Internet Activism & The War on Drugs

In the wake of a new Supreme Court ruling on cocaine sentencing laws, it's worth asking: Are the courts the best or the only effective way to bring about social change? Or are there other innovative approaches worth trying?

In the case of the War on Drugs, court cases alone are unlikely to have much impact on the deep racial injustices. After a brief background on the law and the War, I'll review a few possible alternatives: internet petitions on change.org, a denial-of-service approach to "crash the courts", a Hollywood "issues" movie, and truly race-neutral profiling to build sympathy. First, the background.

"Fair" Sentencing for Cocaine

According to the Supreme Court ruling, prison sentences for drug offenders convicted after 2010 must conform to the Fair Sentencing Act. Sounds great, right?

But according to the "fair" sentencing law, people who use or deal cocaine in solid rock form -- i.e., mostly black people in low income neighborhoods -- will be sentenced 18 times longer than people who use or deal cocaine in its powdered form -- i.e., mostly higher income white people at clubs and parties. The disparity used to be 100 to one. 

If this is all the Court can do, activist innovators have their work cut out for them.

The War on Drugs, or, The War on Black People

A little background. As civil rights attorney Michelle Alexander contends in The New Jim Crow, the War on Drugs was created to crack down on civil rights activism in a legally defensible way, using federal tax dollars to arm local police forces and encourage them to arrest peaceful as well as violent drug offenders in inner cities and colored neighborhoods. A few facts from the book:

• There are now more black men in prison in the US than were enslaved on the eve of the Civil War.
• Contrary to popular belief, the War on Drugs was declared before crack cocaine was introduced to slums, not after.
• Whites are equally likely to use drugs as blacks. They're just less likely to be targeted by police, arrested, convicted, or to receive the harshest sentences.
• Police can legally use the intimidation of their weapons and uniforms to search people without cause or a warrant as long as they garner "consent". 
• African Americans are 8 times more likely than whites to be pulled over and searched following minor traffic violations like forgotten turn signals. And yet, the police are more likely to find drugs on caucasian drivers.
• Drug-related arrests -- even without conviction -- allow police to seize any assets they think might be relevant, including cash, cars and other property. Even if charges are dropped, the poor often have no recourse to get back their possessions.
• Sentences are so harsh that innocent people have strong incentives to plead guilty.
• Jailed prisoners often lose their right to vote. With more blacks in prison, this amounts to taking away the right to vote and rolling back one key achievement of the Civil Rights era.

Given all of these facts that sure look like racial discrimination, the courts ought to be able to solve the problem, right? 

Actually, no. Extreme bias in targeting by police and charges by prosecutors cannot be challenged in courts as long as the defendants are not overtly, verbally racist. I highly, highly recommend reading the book to understand how this can possibly be true.

The New Jim Crow may be the most important expose of inequality and injustice in America in the 21st century.

Internet Activism

One proven way to effect change is to harness social media to influence politicians. On change.org, you can create a petition and build grass roots support for it. Tens and even hundreds of thousands of supporters have endorsed proposals to bring justice, protect wildlife and change laws. 

Recent examples include raising working conditions for Apple factory workers in China, bringing justice to a rape victim in South Africa, and ending the $5 fee on debit card usage. 

Go to Trial: Crash the Justice System

To bring attention to the issue, Alexander wrote an editorial for the NY Times based on an idea by Susan Burton: what if enough convicts refuse to settle and insist on going to trial?

If all convicts went to trial, they would crash the courts -- like a denial-of-service attack that hammers a website until it breaks under the stress of too many web visitors at the same time. If all convicts simultaneously insisted on their right to trial, the legal system could not handle the load. 

The challengers of the system would be putting themselves at personal risk of never leaving jail. Like the protestors of the Arab Spring, or Gandhi's hunger strikes, or Martin Luther King's marches, political activism often means putting yourself on the line, jeopardizing your future, risking your life.

In comparison, corporate innovation is easy and low risk, even if it seems revolutionary.

The New Jim Crow: The Movie

A simpler idea: make a documentary movie to draw attention. Convince Spike Lee to direct The New Jim Crow, a true story.

Convince some of the most famous black Hollywood stars to bring the story to life with cameos and interviews. Recruit Will Smith, Halle Berry, Denzel Washington, Jada Pinkett Smith, Morgan Freeman, Queen Latifah, Eddie Murphy, Thandy Newton, Whoopi Goldberg. Get less famous talents like Zoe Saldana, Terrence Howard, Taraji Henson, Shemar Moore, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Vivica Fox, Larenz Tate and more.

Campaign for Academy Award nominations. With a big social issue and enough star power, the news will carry the story with many features, from every angle, over the course of several months.

To Build Outrage, Enforce the Laws Race-Neutrally

Here's a more radical idea. To end the War on Drugs, activists could persuade police officers and prosecutors to aggressively enforce the drug laws in a truly race neutral way, based on who the offenders are, meaning proportionately equally white. If the laws were truly enforced in a race-neutral manner, vastly more whites than blacks would be stopped, arrested, convicted and sentenced harshly.

For example, police could catch the children of wealthy politicians and business people as they snort cocaine at trendy night clubs and parties. Proportionately, those same police officers would continue to patrol inner city neighborhoods where African Americans and Latinos constitute most of the population. 

Likewise, police and prosecutors could team up to crack down on college students and surfers at expensive private universities, attended mostly by whites. In parallel, the same police and prosecutors would scrupulously ensure that they're continuing to enforce the laws against blacks, so that no one can accuse them of a racial vendetta.  

By arresting entire groups, holding them overnight in jail, seizing their assets, and charging them with the full penalties available under current laws, the media would create publicity for the unfairness of drug laws. Affluent parents of the white drug users and dealers would rise up in outrage at the injustice. They may suddenly identify with the victims and care.

Meanwhile, the media would broadcast in a balanced and truly race-neutral way the criminal cases brought against both whites and people of color. With enough whites victimized by the War on Drugs, a critical mass might build up to overturn the federal financing.

Precedent for Reverse Racial Profiling

In the Civil Rights era, a similar strategy -- inadvertently -- helped to catalyze the movement. Although racist whites and Klansmen could, and did, murder blacks with impunity right up into the 1960s, the white public didn't pay much attention. When whites became victims, the movement surged ahead with broader support than ever.

In the summer of 1964, two white civil rights activists traveled to Mississippi to participate in a summer voter registration drive for Southern blacks. They visited one of twenty black churches the Klu Klux Klan had burnt down in protest. And the police arrested three activists, two white and one black, as troublemakers. Shortly afterward, they were released from the jail.

And they were never seen alive again. A media sensation ignited, courtesy of the radically democratic technology of the day, namely broadcast television. 

The FBI interviewed around 1,000 Mississipians in search of clues, exhibiting a level of attentiveness they had never devoted to a case with only black victims. A little over six weeks later, the FBI uncovered the bodies buried underneath an earthen dam.

Conclusion

It will take a wide diversity of tactics to end all racist consequences of the War on Drugs. Court cases are but one avenue to advance justice. Let's not forget another battle-tested way to raise awareness: documentary film.

Beyond the obvious, activists should look to the internet, to the metaphor of denial-of-service attacks as well as viral videos and campaigns to "like" social causes. Imagine mobile apps and web cams and maps. Use big data to prove the injustice, and social media to promote awareness and drive change. 

Even more extreme, police and prosecutors could aggressively engage in truly race-neutral enforcement, taking the War on Drugs not only to inner cities but also to Wall Street parties, elite university campuses, and anywhere that predominantly affluent whites are violating the same laws that are destroying the African American community. If white victims of injustice also make headlines on the news websites, Twitter, talk radio, television and print, the public may become aware and take the lead, forcing their Congressional leaders to follow.

It will take real innovation to end the War on Drugs. And it will take dogged persistence to avoid another backlash that's every bit as disastrous.

Do you have any ideas for how to end another failed War, this one against the citizens of the US?

Related posts:

The Tension Between Innovation and Ethics

Does Innovation Trump Politics?

Ethics: There's an App for That