Category Archives: Criminal Justice System

SLAM ONLINE | » Condemn The Foul, Not The Mind

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Condemn The Foul, Not The Mind

Leave the mental assessments for professionals.

by David J. Leonard / @drdavidjleonard

There is no defense for the elbow seen around the world. Metta, why? Irrespective of intent, it was a hard flagrant foul, one that has no place in the beautiful game of basketball. The seven-game suspension, while a bit on the high side, is measured and appropriate.

In fact, given the incendiary rhetoric from the media, the continuous loop of the incident, and their overall efforts to excite anger, the decision from David Stern to issue a sensible suspension (not the case with the Palace Brawl) is worthy of praise.

As such, there is nothing to debate regarding Metta World Peace elbowing James Harden in the head—it was vicious, uncalled for and disheartening. As a Lakers, Metta World Peace and basketball fan—it was disappointing. It is indefensible; yet, that fact is not a defense for a media spectacle-defined unnecessary cheap shots, much of which has nothing to do with the incident.

From the hyperbole and rhetoric designed to incite anger, to the constant invoking of the language of the criminal justice system and the demonization of Metta as a crazy person, much of the sports media has failed to inform and elevate the discussion, instead embracing roles as referee, commissioner and worse yet, doctor.

A common theme evident since the nationally televised elbow has been the constant mention of Metta’s mental state. While one might think mental illness mitigates culpability (it can within our justice system), the media establishment has used his purported mental fabric and wiring as part of a narrative that depicts him as pathological and dangerous. Although painting him as unstable and mentally weak, the ubiquitous references to his mind reflect an effort to mock, make fun and ridicule Metta World Peace.

The references have saturated the airwaves. “To say that something is wrong with Artest would not do him justice. This is the guy who applied for a job at Circuit City to get a discount, has come to practice in a bath robe and has admitted to drinking cognac at halftime,” writes Jason Black. “After winning the NBA Championship in 2010 he thanked his psychiatrist. There are many people who need therapy or have mental health disorders, so the fact that he publicly talked about having a psychiatrist isn’t a bad thing, but it tells us there is a problem.”

Black goes onto argue that Metta’s mental illness represents a threat to himself, other players and the game itself, calling for extensive punishment as a method of protection: “Having a mental health issue and getting help for it is commendable, but what price does somebody have to pay before it’s too late?” As with media pundits like Stephen A. Smith, who described Metta as “not that far away from coo-coo nest,” “as touched,” and as someone who has refused to take his medication in the past, the media narrative demonizes Metta for his mental issues.

Describing him as having “violent tendencies,” Bill Plaschke furthers the picture of MWP as psychopath, as crazy dangerous man: “This was about a celebration that turned caustic when somebody walked into the middle of it, the weird mind of World Peace switching from jubilation to rage in a matter of seconds. Maybe even scarier than the elbow was the look in his wild and crazy eyes as he stalked around the floor immediately afterward.”

Continue reading @ SLAM ONLINE | » Condemn The Foul, Not The Mind.

Dreams Deferred, Humanity Denied: The War on Women of Color (Part 2) | The Feminist Wire

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Dreams Deferred, Humanity Denied: The War on Women of Color (Part 2)

April 21, 2012

By David J. Leonard

 

The vicious attacks on women of color are not unique to the health care system. This has been evident within the recent debate that followed Hilary Rosen’s comments about Ann Romney, stay-at-home moms, and work. Whereas the GOP has framed Rosen’s statements as part of the Democratic Party/secular Left’s contempt for the family—all straight from the Right’s historic demonization of feminism—it is the policies of the Republican Party that have continually damaged women, and particularly women of color, as mothers. Whether eliminating subsidies for childcare, requiring that women receiving welfare get a job to learn “the dignity of work,” and/or enacting policies that constrain or eliminate salaries, the choices available to women of color have long been overdetermined by the realities of racism and sexism. As noted by Laura Flanders,

For all the shameful sucking up to multimillionaire mom Ann Romney after Democratic pundit Hilary Rosen accused her of never having worked “a day in her life,” the reality is neither Republicans nor Democrats treat most parenting as work, and thousands of poor women are living in poverty today as living proof of that fact.

Do we need to state the obvious? Women of different classes are beaten with different rhetorical bats. For the college-educated and upwardly aspiring, there’s the “danger” of career ambitions. Ever since women started aspiring to have men’s jobs, backlashers have told those women that they’re enjoying their careers at the expense of their kids’ well being. They really can’t have it all. They’ll raise monsters, or worse, they’ll grow old on the shelf.… The media still love stories about stay-at-home moms and professional women are still punished for wanting to succeed. For the poor, though, it’s very different.

Poor women, particularly poor women of color, are simultaneously denied the “choice” of whether to work or stay-at-home (why aren’t men asked to choose?) and demonized as bad parents. The war on mommies is not a universal war, as evidenced by the Moynihan Report AND Gov. Mitt Romney requiring that mothers on welfare with children under the age of 2 go to work in an effort to teach them “the dignity of work.”

With the discourse on health care, working mothers, education, and criminal justice, we see the ways in which race and gender (nation, class, and sexuality) directly impact people’s lives, whose life matters and whose future is worthy of public concern and policy. To deny health care is yet another instance where women of color are stripped of humanity, denied rights as citizens and people. It is part of a larger history whereupon women of color have been subject to the violence of the state, stereotypes, and structures of inequality. “It’s just a long history of negative stereotypes of black women that have changed over time to suit the political circumstances, but that focus on our irresponsible childrearing and mothering,” noted Dorothy Roberts within a Colorlines piece “The thread that joins them is the idea of total sexual immorality and irresponsible reproductive responsibility on the part of black women, who become a burden on the state and also have no maternal bond with their own children.”

The violent disregard for Anna Brown’s life, and the benign neglect approach to health and welfare of women of color is clear with the history of forced sterilization faced by Native American and Puerto Rican women;

it is clear with the systemic incarceration of black and Latina women; it is clear with the stereotype of the Jezebel, the pregnant crack addict, and the “welfare queen”; the war on women of color is nothing new is evident with Kelley Williams-Bolar, Tanya McDowell, Raquel Nelson and countless more women of color whose rights and humanity have been stripped before a silent nation. The silence is telling as to whos

continue reading @ Dreams Deferred, Humanity Denied: The War on Women of Color (Part 2) | The Feminist Wire.

On Trayvon Martin: The U.S. School System’s Criminalization of Black Youth | Urban Cusp

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On Trayvon Martin: The U.S. School System’s Criminalization of Black Youth

By David J. Leonard

UC Columnist

Eye on Culture

The efforts to defend George Zimmerman by disparaging and demonizing Trayvon Martin have become commonplace. The three-headed monster of the Sanford Police Department, Zimmerman’s attorney (and surrogates) and Fox News continue to push a narrative that seeks to justify Zimmerman’s actions. At the center of their distortions, distractions and lies has been an effort to paint Trayvon Martin as a “criminal,” as a “thug” and as a “menace” – as America’s nightmare: “young, black and don’t give a f*ck.”

Citing manufactured pictures and suspensions, like Geraldo’s reference to hoodies, the “blame the black kid” defense is intent on justifying his murder by substantiating Zimmerman’s fear and suspicion. Michelle Goldberg asked, “Why Conservatives Are Smearing Trayvon Martin’s Reputation,” concluding that “Conservatives are focusing on Trayvon’s tweets, appearance, school suspension over marijuana traces, and the hoodie he was wearing to blame him for his own death – and to show that his killing had nothing to do with racism.” These efforts have led to a shift in the media coverage and hyper emphasis on Martin’s demeanor, background, and behavior. According to Goldberg, “The media was flooded with the news, if one could call it that, that Martin was once suspended from school for possession of a plastic baggie with marijuana residue on it.”

For example, a story in the Orlando Sentinel took the lead in the character assassination, giving voice to defend Zimmerman by assassinating the character of Martin with its emphasis on most-recent school suspension: “[H]e had been suspended from school in Miami after being found with an empty marijuana baggie. Miami schools have a zero-tolerance policy for drug possession.” Likewise, a Miami Herald piece on Trayvon Martin provided a context to understand the shooting:

As thousands of people gathered here to demand an arrest in the Trayvon Martin case, a more complicated portrait began to emerge of a teenager whose problems at school ranged from getting spotted defacing lockers to getting caught with a marijuana baggie and women’s jewelry. The Miami Gardens teen who has become a national symbol of racial injustice was suspended three times, and had a spotty school record that his family’s attorneys say is irrelevant to the facts that led up to his being gunned down on Feb. 26.

The focus on his suspension is particularly revealing not only in Trayvon’s case, but also in the larger fabric of American racism. For the defenders of Zimmerman and much of the media, the reports of multiple suspensions, of a connection to an “empty marijuana bag,” are evidence that at best Trayvon was “complicated” and at worst he was a “thug” who therefore deserved to be killed.

While telling us nothing about Trayvon Martin and his murder, his suspensions do reveal the ways that profiling and his criminalization began long before Zimmerman. While white students are more likely to be in possession of drugs and possess guns while at schools, black and Latino youth are far more likely to face punishment. According to the Department of Education, black students are 3.5 times more likely to face either suspension or expulsion that their white peers. In Chicago, although whites account for 10 percent of students, they are only 3 percent of suspensions. Compare this to African Americans, who represent 42 percent of Chicago students, but 76 percent of suspensions. In Los Angeles, while only 9 percent of students, black students account for over 25% of suspensions.

“Disciplinary policies are racially profiling African American students,” notes Marqueece Harris-Dawson, an activist in Los Angeles. “It is not that African American students are lazy, unmotivated or not smart. These students are being pushed out of schools.” This is the same assumption that led George Zimmerman to follow and ultimately shoot Trayvon Martin; the same ideologies that imagined Martin as threatening, suspicious, and dangerous requiring discipline and punishment contributed to his suspension from school just as it played a role in his untimely death. In other words, his multiple suspensions are proof in that ways that race matters in material ways, which unfortunately became all too clear on February 26.

continue reading at On Trayvon Martin: The U.S. School System’s Criminalization of Black Youth | Urban Cusp.

Drug Culture on College Campuses and the Criminalization of Student Athletes | Urban Cusp

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Drug Culture on College Campuses and the Criminalization of Student

By David J. Leonard

UC Columnist

Eye on Culture

In a world where the stigmas of drugs and the destructiveness of the war on drugs have been confined to the black community, particularly those segregated urban spaces, the recent announcement of the arrest of several students from Texas Christian University should cause pause. Following a 6-month investigation from the DEA, the police arrested 17 students, including 4 football players, selling a myriad of drugs – marijuana, cocaine, prescription drugs and ecstasy on and off campus. The inclusion of 4 football players resulted in widespread media coverage, few which made note that 3 of those arrested were white, an important fact given the media-produced stereotype about race, crime, and American athletes. Worse yet, the efforts to isolate the problem of drugs to student athletes, not only plays upon stereotypes about black athletes, even in instances such as this where only 1 person involved is African American, but once again exonerates whiteness from the discussion. In narrating the problem of drugs on college campuses through athletics, an identity difficult to disentangle from blackness within the white imagination, the media sensationalism perpetuates a racially-defined war on drugs.

Described as a “stain on the football program,” and “an especially embarrassing blow to the school because it included four members of the high-profile football team,” the media response focused on the arrest of the 4 student-athletes, simultaneously rendering the other students (at least 11) and non-students involved as insignificant to the larger story. Those from the football team became the story, the starting team, with the others involved reduced to peripheral bench players unworthy of media investigation or commentary. In “TCU Will Survive Shameful Day,” Jean-Jacques Taylor denounced the players as “shameful, embarrassing, stupid,” seemingly letting the other students involved, the school, and the coach off the hook. In fact, Taylor celebrates the coach for how he handled the situation even though according to the article, 80 players tested positive for drugs (other sources put this number between 5-16): “Perhaps he’s simply observed what’s happened at Ohio State and Penn State recently and decided the fallout from the cover-up is so much worse than the crime that it’s far better to come clean and deal with the consequences,” writes the reporter for ESPN Dallas. “Either way, Patterson should be applauded for having the gumption to reportedly order team-wide drug testing when a recruit told him that he was declining a scholarship offer because of the drug culture.” Like much of the media coverage, Taylor turns a 6-month investigation that netted the arrests of at least 17 people for narcotics distribution to the “drug culture” of the team.

He was not alone with a significant media emphasis on how the arrests were emblematic of an epidemic ravaging college athletes. Eric Olson, with “TCU Bust Sign of Increased Pot Problem,” sought to contextualize the arrests as evidence of a larger problem. Noting that 22.6% of student-athletes reported using marijuana once during the last 12 months, and how that number is up from 21.2% in 2005, Olson argues that these arrests are indicative of a larger problem for college sports. Yet, the “evidence” provided by this study is actually contradicted by the study itself, which argues that the slight increase in marijuana use reflects a societal shift rather than something specific to college athletics. Moreover, the study found that within the NCAA, marijuana use is least common amongst Division I student-athletes (16.9%), with Division II student-athletes (21.4%) and those from Division III having the highest level of usage with a number of 28.3%. In fact, while drug usage declined at the Division I level, those other two levels saw increases. Olson also references usage amongst student-athletes playing football and basketball, coincidentally those sports with the most visible number of African Americans, implying that the problem is acute within these sports. While basketball (22%) and football (26.7%) mirror widespread findings within all sports (the study doesn’t break the information down for each sport within each division), men’s lacrosse (48.5%), women’s lacrosse (30%) and women’s field hockey (35.7%) might as well get a feature article in High Times.

continue reading @ Drug Culture on College Campuses and the Criminalization of Student Athletes | Urban Cusp.

DEAR WHITE FOLKS: You Don’t Know How Easy You Have It – News & Views – EBONY

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DEAR WHITE FOLKS:
You Don’t Know How Easy You Have It

by David J. Leonard

Dear White folks:

Between the racist comments, the constant use of the race denial card (this country’s most frequently used “race card”) and the absurd claims of White victimhood, you have really grated my last nerve.

Sure, we got teary during The Blind Side and Antoine Fisher; we maybe even gave money to KONY2012 and after Hurricane Katrina; we maybe even donned a hoodie to protest the murder of Trayvon Martin. I don’t even doubt there are individuals out there who are genuinely concerned about racism and injustice; I don’t doubt that there are many Whites that marched with Dr. King and whose “best friends” might be Black. None of this matters if African Americans continue to die at the hands of guns held by security guards and police officers all without justice

I have heard that “we are all Trayvon Martin” over the last few weeks, yet we are not Trayvon Martin – and we never could be. White America is never suspicious. White America can walk to the store without fear of being hunted down. White America can count on justice and a nation grieving at the loss of White life. We aren’t Trayvon Martin, we are George Zimmerman: presumed innocent until proven innocent.

I want you to close your eyes for a second, and imagine that your son or daughter, sister or brother, granddaughter or grandson, ventured to the corner store for some Skittles and tea but never returned? Can you imagine if Peter or Jan were gunned down right around the corner from your house and the police didn’t notify you right away? Can you imagine if little Sydney or Bobby sat in the morgue for days as you searched to find out what happened them? Can you even imagine the police letting the perpetrator go or the news media remaining silent? Can you even fathom learning about background and drug tests on your child? Can you imagine the news media demonizing your child, blaming your child for his own death?

Can you imagine the outcry if seven White youths had been gunned down by police and security guards in a matter of months? Can you imagine the extensive political interest, the media stories that would saturate the airwaves? Can you imagine Fox News or any number of newspapers reporting about a school suspension for one of the victims or doctoring pictures in an attempt to make these victims less sympathetic? Can you imagine a person holding up a sign calling these victims “thugs” and “hoodlums.”Just think about the media frenzy, the concern from politicians, and the national horror every time a school shooting happens in Suburbia or every time a White woman goes missing…can you imagine if women routinely went missing from your community and the news and police department simply couldn’t be bothered?

No, you can’t. And you don’t have to.

Yet, from Florida to Los Angeles, from Atlanta to Wisconsin, from Chicago to Ohio, Black families are burying the innocent and the future. Doesn’t that make you sad; doesn’t that make your angry? Our silence is telling. We can barely say their names much less acknowledge the epidemic in our midst: Stephon Watts. Trayvon Martin. Ramarley Graham. Wendell Allen. Dante Price. Bo Morrison. Rekia Boyd. Kendrec McDade.

All have lost their lives; and we don’t even say their names. All have died under similarly disturbing circumstances. All should have prompted national outrage and action; or at the least for us to say their names.

I don’t care if you cried during The Help and if the ‘feel good’ movie of the year featuring chicken-frying maids and affluent White women made you feel all post-racial tingly on the inside. Did you cry at the report of yet another lost Black life? If so, what have those tears done – have they led you to join a rally, to demand justice? I don’t care if you voted for President Obama; have you demanded dramatic changes to our criminal (in)justice system? It is time for us to check ourselves, to listen and demand a better America starting with ourselves. It is time to stop denying racism and defending White privilege, distracting and deflecting with “what ifs” and excuses. It is time to demand justice for the Trayvons and the Rekias, not because it could have been one of our sons and daughters–it couldn’t–but because it is simply the right thing to do.

Continue reading @ DEAR WHITE FOLKS: You Don’t Know How Easy You Have It – News & Views – EBONY.

White Riot: Kentucky Fans, Trayvon Protesters, and The White Privilege Conference

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White Riot: Kentucky Fans, Trayvon Protesters, and

The White Privilege Conference

by Charles Modiano On April 4, 2012(cross posted from POPSspot)
What if Travon Martin Protesters Did This?

Oh, here we go again. This week brought us another sports fueled violent white riot after Kentucky won the NCAA Basketball Championship. The riot, which many had predicted would happen, came just 60 fires and two days after the first one where Kentucky fans burned cars to celebrate its win over Louisville.

The Final Four riots came just months after Penn State fans took to the streets,  crashed down lamposts and flipped over trucks after football coach Joe Paterno was fired for not using his power to prevent the rape of young children.

The Penn State Riots came a year after the Vancouver Canuck Riots which came a year after San Francisco Giants fans cheered their World Series win by looting, setting fires, and attacking cars — or as The San Francisco Chronicle put it — “joyful mayhem“.

And when the games are over, and real life problems come up such as the shooting of Trayvon Martin, the larger criminal justice system that his death symbolizes, and the rallies across the country demanding reform. Led by, but not limited to a divisive conservative media, many have wondered: “Is The Media Inciting Violence?” and “Is Spike Lee’s Tweet the Same kind of Violence That Killed Emmit Till? while “Sanford Frets About Prospects of Riots Over Trayvon Martin Killing“.

Ironically, while thousands of mostly white Kentucky fans were tearing up the Kentucky campus this weekend, more than 1400 mostly white people were gathered in Albuquerque, New Mexico for The 13th Annual White Privilege Conference. At WPC13, participants attended four days of workshops and supportive caucuses to better understand what white privilege is, what it is not, what’s inside the “invisible knapsack” of privileges, and using this knowledge to facilitate positive social change.

Saturday’s keynote address on “Intersectionality in the Age of Post-Racialism” was given  by law professor Dr. Kimberle Crenshaw. Besides being a pioneering scholar, Dr. Crenshaw  also happens to be a big sports fan rooted in childhood heroes named Jim Brown and Muhammad Ali. I had the privilege of sitting down with Dr. Crenshaw to get her thoughts on today’s sports landscape. In part of the interview which took place just a couple of hours before the first Kentucky riot, she had this to say in response to The Penn State Scandal and protest of Joe Paterno’s firing:

“Fundamentally, we see the difference between how outrage, hurt, and pain is framed sympathetically when it’s about white pain, white institutions, white patriarchs, white heroes, and how just the fear of that kind of acting out [by African-Americans] will create such reactions.

So nothing bad has happened around all of the protests around Trayvon Martin, but everybody is saying: ‘just so it’s non-violent’… ‘just so it doesn’t get out of control’… and ‘let’s not desecrate his memory’.

Well, nothing has happened.

So that very disparity represents precisely the disciplinary fear of Black people that led to Trayvon’s death in the first place.”

By calling into question the inner fears that produce greater concern for imagined Black violence over real actual white violence, Dr. Crenshaw questions the sort of mindset or “gutset” that continually produces so many variations of Trayvon Martin (see Ramarley Graham, Oscar Grant, Kenneth Chamberlain, Howard Morgan, etc.).

Her comments were in line with the goals of The White Privilege Conference which served as an introspective and productive ”gut-check” for white people (and others) to help eradicate harmful biases by first recognizing their existence .

Says WPC Founder and Program Director, Dr. Eddie Moore, Jr.:

“The White Privilege Conference is designed to critically examine, critically push, and critically challenge participants amidst a loving, family-oriented, and community environment.

In that context, it is important to look at white privilege in comprehensive ways so when you look at Trayvon, you don’t say “I AM TRAYVON MARTIN”, but instead you explore the various ways in which you could identify and say:

“I  AM GEORGE ZIMMERMAN”.

Dr. Moore’s statement signifies an honest recognition of everyday skin privilege, even if it means getting away with less than murder. This declaration also means identifying with George’s stereotyping of Trayvon, even if his gunshots are replaced with disapproving stares.  While identifying with Zimmerman may not be quite as comforting for white participants (including this author) as throwing on a hoodie in symbolic support of Trayvon, it’s definitely necessary if we are going to get real about about racism.

In this broader context, recognizing white privilege includes questioning ”the white right to riot” while the larger white community never has to pay a racial price. Those guys who set all those fires in Kentucky? “It wasn’t me — not my problem.” Being white means the privilege of never having to suffer from “group punishment“.

In her analysis of the OJ Simpson Trial,  Dr. Crenshaw explains that African-Americans received “group punishment” by whites in the aftermath of the case. Despite legitimate reasons for doubt (and , African-Americans were viewed, discussed, and punished as a group — both socially and politically — for the celebratory response to ”The Verdict”.

Conversely, the immediate response to Joe Paterno’s firing drew no group punishment or even group analysis of “white culture” or a “culture of white male privilege”, but instead focused on every  conceiveable “sub-culture” besides race. Even after months of reflection, a recent poll found that Pennsylvania voters favor changing the current stadium name to Joe Paterno Stadium. The poll wasn’t just college fratboys — but registered voters.  And while none of those “yes votes” were likely cast by the then-child victims of rape that Paterno had the power to protect, the life-long trauma of those victims might be worth a national discussion.

But honest national conversations by white people about white people as a group just don’t happen.

At least not in too many circles outside of The White Privilege Conference where I learned at least three things:

1) I have largely taken my hoodie-wearing for granted like I’m Bill Belichick.

2) ”Errupt Big Blue” means the right to riot twice in 48 hours without racial repercussion, and

3) “I AM NOT TRAYVON MARTIN”

RELATED: “We Are Penn State”: Is Hip Hop Culture To Blame?

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Restaurant is Looted

Lexington Fire Department Tweets Detailed Account of Student “Riots”

Drug Culture on College Campuses and the Criminalization of Student Athletes | Urban Cusp

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Drug Culture on College Campuses and the Criminalization of Student Athletes

By David J. Leonard

UC Columnist

In a world where the stigmas of drugs and the destructiveness of the war on drugs have been confined to the black community, particularly those segregated urban spaces, the recent announcement of the arrest of several students from Texas Christian University should cause pause. Following a 6-month investigation from the DEA, the police arrested 17 students, including 4 football players, selling a myriad of drugs – marijuana, cocaine, prescription drugs and ecstasy on and off campus. The inclusion of 4 football players resulted in widespread media coverage, few which made note that 3 of those arrested were white, an important fact given the media-produced stereotype about race, crime, and American athletes. Worse yet, the efforts to isolate the problem of drugs to student athletes, not only plays upon stereotypes about black athletes, even in instances such as this where only 1 person involved is African American, but once again exonerates whiteness from the discussion. In narrating the problem of drugs on college campuses through athletics, an identity difficult to disentangle from blackness within the white imagination, the media sensationalism perpetuates a racially-defined war on drugs.

Described as a “stain on the football program,” and “an especially embarrassing blow to the school because it included four members of the high-profile football team,” the media response focused on the arrest of the 4 student-athletes, simultaneously rendering the other students (at least 11) and non-students involved as insignificant to the larger story. Those from the football team became the story, the starting team, with the others involved reduced to peripheral bench players unworthy of media investigation or commentary. In “TCU Will Survive Shameful Day,” Jean-Jacques Taylor denounced the players as “shameful, embarrassing, stupid,” seemingly letting the other students involved, the school, and the coach off the hook. In fact, Taylor celebrates the coach for how he handled the situation even though according to the article, 80 players tested positive for drugs (other sources put this number between 5-16): “Perhaps he’s simply observed what’s happened at Ohio State and Penn State recently and decided the fallout from the cover-up is so much worse than the crime that it’s far better to come clean and deal with the consequences,” writes the reporter for ESPN Dallas. “Either way, Patterson should be applauded for having the gumption to reportedly order team-wide drug testing when a recruit told him that he was declining a scholarship offer because of the drug culture.” Like much of the media coverage, Taylor turns a 6-month investigation that netted the arrests of at least 17 people for narcotics distribution to the “drug culture” of the team.

He was not alone with a significant media emphasis on how the arrests were emblematic of an epidemic ravaging college athletes. Eric Olson, with “TCU Bust Sign of Increased Pot Problem,” sought to contextualize the arrests as evidence of a larger problem. Noting that 22.6% of student-athletes reported using marijuana once during the last 12 months, and how that number is up from 21.2% in 2005, Olson argues that these arrests are indicative of a larger problem for college sports. Yet, the “evidence” provided by this study is actually contradicted by the study itself, which argues that the slight increase in marijuana use reflects a societal shift rather than something specific to college athletics. Moreover, the study found that within the NCAA, marijuana use is least common amongst Division I student-athletes (16.9%), with Division II student-athletes (21.4%) and those from Division III having the highest level of usage with a number of 28.3%. In fact, while drug usage declined at the Division I level, those other two levels saw increases. Olson also references usage amongst student-athletes playing football and basketball, coincidentally those sports with the most visible number of African Americans, implying that the problem is acute within these sports. While basketball (22%) and football (26.7%) mirror widespread findings within all sports (the study doesn’t break the information down for each sport within each division), men’s lacrosse (48.5%), women’s lacrosse (30%) and women’s field hockey (35.7%) might as well get a feature article in High Times.

Conflating their arrests for alleged drug distribution with drug use amongst student-athletes, all while arguing the existence of a growing problem (up 1.5%), the efforts to construct this as a product of athletic culture and specifically an out-growth of football and basketball programs is telling.

The efforts to narrate a story specific to a college athletics, playing upon the sensationalism and particular stereotypes, has significant consequences. In isolating and confining the narrative to basketball courts and football stadium, the media representation continues the erasure of drug uses and criminal activity amongst college students. Most studies put drug use amongst college students at rates higher than general public, with almost 23% of college students meeting the clinical definition of alcohol or drug dependence.

Continue reading at Drug Culture on College Campuses and the Criminalization of Student Athletes | Urban Cusp.