, stereotype threat can potentially influence both short-term
disengagement and long-term disidentification with academics (Steele, 1997;
Steele & Aronson, 1995). (Shelvin, Rivadeneyra, et Zimmerman, 2014).
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