They are also looking to hire translators of Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean, Farsi and Jamaican patois.
The translators will listen to wiretaps and provide verbal and typed summaries of pertinent calls identified by law enforcement.
While the drug epidemic has ravaged inner-city neighborhoods across America, the hiring of translators who are experts in Ebonics is a form of racial profiling. Unlike Spanish, Korean and Vietnamese, Ebonics is not an official language. The term was created by Dr. Robert Williams in 1974, who characterized it as a nonstandard variant of English spoken largely by African Americans.
Criminals, regardless of race, who attempt to conduct illegal business over the phone are likely to use code words when doing so. However, focusing efforts on hiring people who are proficient in slang spoken mostly by African Americans is an irresponsible move that can lead to more wrongful arrests in the black community. Because urban slang varies from state to state and evolves quickly, the hired translators may cause innocent individuals to become indicted over a conversation that is presumed to be illegal.
The DEA spends $70 million annually on linguistic services. If the organization would donate half of that money to employment services in urban areas that have pervasive drug markets, they could begin to shift their resources and focus less on arresting lower level drug dealers who have very little control over the flow of drugs within urban communities and go after the drug smugglers — very few of whom are African American. –amir shaw
