Drug Testing and Racial Profiling Go Hand in Hand

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http://www.alternet.org/drugs/drug-testing-and-racial-profiling-go-hand-hand



“We believe that all men are entitled to the blessings of liberty. But millions are being deprived of those blessings, not because of their own failures but because of the color of their skin… But it cannot continue. Our Constitution, the foundation of our Republic, forbids it. The principles of our freedom forbid it. Morality forbids it. And the law I will sign tonight forbids it.”

With that bold statement, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law on July 2, 1964. That milestone legislation took a sledge hammer to the legal pillars of segregation by banning discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national origin and gender. But, as we have seen in the half century since, it takes more than Congressional votes and the stroke of a President’s pen to scratch out the racist attitudes which have been part of our American culture since colonial times.

While enormous progress has been made in the area of racial justice, old stereotypes endure. Assumptions of intellectual inferiority, laziness, moral laxity, and criminality continue to haunt African-Americans, especially African-American men. The stubborn resilience of such perceptions shores up the disparities in opportunity and quality of life that remain between black and white Americans.

So, it isn’t surprising that employers who require drug screening for potential hires often assume that black job applicants are drug users. Is this fact insulting? Yes. Infuriating? Yes. Surprising? No. It is just another example of the bias that black Americans have struggled against throughout our nation’s history, and which still hobbles our progress in the post-Civil Rights era. One major example: Although African America make up only 14% of the drug using population, 37% of Americans incarcerated for drugs are African American, put there by a law enforcement and criminal justice system that is clearly biased in its targeting of blacks and in its conviction rate. Overall, one in three African American males end up in jail at some point in their lives.