BURLINGTON, VT, US — Now the narrative in the US is clear. White kid falls into drug use: “you poor little thing, let’s get you help!” Black kid falls into drug use: “you irresponsible thug, get your life together!”
White kids in the US are using Heroin in vast numbers and their parents are coming out to change the harsh penalizing policy of zero tolerance used on Blacks and still being used on Blacks.
It’s no longer “those people” (Black people). It’s a humanitarian issue, not a criminal issue any longer. How many ways do we need to hear that Black people are less than human and less than citizens of America? You would think the two-level sentencing structure of crack vs. powder cocaine would have been enough, but it wasn’t, the disparity continues.
Perhaps the loss of a child under any circumstance is very painful especially when it was a tragedy that could have been avoided. I wish the same sympathetic approach would have been undertaken when it was/is a scourge among Black kids.
In any case this is just another case of racial bigotry in the US at its best that has been unmasked.
The harsh policy for Black children was never right in the first place. But at least, changes may come about, now that white kids are involved. One may not wish the loss of a child and the lifelong pain on anybody. But the fact that Black Kids’ Lives did not matter should bother everyone.
One white police officer had this to say about white youth in New Hampshire who are addicted to heroin: “The way I look at addiction now is completely different. I can’t tell you what changed inside of me, but these are people and they have a purpose in life and we can’t as law enforcement look at them any other way. They are committing crimes to feed their addiction, plain and simple. They need help.”
You don’t know what changed inside you? Really!
It is heartbreaking that over the past three decades tens of thousands of young black children were treated with disdain, disgust and prison, destroying their lives and those of their families. However, now that the drug epidemic has rolled into white neighborhoods, the country has figured out that disdain and disgust doesn’t help.
Interesting that once a white face is placed on drug addiction people can all of a sudden find compassion and understanding. Think of all the black and brown lives that were destroyed by the lack of compassion shown to them when they were “feeding their addictions” and needed help. Help was nowhere to be found for these “junkies” and they were caged and locked up without a second thought.
I hope that the same compassion they are demanding and receiving will be shown to the non-whites who suffer and suffered in the past due to a convenient lack of empathy and understanding based on the race of the “offenders.” Their (nonviolent offenders) records should be immediately expunged, they should receive the treatment they need, and they should be re-integrated back into society.
Maybe this horrible epidemic will serve as a teaching point to all people that compassion should be given freely to all people not just white people.
White people… always changing the rules to suit them. Next time when they come to your country to tell you to punish your own children for smoking Weed, be mindful!
Hey…not all “white people” are like that…racism in reverse solves nothing, man…we are ALL the same color underneath (red) !!!
Perhaps your understanding of Racism is warped. What reverse-racism you speak of?
Have I enslaved you? Have I thrown your dad into jail for absolutely no law enforcement reason? Have I slaughtered your family? Have I raped your women en mass without repercussion? Have I spilled your Blood to build my country? Have I prevented your humanity to be equal to mine?
I don’t think you understand the etymology and the history of the word ‘racism’.
Steve Favazza Jr. I don’t think the solution is simply looking forward and pretending the past didn’t occur; it’s also about looking back and acknowledging that too many black lives have been destroyed by harsher prison sentences by “crimes” that others are getting away with today. Do you think that’s reverse racism?
Not at all, Kwame, and I agree with you…but that man’s stereotype of ” white people” is exactly racist…he’s doing the same thing that he’s supposedly fighting against! You’re right, things should be applied equally…but my God, we should be far beyond lumping good/ bad folks together by saying “white (or black) people”…like MLK stated, let people of ALL races be judged on their character…only then can we have true fairness. We are all the same color on the inside!
I have to agree that all people came out of Africa. That at the base, we are all African not Neanderthal. That is true.
But whiteness as an ideology is the most foul thing the world has ever known. It was used to wipe out whole races of people in the Americas; whiteness was used to enslave whole races of people; whiteness was used to commit genocides; whiteness was used to colonize whole continents; and whiteness is being used by the same western nations to entrench imperialism even upon citizens (the war on drugs is the puritanical attitude of whiteness as an ideology towards Blacks).
I do not indict all white people. I indict whiteness and the west. Whiteness is a savage ideology bar none.
Through fashion and perhaps hoping for the better, we often think that the question of whiteness can be spared, or degraded to a subordinate position if some whites feel uncomfortable. That I need to be civil or that I need to speak of atrocities as they are not?
Almost all debates owe something to decorum or civility, often very valuable viewpoints. But decorum or civility, as a leading principle in discussions like this – about brutality and genocides – will be the end of valuable discourse. Nothing will be farther from the intent of a thoroughly serious study than such an attitude.
Even by the tendentious standards of ‘decorum’ my understanding of whiteness and the west is more defensible than the accusations used to defame truth-seekers who call the spade a spade. That is, the most deplorable acts of savagery actually germinate in so-called high societies in the west. And these acts are based on the ideology of whiteness. Nothing else. So I refuse to make you feel comfortable. I refuse your normative of ‘decorum and civility’. Get angry!
Many genocides have been glorified (or planned) around dinner tables in the west adorned with shiny forks and knives made from actual silver, without a single uncivil act or speech having occurred.
And that is the hypocrisy!
Dude, I respectively submit here…whatever…all that I know is, my God created all people equal, and I really don’t care who derives from who/ what/ where anymore. There are two choices, folks…love or hate…period. The blame game is totally moot…I’d be proud of whatever ethnic group that I come from…either we make peace, or have war forever…our choices, sir.
This dialogue is now over ( at least from my end)…Imagine!
There is no war! The west keeps killing us and you speak of war? Whiteness keeps destroying our lives and you speak of peace? What peace? Where? Who is at war with white people in the west? Me? Africa? African Americans? Who?
You sir, have provided a wonderful example of racism…you continue to seperate black and white…you, sir, are a divider, not a unifier (like MLK)…so “whites” have no opinion on slavery? Whites have been enslaved, too…see Hitler’s regime. You sir, will never be satisfied until all “whites” get on their knees to racists like you and “beg forgiveness”…Africans enslaved their own people too, sir…but that’s right…EVERY problem on Earth is the fault of “whites”, to hear you tell it. You have SO much hatred in you…Maybe you’ll realize it some day…your babblings sicken me to the core…you want racism, sir? Look in the MIRROR!
If you hate us so much, find another planet…I’ve never done a damn thing to you or your family…quit accusing all “whites” ( and if we decended from Africa, then we really aren’t “white”, are we?) of destroying “your world”! It’s OUR world, dammit! You set civil rights back 1000 years.
Your wild vituperation is unfounded. But no matter. Instead of accept iniquity you throw stones at me. Perhaps everyday stories like this do not make you go to bed scared. But I am. I am always scared… of people like you! It took a jury of 12 white men just 10 minutes to find this Black boy guilty in 1944. And execute him! But, I guess I am the racist, not you! That too I have heard before. No matter. You can move on! You would kill me if I walked into your neighborhood. You forget I was on the planet some 150,000 years before you were born some 25,000 years ago! So, I won’t mind your ignorance. But, I will stay put over here. It doesn’t matter, ‘dammit’, as you say!
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/exonerated-after-execution-judge-tosses-teens-murder-conviction-n270176
Exonerated After Execution: Judge Tosses Teen’s Murder Conviction – NBC News
nbcnews.com|By NBC News Investigations