“High” Performance: Black Athletes and the “War on Drugs”

“High” Performance: Black Athletes and the “War on Drugs”

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

Some days the sports media seems obsessed with drug use by athletes.  Whether recreational drugs or performance enhancing drugs, sports pages are often dedicated to lamenting and bemoaning the dialects between society and sports as it relates to drugs.

Stepping into a culture that obsesses over drug use amongst athletes, Courtland Milloy highlights a recent study - Cannabis in Sport: Anti-Doping Perspective”– from Marilyn Huestis, Irene Mazzoni, and Oliver Rabin.  In spite widespread media condemnation of athletes accused of smoking marijuana and the drug testing policies of several professional sports league, Milloy concludes that there may be good reason for players to smoke marijuana.  “Whenever a professional athlete is suspended for smoking marijuana. . . a question usually arises: Why would they risk so much for so little? Turns out, the benefits of taking a few puffs aren’t so little,” he writes in “For pro athletes, the risks of smoking pot are high — but so are the benefits.”  He then quotes the authors, who offered a lengthy discussion of the issues at hand as they relate to sports:

That when smoked in small amounts by athletes,  “cannabis can decrease anxiety, fear, depression and tension. Furthermore, cannabinoids play a major role in the extinction of fear memories by interfering with learned aversive behaviors. Athletes who experienced traumatic events in their career could benefit from such an effect. . . . . Athletes under the influence of cannabis indicate that their thoughts flow more easily and their decision making and creativity is enhanced.  Health professionals have encountered athletes including gymnasts, divers, football players and basketball players who claim smoking cannabis before play helps them focus better.

The conclusions should be of little surprise given the widespread research on the medicinal properties of cannabis.  Likewise, the story of Rickey Williams, who reportedly smoked marijuana to treat his social anxiety, which is debilitating to all but particularly difficult for public figures, is testament to the conclusions here. 

Yet, its importance rests with its effort to challenge the narrative that criminalizes today’s athletes.   This study and the column itself disrupts the “the fusion of black athletes, rappers, and criminals into a single menacing figure who disgusts and offends many blacks as well as whites,” (Hoberman 1997, p. xix).  By imagining potential marijuana use as a response to the physical and mental strains associated with professional sports as well as a “performance enhancing drug,” Milloy disrupts the pathological/criminal/race-based narratives that guide the convergence of the front and back pages.      

Yet, the article leaves a sour taste in my mouth.  Trying to connect with decriminalization efforts, Milloy misses an opportunity to highlight the ways in which the war on drugs/the criminalization of marijuana has been a war on communities of color. In Washington D.C., African Americans are 8 times more likely to be arrested than whites.  In California, 62% of arrests for marijuana are against people of color, notwithstanding lower levels of usage.  In New York City, 1 in 7 arrests are for marijuana possession with the burden of the war on drugs directed at youth of color.  According to a recent report

Between 1997 and 2007, police arrested and jailed about 205,000 blacks, 122,000 Latinos and 59,000 whites for possessing small amounts of marijuana. Blacks accounted for about 52 percent of the arrests, though they represented only 26 percent of the city’s population over that time span. Latinos accounted for 31 percent of the arrests but 27 percent of the population. Whites represented only 15 percent of those arrested, despite comprising 35 percent of the population.

Government surveys of high school seniors and young adults 18 to 25 consistently show that young whites use marijuana more often than young blacks and Latinos. The arrests also are heavily skewed by gender. About 91 percent of people arrested were male.

Given the criminalization of marijuana usage within black and Latino communities, it should be of little surprise that marijuana use by professional basketball and football players elicits media outrage and league intervention.  The fear, the outrage, and the criminalization of marijuana in certain sports are merely an extension of the criminalization, profiling, and inequality of the war on drugs throughout society. 

The racially-based selective enforcement of drug laws in society at large extends into the sports world.  The ways that race, sport, and drug intersect is on full display for a 2003 article in The New York Daily News:

Most pro athletes flee from anything that smacks of controversy, but [Bob] Burnquist, 26, and O'Brien, 24, feel compelled to stand up for marijuana. Legalize it, they say - marijuana can be used for fuel, for medicine, even for food. Oh yeah, they add, it also makes people feel good. “There is so much we can do with it,” Burnquist says.

It's hard to imagine NBA and NFL stars publicly embracing marijuana. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws has tried to coax pro athletes to speak out for pot legalization, but the only player who has stepped forward is former Dallas Cowboy All-Pro center Mark Stepnoski, now the president of NORML's Texas chapter.

Skateboarders and other extreme or action sports athletes, including those in motocross, snowboarding and surfing, don't feel so inhibited. O'Brien even appeared on the cover of High Times magazine last year, holding a big, fat bud. “I believe it's God's gift to us,” says O'Brien, who won't say if she actually smokes pot. Burnquist says he's an occasional toker.

“We smoke all the time,” says motocross rider Beau Manley. “It's part of what we do – ride and get stoned with our bros.”

This article is indicative of the ways in which whiteness insulates, rationalizes, and decriminalizes white use of marijuana.  Whereas drugs are seen as a natural extension of the culture of extreme sports, and therefore harmless, the intrusion of drug use within football and basketball is seen as harmful, evidence of the criminal grips on its sporting culture.  While Milloy’s column and presumably the research itself reflects on drug usage by athletes across a myriad of sports, both the public concern and the overall policing within the United States has been reserved for those sports overwhelming played by African Americans.  As with the war on drugs, the war on marijuana use by athletes has been a war on African American athletes.  To fail to acknowledge this larger context, and to ignore the fact that marijuana use amongst whites, athletes or not, is already accepted, represents a missed opportunity.

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David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis.  Leonard’s latest book After Artest: Race and the Assault on Blackness will be published by SUNY Press in May of 2012.

Forgotten Fathers: Parenting and the Prison Industrial Complex

Forgotten Fathers: 
Parenting and the Prison Industrial Complex

by David J. Leonard | special to NewBlackMan

Happy father’s day to all the fathers and grandfathers, but especially to those in Attica, San Quentin, Angola, and countless other prisons throughout the United States. For many, this is a day of celebration, of happiness and reflection. It is a day where kids give their dads homemade gifts and extra-special hugs. While everyday as a parent brings smiles and laughter, it is day where it is hard not to feel special as a dad. Yet, it should also be a day of reflection, where we as a society think about those who are unable to celebrate as a family. I am speaking about those among us who as  Angela Davis laments have disappeared from the public imagination: incarcerated fathers.

According to a report entitled  “Children of Incarcerated Parents,” in 2007 America was home to 1.7 million children (under 18) whose parent was being held in state or federal prison – that is 2.3 percent of American children will likely be celebrating father’s day away from dad. Despite hegemonic clamoring about family values, the prison industrial complex continues to ravage American families. Since 1991, the number of children with a father in prison has increased from 881,500 to 1.5 million in 2007. Over this same time period, children of incarcerated mothers increased from 63,900 to 147,400. Roughly half of these children are younger than 9, with 32 percent being between the ages of 10 and 14.

The problem is even more pronounced when looking at Black and Latino fathers. The numbers are startling: 1 in 15 black children lives away from their parent because of incarceration. For Latinos that number is 1 in 41, compared to 1 in 110 for white children. For incarcerated African Americans (1 in 3 black men are currently in prison, jail, on probation or parole), father’s day isn’t simply a day of disconnect from their sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, but one that highlights their separation from their own fathers and entire family. 

The consequences of America’s war on drugs (a war principally waged against black and brown America), of America’s “New Jim Crow”  (see Michelle Alexander’s work), are evident on this day. Too many fathers, particularly black and Latino fathers, will celebrate alone, away from their sons and daughters. Writing in response to the widespread debate about the state of black fatherhood, Michelle Alexander makes clear the links between the new Jim Crow and “missing black fathers” in America. “Here's a hint for all those still scratching their heads about those missing black fathers: Look in prison,”  writes Alexander. She continues,

The mass incarceration of people of color through the War on Drugs is a big part of the reason that a black child born today is less likely to be raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery. The absence of black fathers from families across America is not simply a function of laziness, immaturity, or too much time watching Sports Center. Hundreds of thousands of black men have disappeared into prisons and jails, locked away for drug crimes that are largely ignored when committed by whites.

The systematic efforts to break-apart families, destroy communities, and separate fathers and mothers from their children is a direct result of the incarceration of drug users. According to Alexander, as of 2005, 4 in 5 drug arrests were for possession by individuals with no history of violence; in the 1990s alone, a period that saw a massive expansion of America’s war on drug users, 80 percent of those sent to prison were done so for marijuana possession. Yet, again we see how this is not a war on drugs or even illicit drug use, but use within the black community even  though whites are far more likely to use illegal drugs.  In a number of states, between 80 and 90 percent of all drug convictions have been of African Americans.

The impact of the war on drugs transcends father’s day. The systematic effort to dismantle families results in isolation and disconnection from community, support systems, and loved ones 365 days per year. It has resulted in a brain drain and systematic removal of grandfathers and grandmothers, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters – entire communities. On average, children live 100 miles away from their incarcerated parents. A 2000 U.S. Department of Justice Report found that over half of America’s prisoners have not been visited by their children. An expansive and far-reaching criminal justice system touches so many of our lives.

In 2007, my wife gave birth to our son. Without question, this day was one of the most joyous and heart-wrenching days of life. In addition to his birth coming 1-year after the death of our daughter Sophie (she died the day after she was born), it was about 24 hours after I hadt one of the most painful conversations with my father.

The memory is still vivid. I was sitting in my office, preparing for parental leave of absence, when my phone rang. I could hear the sadness and fear in his voice. He had been convicted and was facing jail time. He was scared of losing his career, the life that he had worked so hard for up until that point, and a future of seeing his kids and grandkids grow up. Listening to my father’s voice was disheartening; the prospect of having to tell my children that grandpa wasn’t going to be there for our next visit was terrifying then for many months to come. Thankfully (and revealing the ways in which privilege operates within the criminal justice system), our family never had to see him go jail. I did, however, see the financial and personal difficulties that besiege so many families. Too many families are being split apart because of expanding and overzealous criminal justice system. Too many fathers and mothers have to tell their children that they have to go away. Too many children wake up each and every day with a parent locked up. Too many children have to go through a metal detector simply to deliver a father’s day wish today.

Last year, in  “Imagine What Father's Day Is Like for All the Dads and Sons in Prison,” Stephen H. Phelps offered the following father’s day reminder: “Let us take advantage of this Father's Day to turn our well-wishing toward the ends for which our hearts are shaped; toward compassion for every son and every father who is in prison. And especially for black and brown men in prison.” Reminding us all that “these men are your sons. We are all their fathers,” Phelps calls upon us to collectively remember those who are unable to share this day with their children, who because of the troubling war on drugs are unable to be the fathers they would like to be. So, on the 40th anniversary of the racially-based and ineffective war on drugs, lets work toward the greatest present of all to not only fathers, but mothers, children, and our society at large: its end. 

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David J. Leonard is Associate Professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums.  His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis. He is the author of Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema and the forthcoming After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop (SUNY Press).