fail to realize that "the war on drugs" is actually a war on people

American Violet is a new movie that exposes the racist effects of America's decades-long "War on Drugs." It tells the true story of Texas resident Regina Kelly, a young mother of four who was swept up during a series of racially motivated drug raids.

Film reviewer Clay Cane declares American Violet "the first must-see film for African Americans in 2009." I haven't seen it yet, but it looks like a must-see for white Americas too, since most of them fail to realize that the "War on Drugs" is actually a war on people, most of them black and most of them poor.

This movie had a limited release a couple of days ago--if you've seen it, would you recommend it? And are there other films or resources you'd recommend on this topic?





For many Americans, the election of President Obama was the final nail in Jim Crow's coffin.

But it only takes fifteen minutes in any courthouse, watching the parade of black defendants arrested on drug charges, to realize racism still haunts us. Ostensibly color-blind, the enforcement of the US drug laws disproportionately targets black Americans.

Across the country, whites smoke weed and snort cocaine with relative impunity. Blacks and whites engage in drug offenses at roughly comparable rates, but the heavy hand of the law falls on the darker shoulders.

Blacks, for example, are currently arrested on drug charges at more than three times the rates of whites. They are sent to state prisons with drug convictions at ten times the rate of whites. Although there are approximately six times as many whites who use and sell drugs as blacks, almost half of state prisoners sentenced for drugs are black.

Researchers have documented and advocates have decried these racial disparities for two decades. But they are no accident. Although there have long been far more white drug offenders than black ones (not surprising given that blacks are only 13 percent of US population), the "war on drugs" was not created to curb white drug use. It was born in the mid-1980s when crack hit the streets; it was quickly demonized, and it was widely thought (albeit erroneously) to be linked exclusively to blacks. While "drugs" and "tough on crime" were the words used by politicians wooing an anxious white electorate with draconian new drug laws, the real, although unspoken, subject was race. The image of black drug dealers lurking in alleys rivaled that of Willie Horton in the panoply of white fears. . . .

--Jamie Fellner,
senior counsel of the US Program at
Human Rights Watch