Jim Crow in today's courts

[Hannah Bell]

TWO WASHINGTON state Supreme Court justices put their racist assumptions on full display at a recent court meeting. Justices Richard Sanders and James Johnson shocked many in attendance by stating that minorities are overrepresented in the state's prison population not because of discrimination, but simply because they commit more crimes.

According to accounts of those present at the meeting, Johnson repeatedly used the phrases "you all" or "you people" when he talked about African Americans and crimes. He also used the term "poverty pimp" to refer to workers who supposedly provide legal assistance to the poor for their own gain...

It shouldn't be necessary to even dignify this unsubstantiated claim with a rebuttal, but here are a few salient facts that people should keep in mind and remind these "justices" of.

- A recent report from the Marijuana Arrest Research Project for the Drug Policy Alliance and the NAACP reaffirmed that, nationally, African Americans are no more likely to use or sell drugs than caucasians, but they are vastly more likely to be arrested for it.... Several studies in recent years have affirmed just how out of balance enforcement (in Seattle) has been--including a study commissioned by the city itself, which determined that Black men represented 57 percent of marijuana arrests in 2006, but only 8 percent of the population at large.

University of Washington professor Katherine Becket's research on drug arrests in Seattle sheds light on why this is the case. Her study found that the overwhelming majority of drug dealers in Seattle are white, yet the police consistently targeted locations where there were more minorities present and drugs more likely to be used by minorities...

Because of this, an astonishing 24 percent of African American men and 15 percent of Washington's overall Black population are denied the right to vote...

http://socialistworker.org/2010/11/01/jim-crow-in-todays-courts

[Incognitus Czar]

1. ouch.

Poor choice of words.

Those justices should have said that poor people are more likley to commit crimes of which many minorities who commit crimes just so happen to be.

[Posteritatis]

2. Not so much a poor choice as a bankrupt one. (nt)

[Hannah Bell]

3. no, he shouldn't have said that, either. he should have kept his fat mouth shut altogether.

[Starry Messenger]

6. Poor people are more likely to be arrested for "crimes"

There, I fixed it for you.

[maryf]

4. K&Rnt

[blindpig]

5. k&r