ACLU Study Pot Arrests: Recent ACLU Study on Marijuana and Arrests is No Surprise to Blacks

Don’t you just love it when people do studies to reach conclusions that should be pretty darned obvious?

If you’ve surmised that I’m referring to the recent American Civil Liberties Union study about marijuana, then pat yourselves on the back and go to the head of the class.

Yes, our ACLU friends did a study in which they found that black folks get arrested for marijuana possession more than whites do.

Now I’m pretty sure that not one black American passed out from shock upon hearing that the weight of law enforcement, when it comes to arrests for marijuana possession, come down harder on black folks than on white folks.

If you’re black, then you already knew that. If you didn’t know it positively and conclusively, then, at the very least, you had an inkling that it was true.

Or a hunch. Or a sneaking suspicion. But you sure as hell weren’t surprised. Nor was the result of the ACLU study anything like a startling revelation.

That’s because, deep down in our hearts, most black Americans know what the deal is with the nation’s law enforcement agencies, at least when it comes to us.

And what we know is this: there is not one police department, anywhere in America, that can be called a “friend of the Negro” organization.

I’ve written this before, but it’s one of those things that bears repeating, and should be repeated often.

And loudly.

American police forces are not “friends of the Negro” organizations. That goes for the ones in large cities, and the ones in small towns and counties like Armpit, fill-in-name-of-state here.

Proof of that axiom shouldn’t be needed, but some examples might be in order. Anybody remember Kathryn Johnston?

She was 92 years old, black, law-abiding and minding her own darned business when three Atlanta rogue cops raided her home on Nov. 21, 2006.

Johnston had her own gun and fired a shot at the cops. They returned fire, ripping off 39 shots that killed Johnston.

An investigation revealed that the cops lied to obtain the search warrant used to justify raiding Johnston’s home. And they lied about finding – you guessed it – marijuana in Johnston’s home.

Members of a police force that supposedly took an oath to protect, not murder her, killed Johnston. If there is any one group of black people in this country that needs no convincing of the axiom that police departments are not “friends of the Negro” organization, then it’s Johnston’s surviving relatives.

I refuse to call the man who has admitted to killing Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman. Were George Zimmerman a woman who claimed Martin was beating her in February of 2012, then I would buy the claims that Martin had to be fatally shot, in self-defense.

But a man — a REAL man – would have and should have been able to handle a physical confrontation with a 17-year-old boy without shooting him.

You can read between the lines to discern what I’m calling George ZimmerWOMAN. And yes, that word does start with a “b.”

But back to the matter at hand: the cops in Sanford, Fla., immediately after Trayvon Martin’s shooting, proved the axiom that police departments are not “friends of the Negro” organizations.

Investigators pretty much accepted ZimmerWOMAN’S version of events. They conducted a shoddy, scant investigation. They must have figured that a dead black kid and a white guy with a gun told them pretty much everything they needed to know.

ZimmerWOMAN himself is a cop wannabe. And his comments on police tapes the night he murdered Trayvon Martin show that, had he ever joined the police force, he would have fit right in with an organization that was not a “friend of the Negro.”

ZimmerWOMAN concluded that Martin was on drugs. I’m betting he even figured said drug was – you guessed it – marijuana.

At one point, ZimmerWOMAN is heard saying on the police tape “these ***holes always get away.”

In short, ZimmerWOMAN saw a black teen wearing a hoodie and concluded that he was on drugs and up to no good.

That ACLU study shows that American cops routinely look at black folks and conclude that they must be smoking marijuana.

That’s news for white folks; black folks already knew it.

If anybody wants to tell us something we don’t know, tell us this: when will American cops be compelled to end this foolishness?

(Photo: AP)

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