"Drugs have been in black neighborhoods for years, but as soon as a bunch of white people start doing drugs: 'Oh GOD it's an EPIDEMIC!' " :Richard Pryor
I was a teenager in the 80s and the first time I saw a rock of crack cocaine I didn't think much of it. I'd seen people do powdered cocaine and thought it was stupid and knew cocaine could be smoked, but still didn't see the allure of getting high. I still don't. When I saw my first crack rock, at 14 I didn't realize the devastating impact it would have on my community and even members of my own family
I saw intelligent young men and women throw away their futures, families, dignity and even their lives chasing the fleeting high and saw the working class neighborhood I grew up in slowly decay into a ghetto. When I turned on my television every other TV show was telling me about the perils of drugs and even first lady Nancy Reagan (may she rest in peace) was telling me to "Just say no" to them. I also noticed that law enforcement decided they would find a way to deal with our drug problem, they would impose harsher sentences for selling or possessing crack cocaine than for powdered cocaine. The irony of course being that you NEED powdered cocaine to make crack but I guess that escaped my law makers.
I didn't realize it at the time but MOST of the people addicted to powdered cocaine were white and affluent and most of the users of crack tended to be black or hispanic. Essentially a stock broker living in a huge house on the right side of the tracks could be caught with a couple of grams of cocaine and get far less time than a kid from the neighborhood who was caught with two grams of crack. I'm not trying to say those being arrested for drug crimes didn't DESERVE to be, but looking back I'm wondering why the affluent were given a pass when kids from the city were sent to literally fight for their lives in America's prisons.
Flash forward to 2017 and America again has a drug problem. This time it's not cocaine, it's opiates AKA pain pills and drugs like codeine. Many become addicted to pain meds then when they can no longer get them, go to the streets where they become addicted to heroin. The addicts by and large are kids in the suburbs and in rural communities all over America. The response has been swift. Drug treatment centers have sprang up everywhere. Insurance plans under former President Obama's Affordable Care Act include rehabilitation programs, politicians are getting on cable news shows in tears begging for more money to be placed into programs to treat drug addiction. I saw a sheriff in Ohio saying he sponsored a program called "help not handcuffs" and another pundit on a cable news panel saying "These people have souls and should be treated with compassion because they've succumb to an addiction."
As I see this genuine outpouring of compassion I'm conflicted. As an American I'm proud to see my country taking positive steps to solve a serious problem, but as a man of color who has seen his friends sent to serve lengthy jail sentences for the EXACT SAME THING in the 80s and 90s my response is WHAT THE FUCK!? I want those who are addicted to drugs to be treated as if they have a serious problem and we want them to resume normal lives and I've always wanted that, but where the hell was this compassion in the 80s and 90s when the majority of these people were men and women of color? I'm not one to play the race card, but those who WOULD call the great country in which I live "racist" could EASILY use this as an great example to illustrate their point. The criminal justice system was more than happy to demonize young black and Hispanic men and women who became addicted to crack cocaine by throwing them in prison, but when it happens to some kid in a small town or in the suburbs suddenly they've decided that drug abuse should be treated with compassion?!
What burns me up more than ANYTHING are some of the voices calling for compassion. The men and women who are saying that this is an "American" problem were the ones calling for the stiff sentences for drug offenders whose compassion seems quite odd in light of policies they had for "cleaning up America's streets".
For the record, I do NOT think that we should warehouse men and women in prison for drug use. We SHOULD have programs for drug treatment and I think a national health service (like the British, Canadian or Australian models) would greatly help implementing one, but we as a nation need to OWN our hypocrisy on our "war on drugs" (as Nixon called it) for what it was overt racism and selective prosecution, then we can move forward and treat all our addicts not as denizens of small towns, suburbia or even the "inner city" but as Americans.
Saturday, October 28, 2017
Friday, October 27, 2017
African...and "African".
Earlier this week I was going over a geography lesson in a classroom and noticed that the text book separated Africa into "Northern" and "Sub Saharan". Strange that the map of Asia included all of Asia, the map of North America didn't say "Canada" and "Sub Canadian America". South America wasn't partitioned off into "Brazil" and "Spanish South America". The book was trying to assert that the countries of Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco were culturally more middle eastern than African because of the influence of Islam.
On the surface that's easy to buy, then you realize that Islam exist in the Congo, in Nigeria, and EVERYWHERE in Africa south of the Sahara desert. Some would say that the book makes a difference because there were civilizations in Libya and Egypt during the time of Alexander the Great and the Romans. That is true, but the learning center in Timbuktu existed before Philip of Macedonia's son Alexander was born and far before Hannibal elected to attack a fledgling Roman state with his battle elephants. The Kingdoms of Mali and Kush stood before Europeans knew they existed as did the Observatory in Zimbabwe and the Kingdom of Ethiopia. Why then is Africa treated as two completely different planes of existence?
This may just be one man's opinion, but it may have something to do with the fact that Europeans saw Africa south of the Sahara as a treasure trove of Ivory, gold, diamonds and people who could be bought sold and exported. If the darker skinned African was given the same regard as the Egyptian or the Tunisian the theft of his land and resources and the oppressing of him into bondage could be viewed as immoral. The dark skinned African had to be dehumanized so that the invasion of his land and wealth could be called "Discovery". He had to be regarded as an animal with the ability to speak so that it could be viewed as acceptable to own him as one would an oxen or an ass.
This is generally where the tired arguments of slavery in Africa before Europeans arrival and it's existence in modern Africa will be brought up. Slavery did exist in Africa before the arrival of Europeans, that is very true. An enemy captured in battle became one's slave. In the Muslim parts of Africa one Muslim could NOT own another and many converted rather than be slaves. The tired argument then points out that blacks were sold TO Europeans into slavery. That IS true, but there exist in many African cultures and within Islam ways of treating one's slaves that are a stark contrast of the way slaves were literally worked to death in the Caribbean and Americas. Mistreating slaves in parts of Africa was a punishable offense.
Regardless, while Europe has left her African colonies and the cultures which spent centuries raped by the powers of Europe fight among themselves for wealth that could be used to build the roads, bridges, hospitals and schools that the Europeans DIDN'T build as their only interest were railways to transport their stolen goods from the countries interiors to their coasts, the divide remains. The average American student if asked which continent Egypt was on wouldn't be able to tell you as popular Western culture all too often portrayed the Africans who irrigated the Nile and built the pyramids as Caucasian. Even in the 21st century when one mentions Africa to the Average American the images they have are of deep jungles, half naked men and women with bones through their noses and westerners being thrown into large pots and eaten. The Amazing part is they never explain where the giant pot comes from.
Why does this continue? It WAS conscious at one point; whereas, now I think it's been done for so long that westerners don't even realize it's being done. Speaking out to correct it will have armies of ignorant people who don't know history up in arms because the "liberals" want to make text books more "politically correct" but at the end of the day we as a society are afraid of change and very lazy. The cruelest part is that our lazy culture ENABLES those who print inaccurate, possibly unconsciously racist text books to continue business as usual and because it does another generation of American students will see Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco as something OTHER than Africa.
On the surface that's easy to buy, then you realize that Islam exist in the Congo, in Nigeria, and EVERYWHERE in Africa south of the Sahara desert. Some would say that the book makes a difference because there were civilizations in Libya and Egypt during the time of Alexander the Great and the Romans. That is true, but the learning center in Timbuktu existed before Philip of Macedonia's son Alexander was born and far before Hannibal elected to attack a fledgling Roman state with his battle elephants. The Kingdoms of Mali and Kush stood before Europeans knew they existed as did the Observatory in Zimbabwe and the Kingdom of Ethiopia. Why then is Africa treated as two completely different planes of existence?
This may just be one man's opinion, but it may have something to do with the fact that Europeans saw Africa south of the Sahara as a treasure trove of Ivory, gold, diamonds and people who could be bought sold and exported. If the darker skinned African was given the same regard as the Egyptian or the Tunisian the theft of his land and resources and the oppressing of him into bondage could be viewed as immoral. The dark skinned African had to be dehumanized so that the invasion of his land and wealth could be called "Discovery". He had to be regarded as an animal with the ability to speak so that it could be viewed as acceptable to own him as one would an oxen or an ass.
This is generally where the tired arguments of slavery in Africa before Europeans arrival and it's existence in modern Africa will be brought up. Slavery did exist in Africa before the arrival of Europeans, that is very true. An enemy captured in battle became one's slave. In the Muslim parts of Africa one Muslim could NOT own another and many converted rather than be slaves. The tired argument then points out that blacks were sold TO Europeans into slavery. That IS true, but there exist in many African cultures and within Islam ways of treating one's slaves that are a stark contrast of the way slaves were literally worked to death in the Caribbean and Americas. Mistreating slaves in parts of Africa was a punishable offense.
Regardless, while Europe has left her African colonies and the cultures which spent centuries raped by the powers of Europe fight among themselves for wealth that could be used to build the roads, bridges, hospitals and schools that the Europeans DIDN'T build as their only interest were railways to transport their stolen goods from the countries interiors to their coasts, the divide remains. The average American student if asked which continent Egypt was on wouldn't be able to tell you as popular Western culture all too often portrayed the Africans who irrigated the Nile and built the pyramids as Caucasian. Even in the 21st century when one mentions Africa to the Average American the images they have are of deep jungles, half naked men and women with bones through their noses and westerners being thrown into large pots and eaten. The Amazing part is they never explain where the giant pot comes from.
Why does this continue? It WAS conscious at one point; whereas, now I think it's been done for so long that westerners don't even realize it's being done. Speaking out to correct it will have armies of ignorant people who don't know history up in arms because the "liberals" want to make text books more "politically correct" but at the end of the day we as a society are afraid of change and very lazy. The cruelest part is that our lazy culture ENABLES those who print inaccurate, possibly unconsciously racist text books to continue business as usual and because it does another generation of American students will see Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco as something OTHER than Africa.
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