Thread by @InvisiblesMuros

A thread for people who say "Racism isn't a problem in the US justice system"

A personal story of systemic discrimination: A long time ago I sold marijuana in New York City. A LOT of it. Like when I say a lot, I mean LOT. Probably supplied half of Bushwick. I was young and dumb

But most importantly, I was white. Now, I lived right across the street from the projects (Bushwick and Flushing) in BK. For four years I was selling about 20lbs of marijuana a week (back when it was more illegal). I regularly walked down the street with a felony on my person

BK cops regularly ran sting operations on kids in the projects who sold dimebags for pocket money- $10 bags of crappy weed. They ran surveillance as well. I regularly saw them cuffing teens for having about 20$ of weed

Sometimes I saw this while carrying 10lbs in a backpack

I also worked with delivery services at the time: supplying them. They sent out messengers to make home deliveries. My friend, who is black, ran one. He told me "I hire dorky looking white kids as deliverers. I can't hire black men. Every time I hire a black man he gets arrested"

"The white kids with glasses and dorky bike helmets are invisible. Cops don't even see them, man." So, I did this for about 4 years before I realized it was an incredible risk for a lot less money than a corporate lawyer makes. During that time some friends of mine went to jail

Out of the nine personal friends of mine, "colleagues" as it were who were arrested and charged with felonies, 8 were black. The one white guy I knew who got charged was an idiot. He mailed 40lbs of weed to his parents house and they called the cops. All us other yte kids got off

ALL of us. The only reason I don't have a criminal record now is because of my skin color. I would literally wave to police harassing kids in the projects as I walked past with absurd amounts of contraband. They would wave back

"Hey, its the friendly white guy in the hood!"

This brings me to my point: those who say "Blacks commit crimes at a higher rate than whites is the problem"

No, blacks are ARRESTED and CHARGED at a higher rate than their white peers. All USians consume drugs at the same rate, but black folk are FAR more likely to be arrested

People who make this argument are trying to use a symptom of the problem to deny there is a problem- i.e: police are more likely to arrest and 4x as likely to kill African Americans

I have ZERO doubt that the only reason I didn't go to jail was my skin color

That shit is armor against aggressive policing, and certainly against profiling. Anyway, I quit that game a long time ago because ultimately even for dorky looking white boys like me, the risk didn't justify the reward. I walked away

Most of my black friends weren't so lucky

Legal disclaimer: I looked up the statute of limitations before I posted this. I'm good. It was a long time ago. Back before Bushwick was vegan cupcake land 🙃

Correction: I knew two white guys who went to jail. The second one was arrested in Kansas in a propeller airplane that was carrying 300lbs en route from Cali to Long Island

They were stopped because they repainted the identification numbers on the tail w a fake one

He was also an idiot tho tbf