Despite the fact that Whites and Blacks use marijuana at the roughly the same rate, a Black person is 3.73 time more likely than a White person to be arrested for possessing the drug, according to the ACLU. And even after running on a platform to end racially unjust arrests, Blacks and Latinos made up 86 percent of marijuana arrests in the city during the first quarter of N.Y. Mayor Bill de Blasio‘s administration–even as overall arrests declined. What is more disturbing about these figures is that arrests were significantly higher in Black and Latino neighborhoods as oppose to White communities whose use of the drug is similar, according to the Marijuana Arrest Research Project.
For me, the distinction is clear: If you are Black or Latino and in a neighborhood comprised mostly of people of color, your use of marijuana is seen as criminal. If you are White, not so much.
This is why Dowd’s piece disturbs me so much. Twitter reactions to Dowd’s use of the weed almost came across as, “Aww, that’s so cute,” but I have to wonder what the reactions would have been had an African-American female reporter gone to Colorado and done the same thing. Sure, she wouldn’t have gotten arrested, but I doubt the Twitterverse would have been as jovial.