John McWhorter, noted black author, recently stated in a column “>(The Root) that stopping the war on drugs would help blacks advance. Here is my reply to that article:
Mr McWhorter: You say you are as committed to advancing blacks as is Tavis Smiley. In my opinion you are missing the same point that Smiley, Jackson, Sharpton, Lowery, Bond and all the rest of the black liberal “leaders” have been missing (or ignoring ) for decades.
I can tell you right now, you can check every year for the next century and you will find blacks in pretty much the same condition and position (if not worse) because of one thing: Our lack of attention to our ECONOMIC advancement. I don’t mean our SURVIVAL, where we live, as you say, because of stimulus sending or some other government program. I mean as long as black enterprise runs on a hand to mouth basis, where the black owner has to hold a second job in order to keep his business afloat, and where self employed black accountants and bookkeepers are almost nonexistent, then there will be no real change in our status, and that includes social, economic and political. You can throw in the high rates of black imprisonment and unplanned parenthood for good measure.
The war on drugs? Are there no black Americans more worthy of our support than a bunch of drug users, gang banger and street thugs? I couldn’t care less how many blacks are in jail for drug involvement or how great the disparity between sentencing for black and white cocaine users. I AM bothered by the fact that there are less than two dozen black owned corporations on the Stock exchanges.
The war on drugs could never succeed as long as the people you are trying to help are fighting against you, and if the war stopped tomorrow it would only mean that the misfits, miscreants and useless, worthless debris among us will have free access to their self destructing activities and the rest of us will wind up paying more for it than we do now.
Free access to legalized drugs won’t stop the destruction of the black family, it will accelerate it. Users will still have to buy the stuff and the lack of criminal prosecution will increase demand, thus raising the price. These street urchins will have to steal and rob in order to buy their legal drugs just like they do the illegal ones. Are we so naive that we think the majority of users are middle class blacks? Get real.
I have watched these “black forums” come and go for decades and nothing has come of them except some black talk shows have been floated with public funds or blackmail from corporations. The mother of all black forums, the “Million Man March” saw 250,000+ black men spend an average of $500 to travel to Washington just to proclaim their intention to be good citizens. If that same number had pooled HALF that amount they could have created and entire financial infrastructure that could have by itself moved millions of blacks out of poverty within a decade. Instead, it seems that the march only gave us an indication of how many unabashed and unashamed liars there are among us.
Black on black crime has increased, along with unwanted pregnancies, incarceration of black youth and continued sliding DOWN the economic ladder.
I have followed and admired your commentary on these and other relevant issues for years. For the most part you and I have been on the same page, but on this one I think you are way off base. I do trust your continued investigation of this issue will bring you to my way of thinking.
You refer to blacks from the standpoint of black men being able to “find and keep a good job”. Until some of that focus rests with blacks being able to CREATE and maintain jobs, it will be, as that great philosopher Yogi Berra said “Deja vu all over again”.
