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The election of the first black US president
offered hope to millions of African
Americans across the country. But have four
years of an Obama presidency seen positive
change for black communities in the US'
inner cities?
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"It's not a war on drugs, it's a war
on the blacks. It started as war on
the blacks and it's now spread to
Hispanics and poor whites. It was
designed to take that energy that
was coming out of the civil rights
movement and destroy it." - Ed
Burns, the co-creator of the TV
series The Wire |
While the 'war on drugs' rages on inside the
US, there is some political consensus it is
failing. White House officials have even
indicated a federal policy shift away from
incarceration and towards a public health
strategy.
In Baltimore, one of the most dangerous
cities in the US, the police have reframed
their 'war on drugs' as a 'war on guns'.
The rhetoric may have changed, but critics
say nothing else has and that concentrated
law enforcement has resulted in high levels
of incarceration among young African
Americans and the criminalization of entire
communities.
The nearly 30 years of drug policies have
perpetuated cycles of violence and economic
repression in US inner cities and especially
among poor minority neighborhoods.
"Even in the age of Obama something akin to
a caste system is alive and well in
America," says Michelle Alexander, a law
professor and author. "The mass
incarceration of poor people of color is
tantamount into a caste system specifically
designed to address the social, political
and economic challenges of our time .... We
have a school-to-prison pipeline operating
in Baltimore and other cities across the
nation where young people believe, with some
good reason, that their destiny lies behind
bars and they too will become members of the
under caste."
Fault Lines’ Sebastian Walker spends
time with those on the front lines of the
failed drug war to understand some
fundamental dynamics of race, poverty,
incarceration and economic truths in the US
in an election year. |
