White Prescriptions: The Dangerous Social Potential of Ritalin and Other Psychotropic Drugs to Harm Black Boys

For all the debates about black males and their role in American society, there has been little attention to a dangerous and growing trend: the overprescription of Ritalin and other behavioral drugs. This book reveals how and why black males are disproportionately targeted and controlled by American schools in ways that hamper and endanger their educational success. Fitzgerald shows how the government, medical practitioners, and the pharmaceuticals industry have facilitated this oppressive trend, setting it against a larger historical backdrop of racism in American education.