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December 14, 2007
Don't blame 'bad values' for the nation's racial gap
News and information for Friday, December 14, 2007
Published: Daily Hampshire Gazette, Northampton, MA
Don't blame 'bad values' for the nation's racial gap
To the editor: As Rhonda Soto clearly writes (Gazette, Dec. 3), racism and classism are a potent combination. Together they can create obstacles that even Bill Cosby and Oprah Winfrey might not have been able to surmount. For example, as Ms. Soto states, blacks are slightly less likely than whites to use illegal drugs. However, when it comes to arrest, conviction and incarceration, the paths of whites and blacks divide. African-Americans constitute 35 percent of those arrested for drug possession, African-Americans receive 55 percent of drug possession convictions, and African-Americans comprise 74 percent of those sentenced to prison for drug possession.
As a result, in Massachusetts, 89 percent of those serving mandatory minimums are people of color, while about 80 percent of the state's population is white. So let's stop blaming "bad values" and come to terms with the real root to this phenomenon: targeted policing, the hazards of "driving while black," and a "criminal injustice system" that must be remade so that all of us are treated equally.
Lois Ahrens
Northampton
Posted by lois at December 14, 2007 05:58 PM