discrimination before any legal remedy can be applied.
The Civil Rights Act passed in 1964, and was effective in 1965, was supposed to rectify the unequal treatment of black individuals. It just served to drive the discrimination underground. On the surface, blacks were admitted as members of society. They could eat at restaurants, go the theater, use the rest rooms, and ride the bus. But a law cannot change a person's belief, or society's covert behavior. As blacks pressed for significant changes in society, majority resistance, to considering and treating black individuals as equals, was strengthened and conservative ideology became more dominant (Carter 291).
Blacks are discriminated against by the larger majority for two main reasons: they are black, and they are often poor. The justice system discriminates against both groups. When a person is poor and black, it is two strikes against the person, not just one. If a person is rich and white, the justice system favors that person with preferential treatment. When a subjective decision needs to be made regarding arrest, or prosecution, the defendant is given the benefit of doubt more often if the defendant is white, rich, or better yet, rich and white.
The public is slow to show sympathy for the poor, mostly minority, and often guilty defendants who are served by the public defenders office (Gleick 42). The public defenders office is often perceived as the enemy of the predominantly white majority's public welfare. Eighty to ninety percent of all felony defendants are too poor to hire their own lawyers. Drug charges are felony charges. The majority of crack users are white (Carter 292). Over Eighty-eight percent of all federal crack distribution convictions are black individuals; this compares to blacks comprising under twenty-five percent of cocaine trafficking convictions (Smolowe 44). The difference in ratio lies in the definitions of the crimes and...