Obama

by Michelle Alexander

Ever since Barack Obama lifted his right hand and took his oath of office, pledging to serve the United States as its 44th president, ordinary people and their leaders around the globe have been celebrating our nation’s “triumph over race.”  Obama’s election has been touted as the final nail in the coffin of Jim Crow, the bookend placed on the history of racial caste in America.

Obama’s mere presence in the Oval Office is offered as proof that “the land of the free” has finally made good on its promise of equality.  There’s an implicit yet undeniable message embedded in his appearance on the world stage: this is what freedom looks like; this is what democracy can do for you.  If you are poor, marginalized, or relegated to an inferior caste, there is hope for you.  Trust us.  Trust our rules, laws, customs, and wars.  You, too, can get to the promised land.

Perhaps greater lies have been told in the past century, but they can be counted on one hand.  Racial caste is alive and well in America.

Most people don’t like it when I say this.  It makes them angry.  In the “era of colorblindness” there’s a nearly fanatical desire to cling to the myth that we as a nation have “moved beyond” race.  Here are a few facts that run counter to that triumphant racial narrative:

*There are more African Americans under correctional control today — in prison or jail, on probation or parole — than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.

*As of 2004, more African American men were disenfranchised (due to felon disenfranchisement laws) than in 1870, the year the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, prohibiting laws that explicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of race.

Source: TomDispatch (3-8-10)

[Michelle Alexander is the author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness  (The New Press, 2010). The former director of the Racial Justice Project of the ACLU in Northern California, she also served as a law clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun on the U.S. Supreme Court.  Currently, she holds a joint appointment with the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity and the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University.]

by Kurt A. Gardinier

Since 1965 over 20 million Americans have been arrested for a marijuana related charge, and that number grows by two about every minute. You heard me right. Someone in this country is arrested on a marijuana charge every 36 seconds–clearly marijuana prohibition isn’t working. But we can’t relent. We need to keep letting our government know how we feel.

For the second year in a row we have an opportunity to let the Obama administration know what ideas are most important to us. Last year ending marijuana prohibition was the number one idea on change.org’s top 10 “ideas for change in America” list, but it currently sits out of the money in fourth place. Let your voice be heard and vote to end marijuana prohibition once and for all (voting ends March 12).

By Michael Roberts

Now, someone's sent another letter -- this one addressed to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and copied to a certain President Barack Obama -- asking that Corry's complaints and concerns be addressed. That person? Representative Jared Polis.

The missive, originally posted on SquareState.net, finds Polis wading into the conflict between the Colorado constitution and federal drug policy that Bartkowicz attorney Joseph Saint-Veltri discussed at length in this space on Monday. Polis spokeswoman Lara Cottingham explains why he took this unusual step.

By. Bill Piper

President Obama's newly released drug war budget is essentially the same as Bush's, with roughly twice as much money going to the criminal justice system as to treatment and prevention. This is the case despite the fact that Obama said on the campaign trail drug use should be treated as a health issue not a criminal justice issue. And despite his drug czar telling the Wall Street Journal last year the war on drugs should be ended. While the president appears unwilling to change how taxpayer money is misspent, he can still seek reform. The White House's forthcoming 2010 drug strategy is the best opportunity to do that.

By ASHA BEH, NBC Washington

Same-sex marriage? Check. Medical marijuana? Check. President Obama? Check.

When it comes to "the progressive, activist social agenda being pursued by the D.C. Council," District residents are on board -- at least in the majority-white areas, according to a Washington Post poll conducted last month. 

The poll responses, along with sky high approval ratings for President Obama, help confirm the city's reputation as one of the most left-leaning jurisdictions in the country.

... But overall support masks racial divides on many of the new policies approved by the council, underscoring that residents in majority-white areas feel far different about a variety of issues than their counterparts in majority-black neighborhoods.