Harping on drug dealers like they were the only ones catching football numbers when people who had drug ADDICTIONS were getting the book thrown at them too
underrated reply
especially now that they wanna be soft on drugs now that cacs are getting addicted to opiates
‘Gentler War on Drugs’ for Whites Is a ‘Smack’ in Black America’s Face
I think we can all figure out what changed.
Did black people addicted to crack cocaine not need help? Do their lives not have purpose? Are there not underlying reasons for crime in black communities that don’t hinge on the pathologizing of black people as innately more criminal than their white counterparts?
It is a grave insult for Michael Botticelli, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, to condescendingly suggest in the Times piece that the sole difference between the treatment of heroin users and crack cocaine users lies in the political acumen and savvy organizational skills of white people who understand how to petition government for change. As if
black activists and families have not been passionately fighting back against racist drug policies for decades.
This suggestion that if only we had enough intelligence, if only we had made enough noise, then African-American communities would have been treated more gently by police officers when they came through the hood stopping and frisking for drugs is disingenuous and dangerous.
What that says is that if only black Americans understood the complexity of bureaucracy, perhaps
Tarika Wilson would not have been killed when a Lima, Ohio, SWAT team raided her home to arrest her boyfriend on drug charges, and perhaps her 14-month-old son would not have been shot as she held him in her arms.
If only we had organized enough, perhaps 18-year-old
Ramarley Graham would not have been gunned down by Police Officer Richard Haste inside his grandmother’s home as he attempted to flush a bag of marijuana down the toilet.
If only we had cared enough, perhaps
1 in 12 black men ages 25-54 would not be behind bars, compared with 1 in 60 nonblack men in the same age group, or perhaps 1 in 200 black women would not be behind bars, compared with 1 in 500 nonblack women in that same age group, many on low-level drug charges.
If we were only “empowered,” perhaps former Oklahoma City Police Officer
Daniel Holtzclaw would not be on trial for the sexual assault and rape of 12 black women and one underage black girl—some in possession of drugs or facing nonviolent drug charges—because he knew that they knew that the system would not be “gentle” with them if he hauled them off to jail instead.
Or, perhaps, we should accurately define the war on drugs as a “War on the Most Vulnerable Communities in Black America.”
Though Nancy Reagan’s
Just Say No campaign is a thing of the past, while our government is finding ways to be “gentle” with white heroin addicts, it is still just saying no to black people in this country.
“Just say no” to dismantling a racist system that funneled drugs and guns into black communities with limited access to education and employment.
“Just say no” to food and health benefits for affected families who are trapped in cycles of poverty and violence.
“Just say no” to then treating the inevitable rise in addiction as a health issue.
“Just say no” to decriminalizing black, low-level drug offenders and reinstating their basic rights to citizenship after their inevitable incarceration.
Drug addiction is absolutely a dire health issue across the United States, and regardless of race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status, it needs to be decriminalized. But what we are witnessing is the protection of white Americans while black Americans continue to be penalized.
Police officers and politicians are simply making it clear that the war on drugs was never supposed to include white America. It is racist, systemic, purposeful violence in the truest sense of the word, and there is nothing gentle about that.