Marijuana? Black lawmakers must take stand on hypocrisy

I walk a landmine every Sunday when my column appears as I write about social issues that many times come with explosive words and direct accusations.

Whether I am challenging Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s contention there is less crime, the lack of manners, education, welfare, senior citizens, loneliness, police or marijuana, there is little doubt I am opinionated, refuse to hide under a cloak of political correctness and I steel myself against the blistering comments that sometime come my way for what I consider my common-sense views.

I don’t expect this Sunday column to be any different as my fingers are being driven by anger and rage.

As marijuana becomes a legal product across the United States, thousands of black men are languishing in prisons and are being arrested every day for daring to sell it. And it is time to call this exactly what it is and what it has been for decades — a conspiracy against black men to keep them behind bars.

If anyone doubts that, they should stop reading this column immediately because there is no other reasonable explanation.

Black America doesn’t have the money or resources in 2018 to mount a nationwide large-scale drug operation — and it certainly didn’t have it decades ago when drugs saturated Harlem and poor black neighborhoods because white suburban America needed its fix to go along with the blues and jazz music they were partying and dancing to.

Drugs were dumped in black communities at a time of racial indifference when black men were largely uneducated, working menial and low-paying jobs. Along came temptation and the promise of fast cash.

But that fast green turned into black smoke as black men were demonized in news media as violent drug dealers, neighborhoods were destroyed, families torn apart, children angry at seeing their parents hauled off to jail and the pipeline to prison cycle began, continued and continues.

And please don’t give me the nonsense about marijuana being illegal. Somehow, despite its illegality, the millions upon millions of white men and women from the suburbs who made their way into black urban America to buy those drugs were able to go onto to successful careers, arrest free.

After all that destruction, America now is saying it is all right to puff the fragrant green plant with its instantly recognizable, distinctive aroma.

That is why I am calling on every black lawmaker in the state of Connecticut and nationwide to rise up and become a wall of fury because the hypocrisy must stop and amends made immediately.

The projected billion-dollar marijuana industry will spawn many businesses, such as growers, dispensaries, head shops, clothing stores and a lot more.

Black lawmakers must put their feet in cement and demand that black men are not be left out of this boon.

Black men have paid a high price for dealing marijuana, sometimes spending years behind bars. As far as I am concerned, all those years should now pay off. By sheer numbers in the judicial system’s records, nobody should know marijuana better than the black men on street corners selling it. We are about to find out.

Lawmakers and social advocates are talking about the importance of re-entry into society after ex-offenders are released from prisons. Jobs are a major obstacle.

That should not be a problem now. Marijuana? Black lawmakers must take a stand.

James Walker is the Register’s senior editor. He can be reached at 203-680-9389 or james.walker@hearstmediact.com. Follow him on Twitter @thelieonroars