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Disenfranchising The Black Other: A Critique Of American Drug Laws, Heather Dorsey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Presently, approximately 4.7 million Americans are unable to vote, a population which is disproportionately black and stripped of their civic rights because of their status as present or former felons. I propose that unequal drug laws which provide different sentences for crack cocaine, used more often by poor blacks because of its cheapness and availability in poor neighborhoods, and powder cocaine, used more often by upper class whites, punish blacks for their status as Other. Disproportionately punishing them for a habit in which people of all races participate has created a class without the ability to participate in the system …