The systemic, institutionalized racism within U.S. capitalism is evident in headlines surrounding the consequences of a Supreme Court ruling on crack cocaine sentencing guidelines.
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The guidelines, passed by Congress in the mid-1980s, enacted mandatory sentencing for certain drug convictions. Prior to the Supreme Court decision, a person with a single gram of crack cocaine would receive the same sentence as someone with 100 grams of powder cocaine. In other words, sentences for crack cocaine possession were 100 times as severe.
While crack cocaine ravaged African American communities, powder cocaine was the preferred “drug of choice” elsewhere. The CIA played no small part in facilitating the distribution and sale of crack cocaine in the African American community as part of its effort to fund the contra wars in Central America. As a result of this racist targeting and the law, 80 percent of people convicted for crack cocaine are Black.
In its ruling, the court did not refer to the racist application of the sentencing guidelines, as it likes to pretend it is not influenced by social forces outside its building. Nonetheless, the ruling was an effort, even if a limited one, to address the enormous disparity in who goes to jail for drug use or dealing and who does not. It is estimated that as many as 19,000 prisoners could see a reduction in their sentences.
How does the big business media present this? Mainstream online newspapers ran headlines such as “Crack cocaine criminals getting out of jail early,” “Crack cocaine ruling begins freeing inmates,” “Crack dealers to go free,” “New rule may cut jail time for 300 Ky. Inmates,” and “Waco woman hopes sentencing guidelines could reduce son’s prison time on crack dealing charge.”
Most articles make no mention of the racist character of the sentencing guidelines. Not one of the articles touches on the CIA role in the infusion of crack cocaine into the African American community.
The headlines could have read: “Racist sentencing law overturned, funding to rehabilitate dealers and users sorely lacking” or “African American community wins modest relief from racism, consequences of government-sponsored drug dealing still go unaddressed.”
Such headlines, however, would be contrary to the aims of the big-business media. These ruling-class propaganda machines are not objective reporters; they function to reinforce the status quo. Making racism, repression and exploitation acceptable are part of the norm when they report on events.
Only when the struggle of the working class and oppressed challenges the status quo does the big-business media feint to be the voice of justice and redress. The class bias of the corporate media aside, the real story is that the system is guilty of criminal activity and then punishing those who have suffered from that activity.
