Dog walking while white
At the entrance to Frick Park on Braddock Avenue hangs a large sign: “Dogs Must Be On Leash. Violators Fined Up To $300 And/Or 30 Days In Prison.” Every few days as I walked in the park this fall, I saw the same group of women strolling on Tranquil Trail with a loose pack of dogs — about six or seven of various sizes, some as large as a German shepherd. These ladies seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves. Their slender greyhaired doyenne led them with her gnarled walking stick as they chatted like they were in a book or wine club. Once, as they paused, I saw one with mopped hair and cokebottle glasses with her lips pursed skyward, howling like her shepherd at her feet as the others laughed.
Most days about half the dogs I see are off leash, and their “masters” come from every walk of life: bearded hipsters, yuppies with matching jogging suits, burly blue-collar guys with calloused hands. Two things I’ve noticed. No one seems to care that they’re breaking the law. There are no furtive glances over shoulders. No hoodies to conceal identities. No whispering “5-0” like on “The Wire.”
The other thing is that everybody’s white. Their race, for sure, is partly a function of Pittsburgh’s segregated demographics — not too many people of color in Regent Square today. But their cavalier attitude toward the law is also a function I believe of their innate sense of white privilege.
People might term leash regulations as one of our nation’s many “scoff laws” worthy of being ignored. I have a different term — white people laws.
Of course, nonwhites also own dogs, but not nearly as many. According to a 2017 study by Rand Corp., only 4 percent of dog owners are black. Per capita, whites were three times more likely to own a dog than nonwhites. The reason: More whites are homeowners, wealthy and/or live in rural areas, making it easier to own dogs.
Approximately 4.5 million dog bites occur each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There were 31 human fatalities from dog attack in 2016 and 28,000 people underwent reconstructive surgery because of dog attack in 2015. Suffice it to say leash laws exist for a reason.
Now, consider the laws against cannabis. America’s pot policy has been racist from the start. The first national law was the intentionally Mexican sounding “Marihuana Tax Act of 1937,” whose chief architect, Harry Anslinger, once said “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.”
The penalty for possessing less than an ounce of weed in Pennsylvania is comparable to that of the leash law — 30 days in prison and/ or a $500 fine. Yet I suspect that if a group of young black men were passing a joint around in Frick Park, neither their attitude nor that of the police would be so cavalier. Although marijuana usage is similar between races, blacks are on average 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for possessing it than whites, according to a 2013 ACLU report analyzing national arrest data from 2001 to 2010. Eighty-eight percent of the 8 million marijuana arrests during that period were for possessing small amounts.
This is for a drug that generally relaxes people, has legitimate medical purposes and didn’t kill 31 people because it was off its leash in 2016. Worse, if you’re caught selling more than an ounce in Pennsylvania, that’s a felony, with a sentence of up to five years. Proportionally, many more black people are incarcerated for marijuana crimes than white.
Unconvinced? The ultimate white people laws are those regulating traffic. Only about 9 percent of car drivers are black nationwide, yet they are 31 percent more likely to be pulled over by the cops, thanks to racial profiling — what activists call “driving while black.”
Given driver demographics, the laws for being a terrible one are considerably more lenient. In Pennsylvania, the penalty for drunken driving can be as little as $300 without jail time. A speeding ticket is $35 plus $2 for every 5 mph you go over the limit. I don’t know anyone in Pittsburgh who strictly obeys the speed limit and, when I have on uncongested roads, other motorists have honked and made interesting hand gestures at me.
Yet drunken driving killed 10,497 people nationwide in 2016 and speeding 9,557 people in 2015, according to the most recent data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Combined, that’s about six times the death toll of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, yet our prisons teem with low-level pot dealers.
Perhaps the most terrible irony is that, while U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions fights to maintain discriminatory federal marijuana laws, pot dispensaries are minting millionaires in states that have legalized the drug. Yet most states bar people with drug convictions from owning dispensaries. They also require prohibitively expensive application and licensing fees. Consequently, 99 percent of the 3,600 dispensary owners in the United States are white. I suspect that, like Frick Park’s dog walkers, they aren’t too concerned about being arrested either.
Lewis Braham is a freelance writer and the author of “The House That Bogle Built: How John Bogle and Vanguard Reinvented the Mutual Fund Industry.” He lives in Regent Square.