I felt I had to repost this from here Media Matters. I have heard this before but this is by someone whose father was a cop.
As a 50 year old white man I can say that the racism in this country is off the charts right now and here is why this is happening. 40 years ago President Nixon started a new phase of the southern strategy. He called it the war on drugs. My father was a police officer at the time and through him and his coworkers I saw first hand that the war on drugs was actually a war on the poor and dark skinned people. With this new Civil War the police were used to get those scary dark skinned men off the streets and unable to vote. They then demonized minority areas because there were no fathers there to teach those dark skinned kids how to behave because we locked up all their male role models. We then sent in the police to keep locking up as many dark skinned men to stop the violence. Since most police are now cowards who like to brag about how dangerous their job is they were faced with a situation that required real courage. This has brought us to the past few years of transition where a police officer who has shot and killed someone does not even have to leave a "drop" gun at the scene to show that they were justified in shooting someone. I have been saying for years "don't you see what has happened here, now a cop just has to say 'I thought he had a gun' to justify killing an unarmed American." This is why I get so angry when I hear someone refer to the police as "heroes and such". They are cowards with a gun. A hero would take a bullet to protect and serve, today's police will kill you first then check for a weapon later. This is why Trayvon is dead, he met a dangerous want to be a cop who has learned from watching his police role models that if he thinks he is in danger shoot first and just say I thought he had a gun. Is this the America you want to live in. One full of hate and fear. Or would you rather learn that those dark skinned men are just like you and only want to be happy and left alone to enjoy their children and lives. The Second Civil War is being fought right in front of all of us and so few even notice. This war is killing our kids, are you O.K. with that? I am not and will continue to scream as loud as I can, THIS MUST STOP. Thank you for your time, Jeff McCurry
Lets talk about one example of how the war on drugs is manipulated. Crack cocaine.
As I said I was 10 years old when the war on drugs started. It started slowly then Nancy Reagen became involved because seeing the damage to the “crack babies†she said this must stop. The war on drugs became a focus. Crack was made extra illegal and young dark skinned men were imprisoned on a scale not seen before. The supreme court has since ruled the justice system was unfair to these prisoners. But what about the crack babies, that is what we had to stop. Crack didn't stop but crack babies did. Or did they? It turns out that those crack babies mothers had many different substance abuse problems. For those of us that have been around people that abuse cocaine I have noticed that those that like alcohol can drink a lot more when they use cocaine. We always had those crack babies, they were rightfully diagnosed with FAS Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. A horrible condition produced by a legal substance. Did we do anything to help? I see this as an example where the babies were used as a political prop and when they were not useful we all forgot them. So don't tell me the war on drugs is to help kids, it is just like everything else, follow the money.
How about this, your government now admits that Freeway Rick, the most notorious crack cocaine seller in LA, who many claim invented crack was an active operator for the US federal law enforcement the whole time. Do you get that, they admit that we paid him to sell crack, we also admit through Iran Contra that we paid his suppliers too.
Crack was very bad at the time and I knew people in the outlaw motorcycle gang world. Here is how they handled it, we call it an intervention, if they found out a member was doing crack he was told to stop, if he didn't they told him much more forcefully. They all saw that crack lead to big problems for their safety and business interests. They would tolerate a woman doing crack but no members allowed for the safety of all. Not a perfect solution but it worked way better than locking every body up.
My drug of choice is marijuana to save you insults, and I have been to federal prison for growing marijuana plants. I have been on both sides of this war for 40 years and I am tired so I am telling my story. I proudly have a letter from the US DOJ telling me that if I did not stop saying I trust a doctor to tell me what substances are hurting me more than the police they would lock me back up. They didn't and they let me off probation early. You see I am white and even though they had to run me through the system I got every break available. One of them was time off for attending a 9 month inpatient drug treatment program RDAP at Beckly Federal prison camp. The thing I will never forget is one day a federal counselor said to us, “okay all my pot heads in here listen up, with these other drugs we can show you how they are hurting you, you need to know that you are being hurt by the law.â€
I am following her advice and I am doing my part to change the law. But then again I can not vote because I was convicted of growing a plant the has no fatal dose. Did you know marathon runners were dying from an overdose of water quite often and they cut the number of water stations on the course and the deaths dropped. Are you going to outlaw drinking water, it kills people?
As I said I was 10 years old when the war on drugs started. It started slowly then Nancy Reagen became involved because seeing the damage to the “crack babies†she said this must stop. The war on drugs became a focus. Crack was made extra illegal and young dark skinned men were imprisoned on a scale not seen before. The supreme court has since ruled the justice system was unfair to these prisoners. But what about the crack babies, that is what we had to stop. Crack didn't stop but crack babies did. Or did they? It turns out that those crack babies mothers had many different substance abuse problems. For those of us that have been around people that abuse cocaine I have noticed that those that like alcohol can drink a lot more when they use cocaine. We always had those crack babies, they were rightfully diagnosed with FAS Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. A horrible condition produced by a legal substance. Did we do anything to help? I see this as an example where the babies were used as a political prop and when they were not useful we all forgot them. So don't tell me the war on drugs is to help kids, it is just like everything else, follow the money.
How about this, your government now admits that Freeway Rick, the most notorious crack cocaine seller in LA, who many claim invented crack was an active operator for the US federal law enforcement the whole time. Do you get that, they admit that we paid him to sell crack, we also admit through Iran Contra that we paid his suppliers too.
Crack was very bad at the time and I knew people in the outlaw motorcycle gang world. Here is how they handled it, we call it an intervention, if they found out a member was doing crack he was told to stop, if he didn't they told him much more forcefully. They all saw that crack lead to big problems for their safety and business interests. They would tolerate a woman doing crack but no members allowed for the safety of all. Not a perfect solution but it worked way better than locking every body up.
My drug of choice is marijuana to save you insults, and I have been to federal prison for growing marijuana plants. I have been on both sides of this war for 40 years and I am tired so I am telling my story. I proudly have a letter from the US DOJ telling me that if I did not stop saying I trust a doctor to tell me what substances are hurting me more than the police they would lock me back up. They didn't and they let me off probation early. You see I am white and even though they had to run me through the system I got every break available. One of them was time off for attending a 9 month inpatient drug treatment program RDAP at Beckly Federal prison camp. The thing I will never forget is one day a federal counselor said to us, “okay all my pot heads in here listen up, with these other drugs we can show you how they are hurting you, you need to know that you are being hurt by the law.â€
I am following her advice and I am doing my part to change the law. But then again I can not vote because I was convicted of growing a plant the has no fatal dose. Did you know marathon runners were dying from an overdose of water quite often and they cut the number of water stations on the course and the deaths dropped. Are you going to outlaw drinking water, it kills people?
This current racial storm reminded me of a story I heard cops tell many times. They loved telling it. My dad worked undercover for years, during one of their joint federal and local operations the only black officer in the group was shot and then he shot the shooter. The part I heard a thousand times was when the EMT's said we need to check the other guy to which he replied "f### that N##### he is going to die" They loved being able to tell a story where a black man said that. The cop lived, the other guy died. Cincinnati 1980's
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