Institutional Racism in the US

Here's a thread from a link I posted on FB:

JS- ‎"African Americans Arrested at Double, Triple, or Even Quadruple Rate of Whites, Though Young Blacks Consume Marijuana at Lower Rates."
http://www.drugpolicy.org/docUploads/Targeting_Blacks_for_Marijuana_06_29_10.pdf

MH- I would like to think that the high arrest rates are not necessarily racially based, but socio-economically and geographically based, but then there isn't any information on that in the study.

JS- Got an answer for that. Of course us white people don't like to think it's 'racial'.
http://www.radioproject.org/2011/02/michelle-alexander-on-the-new-jim-crow/

PV- The social-economic & geographic situation of African-Americans is definitely racial-based!

MH- I don't disagree with that, however I think that if you have a concentration of lower income people there will be more crime, regardless of race or ethnic background, than in a concentrated area of high-income people.

PV- Well yes, and U.S. History shows that concentrations of low-income communities is racially/ethnically driven in our society, like the Irish & Italians of Boston & New York.

So although crime may be independent of race, social-economic status really isn't, and unfortunately, neither is racial profiling. Thus, one factor in explaining higher arrest rates among African Americans: race.

YL- no brainer, poverty + drugs=crime.

YL- young black male + hanging in the corner= police harrasment

JS- Here's a really awesome graphic of how stratified by race Chicago is:http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?chicagodots. The lines are drastically drawn. In Malcolm Gladwell's book "The Tipping Point". He cites the fact that sociologists found when the population of a neighborhood reaches 20% black, there is a nearly immediate exodus from the neighborhood by remaining white residents.

JS- ‎"Black and Latino men accounted for 85% of the stops last year."
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/02/22/2011-02-22_new_york_police_department_stopped_more_than_600000_in_2010_the_highest_number_e.html

YL- Josh, great sources. Dont need to talk, facts speak for themselves.