Drug Decriminalization in Maryland Through an African Centered Research Paradigm- Analysis and Recommendations

is important, it is also important to be analytically precise by pointing out that Black men are the
most impacted by War on Drugs policing. In fact, many scholars have pointed out that this violence
should be theorized through an “intersectional” lens and be seen as anti-Black misandry, a specific
form of gendered violence which targets Black men for their rmale gender (Curry, 2017). This is
a logical extension of the analysis of Karam, Netherland and Hassan, as
a. The Black male subject is seen as specifically dangerous in the midst of their drug
intoxication in light of a perceived physical and cultural affinity for violence
And
b. The fear of miscegenation, from historical lynchings to contemporary fears of “drug dealers
coming to the suburbs” has specifically been targeted at the fears of Black men
impregnating white women.
These points are raised not to diminish any carceral violence targeted towards Black trans people
or Black women. It is included to address what Curry and other have seen as a understandable but
none the less analytically imprecise tendency in research on Black people, a belief that fidelity to
“intersectionality” means you must show how many issue impacts Black people evenly, or even
to focus on the harms towards Black women and Black trans under the misled assumption the
intersectionality the Black women and Black trans are always, already the most impacted by any
particular issue. A more nuanced and precise application of intersectional analysis, one more
accurately reflected within data on the War on Drugs and drug decriminalization literature, is to
include Black male gender as a itself an intersectional frame and analysis policy within the
historical understanding that Black men have being specifically targeted for discrimination and
violence speifically because they are Black and male. While some conceptions of intersectionality
incorporate a simplistic assumption that patriarchy dictates men are always the beneficiaries of
privilege and never the victims of it, an African Centered Research paradigm challenges this
assumption and correctes places anti--Black misandry within its research methodology.
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