Ben Wright Wright 1
English 201
Research Paper / 5th draft
Dec 17, 1999
Rebel – Refusing obedience or allegiance, or offering armed opposition, to the rightful or actual ruler or ruling power of the country. (Simpson)
Due to the position and the history of African Americans in the United States, they have most respected, idolized, and glorified the rebellious role throughout history. This rebellious role describes some of the most well known African-Americans over the last two hundred years of American history. A short list of these cultural icons would include Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglas, Rosa Parks, Richard Wright, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and TuPac Shakur. These outspoken figures of the African American community have achieved notoriety and fame by questioning laws and governmental authority throughout the history of our country. They rebelled against laws that they found to be unjust and a deprivation of liberty and personal freedom. I contend due to the high esteem given to individuals who stood against the tyranny of the United Sates government in the past, that African Americans are more likely to question its ultimate authority and have more disregard for laws which are currently in place that limit personal freedom, primarily the present drug laws. My argument is not that all African Americans idolize the person who challenges the status quo. It is simply that African Americans in general are more likely when compared to other groups,
such as Caucasians, to perceive the rebel in a positive light in the fight against the
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primary system of authority. In addition, this perception is a major factor for the present racial disproportionality present in the current drug arrests and prison population.
Stories of the courage of African-Americans in fighting oppression and rebelling against previously thought sound U.S. governmental policies abound. Harriet Tubman was one of the first such stories with her extraordinary ability to lead slaves to freedom using the underground railroad. “Harriet Tubman was a radical because she acted on the belief that slaves had only two choices—freedom or death” (Nies 46). In addition, there has been an abundance of approval by African-Americans for even some of the most extreme African American political leaders. “The majority (52 percent) approved of Malcolm X, who for African Americans epitomized distrust of the larger white racist society” (Fendrich 57). These two main ideas are repeated throughout American history.
Although there is an abundance of idolized rebels in past African-American culture, there are also numerous examples of idolized modern day African-American rebels as well. The modern day version has often been portrayed in a negative light by American society just as the past version has. For example, a modern, primary form of black entertainment is the rap music genre, which has its roots in questioning authority and control through its lyrics in the sub genre gangster rap. These rappers either are or were examples of modern day rebels. For example, when Cop Killer by Ice-T began selling, there was a big outcry by many politicians and other prominent figures, such as the then vice-president Dan Quayle, to “withdraw this record,” (Tu Pac, track 4). “This type of rap is almost constantly being attacked by politicians” (Katzr 2). The response from Ice-T and other rappers was a modern day rebellious response to their assumed
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authority and they expressed this concern in their forthcoming records. For example, “my message to the Censorship Committee, who’s the biggest gang of niggaz in the city,” (Tu Pac, track 6). In another part of this same record, the lyrics are “Can’t find peace on the streets till the niggaz get a piece, fuck police, I hear ya,” (Tu Pac, track 6). From the “fuck police” comment alone, one can deduce the hatred of governmental authority figures portrayed through these lyrics, showing him to have been a prominent African-American rebel. These statements are just are just a few examples of lyrics throughout rap which convey this attitude. “The language they use is very explicit and descriptive. It also tends to have very negative things to say” (Katzr 2). Simply stated, the reason that black rappers try to be the most extreme and offensive exemplifies the idea that blacks need to be more subversive and contra-authority in order to be successful in America when compared to whites.
Examples of drug war propaganda affiliated with other races and ethnic backgrounds are apparent since the beginning of the drug war. These examples relied on the fears of the majority toward these people in order to combine drugs with something that many people feared or disliked already. “The black thus became another potent racial image in the drug debate….This imagery revealed apprehensions about these ethnic groups and a desire to control their behavior or isolate them…. Nonusers in the ‘normal’ society feared that anyone risked becoming like the black, Mexican, oriental, or Near Easterner if he permitted drug use to detach him from majoritarian values.” (Morgan 93-94) This and other evidence suggests that a big factor in the decision to make some drugs illegal is that these drugs were associated with African-Americans. The association of
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one with the other leads to the marginalization of the one in a subtle and underlying attempt to marginalize the other. Therefore, maybe due to the past cultural association of drugs with African-Americans, African-Americans see disobeying current drug laws as another way to rebel against this subtle form of marginalization and against a society under which they have suffered numerous previous injustices. Perhaps the following statistics tell the story of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Table 1 below highlights the present differences in the disparity among blacks and whites concerning drug arrests and incarceration rates:
White –
62.1% Black – 36.9%
Incarceration by Race, 1997:
White – 57% Black – 40%
Source: Information Please Almanac, 1998. Brunner, Borgna. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997: 853-855.
In addition, 60.2 % of the prison population is in prison for committing drug offenses (Brunner 855). These figures may not seem noteworthy until one realizes that as of the last census in 1990 that whites comprise 83.9% of the population while blacks make up a mere 12.3% of the U.S. population (Brunner 826). Also, there is evidence that this trend was even worse in the past. “In 1989, with blacks comprising 12% of the population, 42% of drug arrests were of blacks” (Leone 49). There are a number of
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reasons normally given for the lack of proportionality involved with this issue. My theory is that the rebel in African American culture is not condemned as much as in Caucasian culture and therefore there is a lack of moral condemnation for the individuals who go against the drug laws of this country. “In this context there is not the moral condemnation of criminal acts that one encounters in middle-class white society” (Baughman 66). From this model, perhaps a criminal is not seen as detrimental to society among African-Americans when compared to other ethnic groups, primarily Caucasians.
There are three good counter-arguments to this theory for the unequal representation of African Americans in America’s prison system and the unequal arrests for drug abuse violations:
1) The theory that blacks are targeted by law enforcement more often and thus
caught more. This theory is compelling due to a number of acts (e.g. Rodney King) in the 1990’s of excessive use of force against minority groups by police officers. But, though the claim has a great deal of merit, it is hard to justify this accounting for a whole 26.9% disparity.
2) The theory that once caught, blacks are more likely to spend time in jail as
compared to whites because they don’t, on average, have as much money as white people for a good defense in the court of law. This is partially supported by looking at the higher rates of incarceration in relation to the percentage of total arrests by race. (Brunner 853-855) However, this does not explain the higher rates of drug arrests by African-Americans.
3) The theory that the socioeconomic factors make blacks more likely to turn to
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drugs either a) to make a living or b) get disassociated from real life. There is an acknowledged disparity between blacks and whites in average income levels. It is then argued that due to this disadvantage in the economic arena, blacks are more likely than whites to turn to drugs due to a lack of viable alternatives. Consequently, a higher amount of drug arrests and incarceration as a group. This theory is the strongest among the three because it has been supported with a great deal of evidence in the past. Nonetheless, this type of argument favors the idea that being poor is enough justification to be a criminal. This alone is not very strong and allows individuals to make excuses rather than give answers. A stronger argument would be to add these economic factors as part of the overall context of the situation. Being poor and having the idea that rebellion is a good thing facilitates being a criminal, because part of being a rebel is breaking laws. In addition, there is no better justification to being a rebel in this fashion if at the same time you are improving your economic condition.
The problem and similarity of all of these theories is that they continue the treatment of African Americans as victims. None of these reasons give the African American any choice in the matter. Every one of these reasons argues that the African American is a victim of society. They all argue that African Americans have no purpose and are thrown around by the whims of society. It is an attractive argument due to the history of exploitation of African Americans throughout history, but it has its own flaws. This alternative argument provides a provocative and new way of analyzing this topic which gives African Americans more credit for determining their role in society and being the cause of social change rather than the victim. It should not be claimed that
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either side of the argument is 100% correct. Rather, it is my claim that the two meet somewhere in the middle.
A survey was conducted asking the following questions: Gender, Ethnic Background, Do you feel America’s current drug policy is too strict?, and Would you be in favor of a more lenient policy and less governmental control?. Somewhat surprisingly, out of this survey with forty participants, the results did not match my expectations. There were a total of 21 Caucasians who participated in this survey and 19 out of 21 felt that America’s drug policy was too strict and were in favor of a more lenient policy. I contrast, out of 12 African Americans surveyed, only 6 thought America’s current drug policy was too strict and only 7 would be in favor of a more lenient policy and less governmental control. There are many problems with conducting research on such a small scale as in this example. First, the limited size of the survey does not give a very broad range of beliefs, economic, and social differences. This is due to the fact that all participants attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Other areas of the country and social spectrum might possibly have a much different response. Second, this survey has a big problem either supporting or contradicting this theory because just because a person feels that the policy is too strict, does not mean that individual will act on those beliefs. Even though Caucasian individuals may have beliefs counter to those of the power holding majority, that they will not act upon them in a rebellious nature as often, simply because they do not have the tradition of the rebel when compared to African Americans. Rather, they will still follow what is accepted policy although they might believe otherwise. While many African Americans may believe this policy to be correct, the
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ones that do not like this policy may still perceive rebellion against this policy in a more
positive context and hence be more likely to rebel than their Caucasian counterparts, thereby making this survey somewhat unproductive in answering this question. This survey is an excellent example of the pitfalls one can find when generalizing a certain population and the dangers of stereotyping present in our modern and complex society. However, more research would be productive and just as this theory cannot be proven by one survey with forty participants, it cannot be discounted as well.
Although not supported from the survey, I still contend that in African American culture going against what society thinks is continually perceived as noble and courageous when compared to the white perception because whites would rather retain the status quo and their inherent claims to power. Therefore, in white society the rebel is frowned upon. Change is seen as dangerous to the white power structure. Certainly there have been a fair amount of white individuals who have challenged society, but these people went against the fundamental belief in white society that rebellion is bad, while African Americans do not have this fundamental belief, rather–the rebel in African American society is seen as an important part of their fundamental culture. This is characterized as the rebel in African American culture being the model individual while the model individual for white culture is the successful person who plays by the rules. This is portrayed from the past depictions of black cultural icons as well as in many depictions in modern day art and society as shown in the above examples of rap music. In a minority society where rebellion is looked upon and perceived as necessary for
continued change and improvement of their present condition, rebellion will be idolized
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and continually looked upon as a favorable alternative to continued oppression.
Rebellion in most of its forms involves going against standard norms or in its more risky endeavors against laws. Therefore, because African Americans are more likely to rebel against certain assumptions, they are more likely to go against our current drug laws and hence are more likely to get caught and thrown into jail. “It is important to recognize that blacks do not always regard some of their acts as criminal even though they are so labeled by whites” (Baughman 66). This theory explains the disproportionate amounts of blacks arrested and in our current prison system. In addition, due to the fact that the current drug laws limit the personal freedom of choice in the matter, they have a degree of similarity to the restrictive policies imposed by America on blacks in the obvious forms of slavery and lack of civil rights. Two forms which symbolized African Americans in their fight for freedom and equality and where the majority of heroes in African American history can be found. The unfortunate result of rebellion is that the majority (and therefore most powerful in our democratic system of government) culture will not look upon many rebellious activities as good and will attempt to counter them with any means possible using laws voted for in a democratic fashion, hence – drug laws. Drug laws have been enacted with the same democratic process that freedom from slavery was restrained until 1865 and Civil Right’s until the 1960’s. The glorification and respect given to the rich history of rebels and rebellious actions by African Americans should be analyzed further as a possible reason for this continued civil disobedience in the realm of drug violations.