African Americans account for 80% of crack cocaine convictions …YES 80%!! Article after article you read that "there are no quick fixes", "no easy answers" and "these issues are being addressed". Why aren't there any quick fixes? Address it now, fix it and be done with it. I'm sure if the issue involved a rich white man's son there would not be decades of "addressing the issues"! By remedying this situation I am sure this will cause a decrease in revenue for the Criminal Justice system and the drug and alcohol treatment facilities and whoever else profits from this racist process. What is it then? We all know that is boils down to the almighty dollar...but I want to know whose dollar is paying for racial and socioeconomic oppression?? Whose? We all know whose money is financing this practice but please do not continue to insult my intelligence, forget the politically correct jargon and just tell me to my face...I didn't think so!
Several months ago I was outraged when I found out about the different criminal sentence structures that were in place for powdered cocaine and crack cocaine. For example, if a person possessed with the intent to distribute 50 grams of crack he or she faced a ten year mandatory minimum sentence. On the other hand, a person had to possess with the intent to distribute 5 kilograms of powder to face the same ten year mandatory minimum sentence!! In 2010, President Obama signed a bill that will increase the possession amount of crack cocaine that will call for the mandatory sentence. Now a person must possess 280 grams of crack (instead of the 5 grams) to face the mandatory minimum sentence. However, there are 1,000 grams in 1 kilogram of powder cocaine.
Although progress has been made, is this enough? The issues are that crack cocaine's weight is obviously heavier than the powder and most importantly crack is sold and used in predominantly lower socioeconomically disadvantage neighborhoods which equates to poverty and minority oppression!
Why not lower the weight of the powder cocaine minimum? Do we need it to be 1 kilo? Why not 1/2 a kilo?? Okkk, great the disparity gap is closing in but what about the remaining sentencing disparities that still exist for the young African American men? African-Americans make up around 12 percent of the U.S. population, account for 33.6 percent of drug arrests and 37 percent of state prison inmates serving time for drug offenses. Yet there are no differences in drug use between whites and blacks! The US incarceration rate is five times as high as the rest of the world!
What the hell is going on & why do we ignore this injustice?
Amen!
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