A New Round of White Denial: Drugs and Race in the 'Burbs

By Tim Wise, AlterNet. Posted August 14, 2001.

Here we go again.

In a time of multiple school and workplace shootings, middle-aged mass murderers, drug-saturated rave parties, and moms who drown their kids in tubs, lakes, or dump them in garbage cans, one question comes to mind. How long will suburban white America get away with expressing shock at the criminal proclivities of its progeny, without media exposing their presumption of incorruptibility as fallacious and patently racist? Especially when government statistics indicate deviance and dysfunction are quite commonplace with such folks and in such places.

On Sunday, August 12, the front page of the Washington Post brought us yet another story about white suburban youth, who, to the amazement of their parents, friends, and the media, turn out to be stone cold criminals. This time the headlines emanate from "nice neighborhoods," in Northern Virginia: places where sinister crimes aren't supposed to happen.

But, as authorities have discovered, one of the most significant drug operations in the region's history was being run from this "nice, safe" place. And not by dark-skinned street-hustlers preying on vulnerable teens and getting them hooked; but rather, by the former soccer-playing little leaguers who this nation grooms to run major corporations, hold political office, or merely typifies as normal, all-American boys.

In this particular drama, one of the principal players, named (I kid you not) Owen Merton Barber IV, stands accused of murdering Daniel Petrole Jr., one of his drug-dealing colleagues at the behest of yet another fellow-dealer, Justin Michael Wolfe.

Seem implausible? Surreal even? Thanks to well-worn stereotypes about drug users, dealers, and criminals in general, we've come to expect the bad guys to look like them. Black and brown people, not those who are white like us. When we have to protect ourselves from folks with names like Owen Merton Barber the Fourth, well, what is the world coming to?

Actually, although underreported, drug data has long confirmed that the stereotypes of users and dealers (poor, black or Latino, and urban-dwelling) are not only racist, but also wrong.

According to the National Institutes on Drug Abuse, the Centers for Disease Control, and the Department of Health and Human Services, whites are equally or more likely to use drugs than their African American counterparts, despite common misperceptions to the contrary.

Although blacks and Hispanics tend to try drugs for the first time at a slightly younger age than whites, by the end of high school, whites have caught up and surpassed them in every drug category. White seniors are a third more likely to have smoked pot in the past year, seven times more likely to have used cocaine, three times more likely to have used heroin, and nine times more likely to have used LSD. And it's not just that there are more white users, as this would reflect mere population percentages, but rather, that the white rate of use is that much higher than the rate for blacks.

It's the same story for young adults. Whites are 66 percent of 18-25 year olds, but 70 percent of drug users that age. Blacks are 13.5 percent of persons in that age cohort, but only 13 percent of young adult users, while Hispanics are nearly 15 percent of that age group, but only 12 percent of drug users 18-25.

When it comes to drug dealing, the picture changes only slightly. According to the Justice Department, drug users tend to buy from same-race dealers. So the nearly three-quarters of users who are white, mainly rely on white dope peddlers, not the Jamaicans or Dominicans of popular imagery. And when it comes to drugs like Ecstasy -- a hot product for the Virginia cartel -- the dealers and users have long been known to be mostly white, middle class males between 14 and 32.

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