Black Lives Matter. They do. And repeated incidents of police brutality have plunged our nation into darkness. I’m a member of so-called ‘Black Twitter,’ and, though I agree with the cause, and feel the anger in my heart, hashtags won’t end the oppression and abuse of our communities.
There is discomfort in the community over #BLM ‘leaders’ like @Deray and some of the self-aggrandizing crew that surround him. When we the people elect our leaders, they have legitimacy. But Twitter, mainstream media and elite liberals deciding who speaks for African-Americans and who doesn’t should concern us all.
In this election season I want MORE than hashtags and selfies and online anger. In the year since Ferguson, what has been done? #BlackLivesMatters got famous, but black lives aren’t being saved. Two African-American young people were the latest apparent victims of racist brutality, shot dead for the ‘crime’ of being asleep in their car. A major nominee, Donald Trump, says on live TV that he “needs more information” before rejecting an endorsement from the Klu Klux Klan. Another major nominee, Hillary Clinton, when confronted on her Super Predator attacks of young African American boys in the early ’90s, says she’s never been asked that before and quickly tells the crowd ‘let’s move on to the issues.’
How about more than rants on social media? How about more than angry symbolism?
Some say that body cameras are the answer. Me? I think that’s a good first step but not a solution to the police misconduct and abuse that we know are inherent in many police arrests and deaths. There’s also another path to ending overcrowding of prisons adn over criminalizing of black youth and communities.
Forget the HASHtags—let’s decriminalize “hash.”
A soaring number of arrests of young black males happen for one reason, illegal use of marijuana…something that’s recreationally legal in some states and legal for medical use in many others.
I’m not a doctor. I’m not here to argue the total relaxation of drug laws. However, I am an African American, and I know that decriminalizing the simple possession of weed and hash would lead to a substantial and much-needed change within the prison industrial complex that has a record number of African Americans languishing in prison due to marijuana charges. It would also mark genuine progress between African-Americans and police forces that will no longer be able to profile and arrest young men and women in poor and minority communities for something that many states have already legalized.
White Americans are more likely than black Americans to have used most kinds of illegal drugs, including cocaine, marijuana and LSD. Yet blacks are far more likely to go to prison for drug offenses. When it comes to illegal drug use, White America does the crime and Black America does the time (2013 advocacy group Human Rights Watch Reports).
Decriminalizing hash and weed for personal use means we cut dealers off at the knees. We reduce crime, including gun crime. And we show the world that Black Lives Matter enough to take practical action to save them, not just posturing on Twitter.
Illegal in the United States for nearly 80 years, marijuana accounted for 8.2 million arrests nationwide between 2001 and 2010. Despite the decades-old federal ban, the country’s attitude toward marijuana has been changing. While only 12% of Americans supported legalizing pot in 1969, 58% of Americans supported an end to marijuana prohibition in 2013.
Starting with California in 1996, medicinal marijuana use is now legal in 23 states along with the District of Columbia’s legalized recreational use. Of the states with laws protecting medicinal users, four have legalized recreational pot use as well. Despite evolving opinions among voters and legislators, some states still seem unlikely to pass any kind of meaningful reform in the near future.
In Colorado, legalization has ushered in thousands of new jobs in the thriving industry, brought $135 million into state coffers last year, and ended the prohibition of a widely used substance. But police say they struggle to enforce a patchwork of laws covering marijuana, including driving while high. Officials fret about the industry becoming like big tobacco, dodging regulation and luring users with slick advertising.
However, with teen use of recreational drugs on the decline, more and more advocates can now better push against cannabis laws across the US in hopes of finally ending the prohibition of its use and the mass incarceration that it’s created…Let’s make 2016 bring be more about substantive change than just hashtags!
Let’s end Hash.
