Crime, Law & Social Change 39: 175–192, 2003.

175
© 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Ritual and racism: A social-historical analysis of the crack

sentencing guidelines

BROOKS BERNDT
Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA 94709, USA (e-mail: bberndt@post.harvard.edu)

Abstract. Through the lens of ritual theory, this essay considers the pseudo-religious dimen-
sion of white supremacy in the U.S. judicial and penal systems by performing a case study
analysis of the federal crack sentencing guidelines. In contrast to previous works on the war on
drugs, this essay provides a more integrated understanding of the relationship between racism
and capitalism within these systems. It achieves this by assessing the ritualistic roles people
play in reenacting long-standing cultural practices that have historically been employed as a
mechanism for the social and economic control of blacks. With this approach, the key issue in
understanding racism becomes one of highlighting the repetition of historic patterns instead of
attempting to discern the individual intentions of lawmakers. Finally, this approach also points
to the complex ways in which people from different races and classes can be ironically bound
together in support of racist policies and class hierarchies.

The head of a criminal justice program at a small local university once de-
scribed the students in her classes as having strong convictions and moral
sensibilities that lead them to support the current criminal justice system’s
retributive approach to crime. Later, a colleague who heard the comment sur-
mised that these students, who were future police officers and criminal justice
officials, must have an entrenched allegiance to racism. The high sound-
ing talk about “morals” merely coated white supremacy with a varnish of
righteousness. At the time, I remember having two simultaneous, seemingly
contradictory reactions. On the one hand, I thought the colleague’s response
denied the possibility that one can be pro-punishment and pro-prisons but
not a racist. On the other hand, I sensed that the response was correct. In
the U.S., the typical target and the chosen punishment of the criminal justice
system are inextricably linked through an enmeshment of racist ideologies,
laws, and practices.
While I do not wish to interrogate the hypothetical perspectives of the
criminal justice students in question, I think that it is pertinent to explore the
dynamics of this enmeshment that I regard as part of the psuedo-religiousity
of white supremacy. In this essay, I perform a case study analysis of white
supremacy by using the lens of ritual theory to look at the federal crack sen-
tencing guidelines. Ritual theory possesses the analytical scope and power
that can provide an integrated, multi-faceted understanding of this law and
the smoldering cauldron in which it was created, baptized, and sent forth
176 B. BERNDT

into the world. It provides a theoretical framework for explaining how social,
political, and economic patterns originate, integrate, and sustain themselves
in institutions and a people’s collective psyche. This approach is far from
being an exhaustive account of a hallmark event in the war on drugs, but I
believe it has the potential to contribute to a larger analysis of the war on
drugs in an original manner.
In attempting to assess the war on drugs in its totality, Christian Parenti
performs an admirable dissection of its social, economic, and political under-
pinnings in Lockdown America.1 Beginning with the late sixties, Parenti gives
a detailed account of how the war on drugs has been deployed in moments of
social and economic crisis for ruling powers. In confronting the rebellions of
the late sixties and early seventies, Nixon began a counter-revolutionary war
of suppression under the guise of an offensive against drugs. In the eighties,
Reagan adapted the war into a systematic way of “managing and containing
the new surplus populations created by neoliberal economic policies, even
when these populations” were not engaged in resistance.2 In the end, Parenti
emphasizes class system analysis as the theoretical key to understanding the
primary agenda driving the war on drugs. He states, “Capitalism always cre-
ates surplus populations, needs surplus populations, yet faces the threat of
political, aesthetic, or cultural disruption from those populations. Prison and
criminal justice are about managing these irreconcilable contradictions.”3
Despite his core analysis, Parenti’s rhetoric in portraying the war on drugs
alternates between depicting intense class warfare on the one hand, and a
“one-sided race war” on the other.4 The intertwined state of these wars is
never fully elucidated. At times, Parenti hints at how the relationship between
race and class can be understood in regards to the criminal punishment sys-
tem. Like a loaded playing hand, elites hold race as “an old and trusted trope”
for channeling economic anxieties into a fierce attack against an enemy.5
Later, he expands upon this in summarizing how the criminal punishment
system has expanded so dramatically and rapidly in the U.S.:
. . . recall that politicians in the age of restructuring face a populus racked
by economic and social anxiety. The political classes must speak to and
harness this anxiety, but they cannot blame the US class structure. So
they invent scapegoats: the Black/Latino criminal, the immigrant, the
welfare cheat, crackheads, super predators, and so on. These political
myths are deployed, first and foremost, to win elections. But the eventual
policy by products of this racialized anti-crime discourse are laws like
three strikes and mandatory minimums.6

Parenti does not suggest whence these myths originate. Nor does he discuss
why they are so effective. Moreover, how did these “scapegoats” and “polit-
 RITUAL AND RACISM 177

ical myths” work in developing a cross-race and cross-class coordination of

consent to the war on drugs? These are historical questions that require a
mapping of the past to the present. In charting this course over turbulent
waters, ritual theory becomes useful. In the years following the end of slavery,
the South gave birth to certain ritualistic forms of racism. From the standpoint
of many whites, the end of slavery marked the beginning of a chaotic and
disorienting state of affairs. The order and hierarchy of slavery was gone.
What would replace it? In the wake of the perceived threat of their former
slaves unchained from bondage, a political revival swept through the land
during the Reconstruction era. A new denomination formed from the old-
time religion of white supremacy. At the heart of this new denomination were
prisons which quickly became the central institution in the social control of
southern blacks. In conjunction with the rise of this institution’s prominence,
the Slave Codes of the South were replaced by the Black Codes “which crim-
inalized such behavior as vagrancy, breech of job contracts, absence from
work, the possession of firearms, and insulting gestures or acts.”7 In essence,
these laws permitted authorities to arrest, prosecute, and imprison blacks for
behaviors in which whites could freely engage. As a result, blacks became a
criminalized and demonized people.8
This demonization facilitated a response that aimed to subdue and har-
ness blacks as both a people and a source of labor. Imprisonment became an
exorcistic ritual practice that removed demonized blacks from society, while
convict leasing became a way of reinserting blacks back into the economic
order as slaves. White criminal punishment officials thus served as both ex-
orcists and human resource managers for slavery all at once. In this dual role,
they were able to placate the anxieties, fears, and hatreds heard in the cries
of white politicians, businessmen, editorialists, and working class citizens.
While the motives behind the cries differed from class to class among whites,
varieties of either material, social, and psychological profits were reaped by
all classes through the actions of the same institution. The concerted action
of a physical form of exorcistic removal allowed some to receive a cathartic
discharge through the release of frenzied energy, while others re-established
the economic order according to their economic interest and accustomed
preference.
The act of arresting, prosecuting, and imprisoning blacks in the South
replicates many of the characteristics scholars attribute to rituals. Rituals bind
groups together.9 They necessitate acts of purgation and motivate invigora-
tion.10 They designate roles, enact performances before a specific audience,
and encourage acceptance of a set of rules.11 In situations of conflict, they
serve as a “redressive action” in facilitating social transitions.12 In a penetrat-
ing essay, anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn details how rituals and myths op-
178 B. BERNDT

erate under such circumstances to alleviate anxieties by providing both sym-

bolic resolutions to conflicts and socially acceptable channels for emotional
discharge and sublimated aggression.13 Kluckhohn’s thesis is that myths and
rituals provided “a cultural storehouse of adjustive responses.”14 In the case of
the South, the arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment of blacks became a ritual
means for white adjustment to the post-slavery era. This process of cultural
adjustment was accompanied by an economic adjustment which replaced the
slavery of old with the new slavery of convict leasing. The relationship that
existed between the exorcistic ritual and the new technique of managing labor
brings to mind Victor Turner’s claim that rituals serve as a “symbolic layer
of real social processes.”15 In a similar manner, criminal punishment analyst
Jerome Miller in Search and Destroy highlights the ritualistic dimension of
the system through comparing it to sociologist Robert Merton’s analysis of
the Hopi rain dance. He notes that “although the manifest purpose of such
a ritual may be to make rain, its latent purpose has to do with quite some-
thing else.”16 Lowering crime might be the purported purpose of criminal
punishment rituals, but the actual purpose is something else.
While the ritualistic practices born in the Reconstruction era have un-
dergone many changes, the basic outline of the initially established pattern
has remained. At times, the explicit racial designations for the roles of those
involved in the ritual have disappeared from public discourse, particularly
liberal discourses. The continued repetition of the ritual causes designations
and roles to become seemingly “natural” phenomena. In regards to the crim-
inal punishment system, this naturalization process can be discerned in the
transformation of federal and state laws. Black Codes, for example, no longer
exist. In their place, are ostensibly color-blind laws that disproportionately
affect blacks and lend themselves to the perpetual criminalization of blacks
as a people.
In the late eighties, the racist rituals of the criminal punishment system
became revamped for application in the age of crack hysteria. In this era, the
media worked to establish a world of symbols representing good and evil.
By the end of 1985, “crack” had been introduced to the public with a sense
of moral urgency. On November 29, The New York Times ran a front page
story on the “new, purified form of Cocaine” that was causing “alarm” as
abuse increased. The director of one hospital research center predicted that
an “epidemic” would occur. New York City police were raiding crack houses
in the Bronx and Harlem. Experts assumed that drug deals were also being
made inside the confines of suburban houses (unlike the outdoor sales on
street corners in the city). One expert was astounded by talented students
“from upper-middle-class families in Scarsdale and Mamaroneck” who had
no history of addiction but fell victim to crack addiction and became “com-
 RITUAL AND RACISM 179

pletely dysfunctional” within two to three months. In the article, the only drug
user whose name is mentioned is Richard Pryor.17
In many ways, the article conformed to traditional media portrayals of
criminalized behavior. Even though no racial identifications were used, un-
derlying racial meanings were evident. The naming of neighborhoods along
with other coded references signaled that the police were in a battle with
criminals of color in inner-city areas, while white suburban high school stu-
dents were beginning to fall prey to a dangerous drug. In this way, a subtle
contrast was established by depicting people of color as criminals and whites
as victims. Moreover, one could argue that the article reflects another trend in
racialized portrayals of criminalized behavior that became established in the
crack era. The mentioning of famous blacks known for their abuse of drugs
became a trademark of news stories and political addresses on the subject of
crack. As crossover celebrities, they represented the serious toll of a tragedy
associated with blacks but infiltrating the world of whites.
Moral panic and social anxiety reached a greater point of frenzy in June
1986, when two black star athletes died of cocaine overdoses. The deaths
of Len Bias, a promising first-round draft choice for the Boston Celtics, and
Don Rogers, a star player for the Cleveland Browns, became symbols of the
evil consequences inflicted by the scourge of drugs. As Turner notes, sym-
bols are the “molecules of ritual.”18 In the wake of their deaths, politicians
became high priests calling for a crusade, a war on drugs.19 President Reagan
and Nancy Reagan exploited the moment and described drug abuse as the
greatest problem confronting the nation.20 House Speaker Tip O’Neal from
Boston called for an overhaul of federal drug laws.21 As soon as mid-July,
Senate hearings on crack took place. Repeatedly, the senators who spoke
referred to Len Bias and Don Rogers in making their speeches. The drug
was described as “the most dangerous illicit drug” law enforcement agencies
had ever encountered.22 Senator William Roth depicted the spread of crack
as a disaster equal in magnitude to the Black Plague. He portrayed it as “the
White Plague now lurking in our Nation’s streets and schoolyards.”23 In sum,
the senators at the hearing felt that the danger of crack stemmed from its
availability as an “egalitarian drug” available to all sectors of society, the vi-
olence it induced, the threat it posed to youth, and its deadly addictiveness.24
The implication was that crack represented an evil that threatened not only
blacks but also whites, and not only the poor but the rich as well.
While the Senate hearing was dominated by the voices of white politi-
cians, the debates in the House of Representatives provided a forum for black
politicians to voice their opinions. A number of prominent black congress-
men supported the Omnibus AntiDrug Bill which created the 100-to-1 crack-
powder differential whereby a crack dealer in possession of fifty or more
180 B. BERNDT

grams of crack could be sentenced to no less than ten years in prison while a
powder cocaine dealer with 5,000 grams of cocaine would receive a mandat-
ory minimum of ten years. Charles Rangle, a black representative from Har-
lem,
chaired the Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control that endorsed the
bill.25 Major Owens, a black representative from Brooklyn, was an especially
ardent supporter of harsh sentences for cocaine dealers. As the contents of
the proposed bill were being debated, he demanded that cocaine trafficking
be punished more severely to end the “preferential treatment” the drug was
allowed.26 In one address, Owens stated:
There is a groundswell in the neighborhoods . . . all across America . . .
which demands that effective steps be taken to end the drug trafficking
and the drug abuse epidemic . . .. None of the press accounts really have
exaggerated what is actually going on. It is as bad as any articles have
stated. It is as bad as anything you have read about. It is as bad as
anything you have seen on television or heard on the radio.27

Owens’ comments reveal an explicit instance in which one can witness how
the media and politicians fed off the hysteria producing images created by
each other. One can detect in the comments of Owens and others a competi-
tion among political leaders to out perform each other in whipping up hysteria
in order to rally the troops. Alton Waldon, a black representative from New
York, attempted to heighten the hysteria by conjuring memories of slavery:
The madness which is crack has no respect for social, professional or
economic status. Crack usage is the evidence that our society may be
in fact losing control of itself. For those of us who are black this self-
inflicted pain is the worst oppression we have known since slavery . . ..
Let us . . . pledge to crack down on crack.28

Scholar Randall Kennedy notes that there were not any black representatives
who attacked the crack-powder differential as a manifestation of conscious
or unconscious racism. To the contrary, support for hard-nosed responses to
crack users and sellers was the only opinion voiced in relation to the matter.
Ultimately, eleven of the twenty-one blacks in the House voted in favor of the
law.29
Despite the intensity of the crusade and its wide-spread support, use of
crack never reached the epidemic proportions predicted. Public opinion stat-
istics suggest a stunning difference between actual use and perceptions of use
during the period surrounding the deliberations over the bill. In conjunction
with the Roper Center at the University of Connecticut, CBS News, ABC
News, and the New York Times conducted polls in August of 1986 in which
 RITUAL AND RACISM 181

only 1% of those surveyed had ever used crack while 3% had friends who
used crack. As few as 5% had ever personally observed the sale of something
they thought was crack.30 Only 8% had ever known anyone who used crack.31
In contrast, 80% felt the use of crack by youth was a very serious problem.32
The strength of media influence on the perceptions of the general public is
readily revealed. Eighty-three percent claimed that they had either heard or
read about “crack” recently.33 In regard to the accuracy of news coverage
on the use of crack by young people, 18% felt the news made it seem more
serious than it really was, 18% felt it made it seem less serious, and 54%
felt it conveyed an accurate picture.34 These were significant claims in a time
when Time magazine named drug abuse “the Issue of the Year” for 1986.35
According to their poll conducted in September of that year, 35% of respond-
ents thought drug use was a “very serious” problem in their community while
75% thought this in relation to the country as a whole. Seemingly contrary
to the Roper Center findings, 39% reported that they knew someone close to
them who tried cocaine.36 Notably, this apparent discrepancy between statist-
ics should be tempered by the observation that “cocaine” use covers a much
broader population of users than “crack” use upon which the Roper Center
report focused.
Similar to the 1986 outpouring of media frenzy over crack, another media
flurry over drugs occurred when Bush declared his own war on drugs in early
September of 1989.37 In Deterring Democracy, Noam Chomsky details its
stunning impact on public opinion. Not long after the November 1988 elec-
tions, public opinion polls registered that 34% of the public chose the budget
deficit as the top priority for Bush to address. After the September campaign,
43% felt drugs were the most important issue in the nation.38 Chomsky’s
analysis readily suggests how the manifest purpose of drug war rituals serve
as a means of diversion for other policy goals, particularly “the objective of
population control.39
As is typical of the relationship between myths and rituals, the myths pro-
duced by the media during the war on drugs served a crucial role in justifying,
rationalizing, familiarizing, and reinforcing the morality of ritual behaviors.40
The perceived magnitude of drug abuse and sales helped foster punitive sen-
timents towards possessors and dealers of powder cocaine and crack. The
retributive disposition easily discernible on Capital Hill was also apparent in
public opinion. Ninety-three percent felt possession of small amounts of co-
caine including forms such as crack deserved treatment as a criminal offense.41
When it came to advocating forms of punishment, responses varied but those
calling for strict measures dominated: 12% wanted fines or probation, 16%
recommended 30 days in jail, 22% suggested a year in jail, and 42% called
for more than a year. Another question revealed the ardent commitment of
182 B. BERNDT

the general public to supporting the fight against drug selling. When asked if
they would pay $100 more a year in taxes to build more prisons in order to
sentence a person convicted for the first time of selling cocaine or crack to
jail, 68% answered in the affirmative.42
The media industry alone cannot be blamed for the production of racist
mythology. As Noam Chomsky might suggest, academics formed the “sec-
ular priesthood” responsible for setting standards of indoctrination.43 Miller
details the many literary highlights of the priesthood which often used Har-
vard University as its Vatican. Historically, leading figures in this priesthood
of elite white supermacists have included the likes of Daniel Patrick Moyni-
han, James Q. Wilson, Richard Herrnstein, Charles Murray, and Louis Cox.44
The books that set the tone for racism in the academy with regards to the
criminal punishment system were typically written either before or after the
peaks in the drug war years. Harvard professors James Q. Wilson and Richard
Hermstein, for example, published Crime and Human Nature in 1985. Miller
describes this a precursor to The Bell Curve. It tested the marketability of bio-
logical racism in describing criminal behavior.45 A religious quality marked
the success of these books in finding an audience. Miller states that there is
a “tendency to place something approaching invincible faith in what appear
to be scientific paradigms and credentialed professionals.”46 When racism
masquerades as science, it gains in power from the combination of blind faiths
that find their potency in the noxious laboratories of the elite academies.
The intensity of elite doctrines, media hysteria, and public opinion more
than discovered its match in the criminal punishment system’s response to
crack following the establishment of the crack sentencing guidelines. In the
1980s, the criminal justice system was transformed by massive increases in
funding, the rapid construction of prisons, and a fundamental shift in police
attitudes, appearance, and armament.47 In answering the call for a war on
drugs, urban police forces became highly militarized. Professor Peter Kraska
notes that since the early 1980s the deployment of paramilitary units by police
departments has risen tenfold.48 These units were often armed with surplus
equipment and weapons from the U.S. military. Police departments were
given everything from camouflage uniforms to stun grenades and submachine
guns.49 This change in appearance and technology was often accompanied
by the development of a racist war mentality.50 While working as a jail mon-
itor for the federal court in Duval County, Florida, Miller noted that high
incarceration rates for blacks were not seen as an embarrassment by local
authorities but rather “as a kind of badge of honor, demonstrating the forti-
tude of local law-enforcement authorities in getting tough on crime.”51 In the
1980s, the war on drugs became a stage for the achievement of heroism from
the perspective of many police.
 RITUAL AND RACISM 183

This war mentality was not generally directed at drug users and dealers as
an entire class. Instead, the focus of police departments was overwhelmingly
directed at a sub-sector of this class: black crack users and dealers. This oc-
curred despite the fact that during the 1970s and 1980s proportions of drug
use by racial and ethnic groups remained almost equivalent to the proportions
of the population they represented.52 In terms of crack use specifically, a 1991
survey by the National Institute of Drug Abuse contended that 4.3% of blacks
used crack, 2.1% of Hispanics, and 1.5% of whites. Although blacks used
crack disproportionately, whites numerically dominated the ranks of users.
Of the 479,000 crack users counted by the survey, whites composed 49.9%
(238,000), Hispanics constituted 14.2 percent (68,000), and blacks totaled
35.9% (172,000).53 Another set of figures put forth a year later by the U.S.
Sentencing Commission estimated that 65% of crack users were white.54
No matter what statistic one chooses to accept, the gross difference between
usage and entrance into the criminal punishment system is highly evident. Of
the defendants in federal courts for crack offenses, nearly 90% are black. In
1992, 92.6% of those convicted for crack offenses were black, while 4.7%
were white. In seventeen states, no whites had been prosecuted on federal
charges for crack offenses. At the same time, conviction percentages for
offenses involving powder cocaine, a drug used more commonly by whites
than blacks, were strikingly different. In 1992, 45.2% of those convicted for
powder cocaine offenses were white while 20% were black.55 The biases of
the criminal punishment system become even more apparent when consid-
ering statistics for drug arrests, convictions, and sentences. Blacks comprise
35% of the arrests, 55% of the convictions, and 74% of the sentences for drug
offenses.56 The weight of the war on drugs has undeniably fallen upon blacks.
This point becomes even more apparent when one adjusts the focus of
analysis to consider not only accelerated rates of black imprisonment but also
the effects of imprisoning large numbers of blacks on the general well-being
of black families and communities. Contact with the criminal punishment
system effectively depresses one’s wages.57 As a result of this decrease in the
earning potential of blacks who have been incarcerated, greater degrees of
collective impoverishment burden black communities. Moreover, the massive
incarceration of blacks severs family ties and works against the develop-
ment of social cohesion, mutual support, and institutional strength in black
communities.58 Ultimately, the punitive response to crime that some perceive
as a benefit to black communities has in actuality been a severe detriment.
During the 80s and 90s, attempts were made at every level to combat the
devastations incurred upon black communities by the war on drugs. At the
local level, activists protested against police brutality. In the federal courts,
challenges to the crack-cocaine sentencing differential were made. On Cap-
184 B. BERNDT

ital Hill, the U.S. Sentencing Commission endeavored to equalize sentences

for crack and powder cocaine.59 At each of these levels, attempts to bring
about change proved ineffective as brutality persisted, courts rejected attacks
against the guidelines, and both houses of Congress disapproved of the Com-
mission’s recommendation.60 For many, a blind faith in the war on drugs
continued. In signing the legislation that overrode the Commission’s recom-
mendation, President Clinton framed his position as one in support of the
well-being of black communities by stating, “Trafficking in crack, and the
violence it fosters, has a devastating impact on communities.”61 The hell-
fire and brimstone sermons of “tough on crime” politicians still guided the
nation’s criminal justice policy.
Despite the seemingly apparent discriminatory effect of the federal crack-
cocaine sentencing guidelines, some scholars contend that there is no solid
reason to believe that the disparity between crack and powder cocaine sen-
tences should count as evidence of legislative racism. As a leading proponent
of this view, Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy makes several argu-
ments. While Kennedy admits the possibility that the crackpowder distinction
is “mistaken,” he rejects the view that it is racist on the grounds that there is
no evidence of discriminatory intent on the part of Congress.62 In defense of
this claim, Kennedy points to the testimony of the black congressmen who
supported the legislative assault on the spread of crack. He regards their
position as an indication of their good-will towards blacks rather than as
an instance of unconscious racism as other observers implicitly suggest.63
Furthermore, Kennedy does not question Congress’s decision to focus their
anti-drug campaign on crack. He reasons that this focus was warranted by
crack’s “greater marketability” in comparison to powder cocaine which made
crack a greater threat as a “social danger.”64 As for the greater focus of the
media and police on black crack users and dealers, Kennedy suggests that
this is justifiable on the grounds that crack abuse in black neighborhoods is
“peculiarly concentrated and open.”65 Kennedy detects no reason to believe
that any of the power wielding segments of society problematically concen-
trated their moral outrage and social concern on crack and black crack use
and dealing in particular.
Finally, in support of his larger argument against assertions of racism on
the part of Congress, Kennedy emphasizes what he perceives as the color-
blind disposition of the law. In response to a judicial opinion that claimed
that the law placed a racially discriminatory burden upon blacks as a people,
Kennedy asserts, “But what is racially discriminatory about the crack-powder
distinction? Enhanced penalties for trafficking in crack fall upon anyone con-
victed of such conduct, regardless of race.”66 Kennedy further argues that the
judge failed to acknowledge “that imprisonment is both a burden and a benefit
 RITUAL AND RACISM 185

a burden for those imprisoned and a good for those whose lives are bettered
by the confinement of criminals who might otherwise prey upon them.”67
Kennedy then claims that the burden of imprisonment “falls not upon blacks
as a class but only upon a distinct subset of the black population – those in
violation of the crack law.”68 Kennedy anticipates the counter-argument that
this view does not take into account that a similar subset of crack and powder
cocaine users among whites are not confronted with a similar burden. He
concedes that if Congress chose to level up the cocaine sentencing guidelines,
“it would erase, for many, the appearance of a racial double standard.”69 For
Kennedy, this is not an unimaginable step for Congress to take in the future.70
Kennedy’s line of argument is a seductive one. It is seductive, however,
because of its manipulative and reductionary approach. These reductions and
manipulations become readily apparent when ritual theory is applied in the
analysis of the crack-powder sentencing differential. Ritual theory eschews
narrowly focusing on individual actions and intentions without proper con-
cern for cultural patterns along with their social and historical context. In
these historic patterns, actors assume prescribed roles. When the roles as-
signed within the U.S. criminal punishment system are enacted accordingly,
racism actualizes itself in its institutionalized form as racial inequalities are
either maintained or worsened. Instead of narrowly conceiving of racism as
a matter of discriminatory intent, ritual theory possesses an analytical scope
that makes it possible to assign moral culpability for racism on the basis of
whether or not the actions in question conform to roles traceable to historic
patterns that promote racial inequalities. From the perspective of ritual theory,
the actions of the most well-intentioned lawmakers can promulgate racism
when they lack the proper consciousness to discern the historical meaning of
their own actions.
When the war on drugs is viewed in its totality as a ritual enactment largely
shaped and defined by white supremacy, designating the creation of the crack-
powder sentencing differential as racist is more than plausible. Vast portions
of the country were in a state of moral frenzy and social insecurity over the
perceived threat of crack. Many feared the evil of crack was taking the form of
an “epidemic” or “plague.” While many media reports and politicians attemp-
ted to portray this demonic force as unrestrained by racial lines, the dominant
color linked to the crisis was black. Dead black superstars and crime ridden
black communities were presented as symbolic examples of the worst of what
could happen to the rest of the nation.
The plan envisioned for ridding the nation of the evil spreading through
its streets did not entail a process by which the demon was separated from the
possessed. The two were conflated as historically has been the case with the
criminalization of blacks. The punitive mind-set of the general public, law-
186 B. BERNDT

enforcement agencies, and elected politicians demanded that the possessed

become exorcised along with the demon. The underlying assumption of the
punitive mind-set was one that assumed peace and order could only become
reestablished when the possessed were removed from normal social exist-
ence. The fervor of the calls for purgation created an atmosphere in which
a “holy war” mentality took hold of many of the designated exorcists who
worked in the criminal punishment system. In line with their historic role,
law-enforcement agencies sought to fulfill their duty by making blacks the
main target of their suspicions and attacks. Other valid targets were avail-
able, but circumstance and policies such as racial profiling often narrowed
the range of focus to blacks. The limited gaze of law-enforcement agencies
was matched by the channeling of criminal justice resources and energies
predominantly towards efforts aimed at incarcerating black criminals.
With this said, one may still wonder how to interpret the actions of black
congressmen who ardently supported the bill that established the crack-powder
sentencing differential. The usefulness of ritual theory is its ability to provide
interpretations of how human actions function in relation to the culture in
which they are embedded. In such interpretations, discernment of the roles
people play within the enactment of the ritual is crucial. By giving analytical
priority to the function of the roles people play in a ritual, concern about
good and bad intentions is no longer of importance in making assessments of
whether or not a given action is racist. In the case of black congressmen in
support of the bill, some avidly expressed their desire to act with a wellinten-
tioned interest for black communities. Unwittingly, these actions were part
and parcel of a racist cultural pattern. Instead of castigating their actions as
evidence of unconscious racism, a more plausible explanation interprets their
actions as exhibiting an unconsciousness of racism. Despite their intentions,
they did not know they were abetting a racist process.
One might object to this explanation in a couple of ways. Why, for in-
stance, would a black congressman, especially one with a notable background
in anti-racism work, not know racism when he saw it? There are at least two
responses that can be made to this question. First, rituals are deeply ingrained
cultural phenomena which often transpire as if they were a natural part of
human life. Meanings that were once explicit in the formal establishment of
a ritual become tacitly accepted, unquestioned, and sometimes forgotten by
later participants. Second, rituals can convey different meanings to different
people. What may have been a ritual aimed at exorcising black demons for
some, for others may have been a ritual that allowed for the venting of anger
at criminals who victimized blacks. Kennedy aptly notes that blacks are more
likely to be victimized by a number of forms of crime than whites.71 Thus,
the anger of the black congressmen who supported the bill can feasibly be
 RITUAL AND RACISM 187

understood as a retributive desire derived from identification with victims

rather than exorcistic desire born of racist fear and hatred.
Acknowledging the complex dimensions of criminal punishment rituals
need not lend itself to avenues for denying the white supremacist dimensions
of certain practices in the system. Kennedy succumbs to such a denial by
attempting to make his analysis more complex. In a number of ways, how-
ever, his attempt at intellectual sophistication reveals itself to be intellectual
subterfuge upon close examination. First, he implicitly accepts the false vic-
tim/criminal dichotomy by dividing blacks into distinct subsets. His language
suggests that he does not regard imprisoned blacks as a victimized population.
For him, they are a justly “burdened” population. Furthermore, his dualistic
use of subsets allows him to evade acknowledging that black imprisonment
has adversely affected the lives of the majority of black people by systemat-
ically devastating families and neighborhoods. In a time when black men and
women are increasingly likely to spend a portion of their lives in prison, a
dwindling number of black families remain permanently intact.
Second, nowhere in his argument does Kennedy acknowledge that there
are more productive alternatives to combating drug abuse than incarceration.
When alternatives are removed from the discourse, historic patterns of im-
prisonment are more likely to look like the inevitable consequences of a
just society than the deplorable result of racist ideologies, laws, and prac-
tices. Finally, Kennedy falsely justifies his position through a manipulation of
presentation. Kennedy’s affirmation of the supposed color-blind nature of the
law places the law in a social and historical vacuum. One would never deny
that a weapon of war was designed, produced, and used to destroy a nation’s
enemies simply because its name does not suggest murder. While the roles
and intentions of the designer, the producer, and user may differ, their actions
are by no means part of a neutral process. Their actions are inextricably linked
to ends by virtue of their participation in a coordinated series of events within
a specific context.
Notwithstanding an acknowledgment of the devastating impact of the im-
prisonment of blacks on black communities, one could contend that the prob-
lem with the ritual at hand is not that it disproportionately imprisons blacks
specifically, but that such strict measures of imprisonment are wrong no mat-
ter whom they imprison. This is a valid point, and presumably one could sup-
port this argument by asserting that white supremacist ideologies are really
only a rationalization or a cover for strategies of domination.72 From this
perspective, what really matters is the actual domination and not its outward
appearance. This view, however, does not account for how ideologies enmesh
themselves into multiple aspects of life. Through an interconnected web of
mutual influences, ideologies are engaged with emotional states, psycholo-
188 B. BERNDT

gical perceptions, economic interests, social processes, and cultural roles.

In the case of contemporary black imprisonment, white anxieties at once
shape and are shaped by multiple factors such as methods of surplus labor
control, institutionalized policies, and normative practices. In such instances,
ideologies are not simply a cover for domination. They are an integral part of
domination.
A final challenge Kennedy’s arguments present concerns the question of
whether or not one can imagine a similar criminal punishment ritual affecting
whites in the same way that the war on drugs affects blacks. Answers to
this question involve largely hypothetical forms of reasoning. Law professor
David Cole presents a strong argument contending that such an event would
never occur. Cole notes:

If the per capita incarceration rate for whites were equal to that for
blacks, more than 3.5 million white people would be incarcerated today,
instead of 570,000, and we would need more than three times the prison
capacity (and prosecution and court capacity) that we currently have.
And because white people comprise about 80 percent of the general pop-
ulation, it would be literally impossible for whites to be overrepresented
in the prison population to the same degree that black people currently
are – four times their representation in the general population.73

Cole further supports his argument by noting that criminal laws pertaining
to marijuana were once much harsher than they are now. He persuasively
argues that this change occurred when marijuana went from being a drug
associated with Mexicans to a drug used by white middle and upper class
college students in the 1960s.74 History suggests that the U.S. government
will never permit the incarceration of white drug users like it permits the
incarceration of non-white drug users. Rituals of this form have never been
established.
In an effective manner, ritual theory provides a theoretical tool that can
contribute to an understanding of the war on drugs that does not limit itself to
either a narrow class analysis or an ahistorical perspective. It allows scholars
to unearth historic patterns while also discerning their present manifestations.
By extension, it enables anti-racists to more fully consider how they and
others may or may not participate in the enactment of roles that perpetuate
racist patterns. Fully effective fights against racism require that our society ac-
knowledge the existence of entrenched white supremacist rituals. Otherwise,
professors and students, politicians and citizens, will unwittingly contribute
to the evil of oppression.
 RITUAL AND RACISM 189

Notes
1. Christian Parenti, Lockdown America (New York: Verso, 1999).
2. Ibid., 45.
3. Ibid., 238–239.
4. Ibid., 57.
5. Ibid., 55.
6. Ibid., 239–240.
7. Angela Davis, in Joy James (ed.), The Angela Davis Reader (Malden, Massachusetts:
Blackwell, 1998) pp. 76.
8. Ibid., 100.
9. Ronald L. Grimes, Beginnings in Ritual Studies: Revised Edition (Columbia, South Car-
olina: University of South, 1995) pp. 121.
10. Ibid., 139.
11. Ibid., 147.
12. Ibid.
13. Clyde, Kluckhohn, “Myths and Rituals: A General Theory,” in Robert A. Segal (ed.), The
Myth and Ritual Theory: An Anthology (Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers,
1998) pp. 334, 339.
14. Ibid., 329.
15. This quote is a paraphrase of Turner’s position provided by Grimes, see p. 151.
16. Jerome G. Miller, Search and Destroy: African-American Males in the Criminal Justice
System (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) pp. 92.
17. Jane Gross, “A New, Purified Form of Cocaine Causes Alarm as Abuse Increases,” The
New York Times (November 29, 1985), A1, B6.
18. Quoted in Grimes, 156.
19. A year later it was revealed that Bias died from a powder cocaine overdose and not
crack. In the period following his death, however, crack was often the assumed culprit.
See Timothy Egan’s “Crack Legacy” in The New York Times (February 28, 1999).
20. Miller, 81.
21. Ibid.
22. Sam Nunn, Hearing Before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Com-
mittee on Governmental Affairs. United States Senate, Ninety-Ninth Congress, Second
Session, July 15, 1986, p. 4.
23. William Roth, Hearing Before the Permanent Subcommittee, p. 4.
24. William Roth, Sam Nunn and Lawton Chiles, Hearing Before the Permanent Subcommit-
tee, 2, 4, 7, 8. Later studies have rejected two of the assertions listed here. One report
claims that “relatively few crimes arise from the pharmacological effects of drugs such as
cocaine” and additionally asserts that “while some drug users and sellers employ violence
in connection with their activities” evidence affirms that “most drug offenders appear
to be otherwise law-abiding individuals.” This same report also asserts that few drug
users become chronic addicts. See Jamie Fellner’s Cruel and Usual: Disproportionate
Sentences for New York Drug Offenders (A Human Rights Watch Report: March, 1997;
vol. 9, no. 2) pp. 34–36.
25. Randall Kennedy, Race, Crime, and the Law (New York: Pantheon Books, 1997) pp. 371.
26. Quoted in Kennedy, 371.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid., 372.
29. Ibid., 370–371.
190 B. BERNDT

30. Roper Center at the University of Connecticut, “Public Opinion Online,” ABC News,
Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, August 14–August 26, 1986, Keyword: crack.
31. Roper Center at the University of Connecticut, “Public Opinion Online,” CBS News
and New York Times, Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, August 18–August 21, 1986,
Keyword: crack.
32. Roper Center at the University of Connecticut, “Public Opinion Online,” Roper Organiz-
ation, LexisNexis Academic Universe, August 16–August 23, 1986, Keyword: crack.
33. Roper Center at the University of Connecticut, “Public Opinion Online,” ABC News,
Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, August 14–August 26, 1986, Keyword: crack.
34. Roper Center at the University of Connecticut, “Public Opinion Online,” Roper Organiz-
ation, LexisNexis Academic Universe, August 16–August 23, 1986, Keyword: crack.
35. Jacob V. Lamar, Jr., “Rolling Out the Big Guns: The First Couple and Congress Press the
Attack on Drugs,” Time September 22, 1986 (128:12), 25.
36. Ibid., 26.
37. Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy (New York: Hill and Wang, 1992) pp. 115.
38. Ibid., 120.
39. Ibid., 134.
40. Kluckhohn, 328.
41. Roper Center at the University of Connecticut, “Public Opinion Online,” Gallup Organiz-
ation, Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, July 31–August 1, 1986, Keyword: crack.
42. Roper Center at the University of Connecticut, “Public Opinion Online,” CBS News
and New York Times, Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, August 18–August 21, 1986,
Keyword: crack.
43. Chomsky has used the label “secular priesthood” on numerous occasions to describe aca-
demics as leaders of indoctrination. For one example, see Noam Chomsky, What Uncle
Sam Really Wants (Tucson, Arizona: Odonian Press, 1992) pp. 90.
44. Miller, 137–216.
45. Ibid., 183.
46. Ibid., 211.
47. Miller, 2. James Q. Wilson and Richard Hermstein, Crime and Human Nature (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1985). Richard Hermstein and Charles Murray, The Bell Curve:
Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (New York: Free Press, 1994).
48. Timothy Egan, “Soldiers of the Drug War Remain on Duty,” The New York Times March
1, 1999 (A16).
49. Ibid.
50. Miller, 2.
51. Ibid., 48–49.
52. Ibid., 80.
53. Kennedy, 377.
54. David Cole, No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System
(New York: New Press, 1999) pp. 142.
55. Ibid.
56. Ibid., 144.
57. Marc Maur, Intended and Unintended Consequences: State Racial Disparities in Impris-
onment (Washington, D.C.: The Sentencing Project, 1997) pp. 13.
58. Ibid., 13–14.
59. Kennedy, 381.
60. Ibid., 380, 381.
 RITUAL AND RACISM 191

61. William Jefferson Clinton, Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents November 6,

1995 (31:44).
62. Kennedy, 386, 376.
63. Ibid., 370–372.
64. Ibid., 374.
65. Ibid., 378.
66. Ibid., 375.
67. Ibid.
68. Ibid., 376.
69. Ibid., 385.
70. Ibid., 386.
71. Ibid., 11.
72. This argument is suggested by David Theo Goldberg’s “Racist Exclusions” in The Philo-
sophical Forum: A Quarterly Fall 1994 (XXVI:1), 3.
73. Cole, 151–152.
74. Ibid., 152.

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