2014 Shaping the Future of New York Fridays: 11:00-1:45 Boylan Hall, 2231

To continue the apparent theme of quoting famous rappers in our reading responses, this week’s reading of The New Jim Crow is essentially summarized in Jay-Z’s ‘04 single, 99 Problems. Though many of the lyrics would most likely not be deemed appropriate for a Macaulay blog post, in his second verse Jay-Z describes an incident that occurred nearly 10 years earlier, back when he was a notorious drug dealer. After being pulled over to the side of the road with “raw,” or cocaine, in his trunk, he is asked, quite condescendingly by the approaching police officer, “Son do you know why I’m stopping you for?”

Jay-Z, clearly possessing the “chutzpah and/or stupidity to tell a police officer to get lost” (the same trait that Professor Tracey Maclin argued most of us do not have), responds, accurately of course, “Cause I’m young and I’m black and my hat’s real low. Do I look like a mind-reader sir, I don’t know.” Fairly, Jay-Z is calling out the police officer for racially profiling a young black male and using the pretext of a traffic violation to accost and harass him, a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment that was, in fact, endorsed by the Supreme Court Decision Ohio v. Robinette. Jay-Z emphasizes the arbitrary nature of such a blatant infringement of his constitutional rights with the response of the “fictional,” police officer: “Well you was doing 55 in a 54. License and registration and step out of the car. Are you carrying a weapon on you? I know a lot of you are.”

Jay-Z, being well versed in historical and influential Supreme Court decisions, proves himself a “reasonable person,” (as determined by the U.S. Justices in Florida v. Bostick) by refusing to give his consent to be frisked, and otherwise violated. “I ain’t stepping out of s**t, all my paper’s legit”

The officer, not one to be denied, pushes further for consent, “Well, do you mind if I look around the car a little bit.”

 Jay-Z, still quite aware of his Fourth Amendment rights, boldly retorts, “Well, my glove compartment is locked, so is the trunk in the back. And I know my rights, so you gon’ need a warrant for that.”

The officer, likely intimidated by the young and apparently intelligent black man in front of him, replies, frustrated, “Well we’ll see how smart you are when the K9 come,” reflecting the Supreme Court ruling that “walking a drug-sniffing dog around someone’s vehicle does not constitute a “search,” and therefore does not trigger Fourth Amendment scrutiny.”

Luckily for him, Jay-Z got away that day, and if his careers as a rapper, business mogul and sports agent do not work out, he would seemingly be able to fend for himself as a lawyer. His song sort of represents the difficulty in assessing the necessity of the War on Drugs, demonstrating both the racial prejudice inherent in much of police action and the fact that these “unreasonable and discriminatory stops and searches” are sometimes correct, however rarely that may be.

I fail to understand how anyone could be even the slightest bit surprised at the idea of discrimination in our justice system, especially since, as of late, we have become all too familiar with the injustices and racism inherent in so many of our police policies.  Stop and Frisk, for example, has dominated the New York media outlets in recent years, particularly because of the shocking extent of discrimination that it brings to light. In New York City, 80% of all stops made by NYPD officers were either black or Latino. The ignorance that that percentage implies is frankly just mind-boggling. In what may perhaps be the most egregious illustration of our country’s nearly irreparable level of racism, the U.S. Sentencing Commission divulged that “Black male offenders have continued to receive longer sentences than similarly situated White male offenders.” Black offenders receive sentences 10% longer than their white counterparts. There can be no greater indication of police and judicial contempt of Blacks in America than that extremely depressing, and slightly nauseating, reality.

While the concept of institutionalized racism did not catch me off guard, the crux of Michelle Alexander’s argument was, initially at least, a bit off-putting. The idea that our justice system was engineered to restrict the rights and liberties of black communities struck me as conspiratorial. Yet, as Alexander continuously and deliberately built her case, the possibility emerged that her seemingly outlandish claims could, in fact, contain some truth. If I understand the author correctly, our current state essentially arose from the political incentive to exploit the racist tendencies of Americans nationwide by “cracking down on crime,” which, at that point, was basically code for “discriminating against blacks.” Just the consideration of these concepts is enough to bring an entirely new perspective with which to view crime in America.

Rudolf Virchow’s declaration regarding the role of medicine in society is applied by the authors in order to define the responsibility of public health officials and to accentuate the necessity of structural, or social, interventions. Immediately, Virchow’s idealistic and, frankly, slightly inspiring perspective struck me as existing in stark contrast with our current state of affairs. I quote, “The physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor, and social problems fall to a large extent within their jurisdiction.” Today, towering health insurance premiums essentially ensure that millions of Americans will not be able to afford basic medical care. According to the Health PAC website, “Over 40 millions people a year do not get medical care when they need, even if insured, because they can’t afford it.”

On a personal note, while patiently waiting for a haircut last Friday, I eavesdropped on a conversation a customer was having with my barber, Frank. After being cooped up in a hospital for a little over a week, the man had just gotten his hospital bill in the mail. He was being charged $38,000.

To call that highway robbery would be an egregious understatement. How can a contemporary physician act as an attorney of the poor and underprivileged if the poor and underprivileged cannot afford to see the physician?

The Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, the CSDH, claims that in order to tackle health inequities, the must first, “tackle the inequitable distribution of power, money and resources.” While I don’t’ believe that this particular approach would be especially effective (see U.S.S.R, China), I suppose that the government must, in some form, involve itself in mitigating the costs a typical hospital patient must abide with. Fortunately for Americans across the country, I am not (yet) in charge of anything, and so my presumably terrible ideas will never be implemented or imposed on anyone or anything. We should all be grateful.