Liberals' Major Role In The Drug War, Sentencing Disparities, And Black Incarceration

'In one of the nastily cynical moments, Obama claimed that “to honor these five outstanding officers who we lost” we would have to act on “uncomfortable” truths such as his claim that the police are racist. “Insisting we do better to root out racial bias is not an attack on cops, but an effort to live up to our highest ideals,” he spun. While the media applauded his “healing”, Obama was just recycling his speeches from before the Dallas shooting. The talking points had not changed. They had only been moved around a little to exploit the police officers murdered by a #BlackLivesMatter supporter in order to promote #BlackLivesMatter.'

- Commentary of President Barack Obama's speech at the memorial for 5 assassinated Dallas police officers, 12 July 2016

I, for one, am so sick and tired of Democrats blaming 'White America' for everything that is wrong in the ‘Black Community’ (as though #BlackLivesMatter represents the entire black population and White Supremacist, Dylann Roof, represents the white community).  Not only is this absolutely wrong, but they are flat-out lying about actual facts and history.

I’m fed up with our outrageously dishonest President and his even more preposterously prevaricating propagandists and revisionist historians in the Democratic Party, the media, academia, and on the Left, in general.

You see, it is one thing to be blamed for something that you did; it is quite another – not to mention inflammatory, infuriating bridge-burning – to be blamed for something for which you had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with whilst those on the Left, who most demonstratively did, rewrite history and take Stalin’s Eraser to their own roles in bringing about those things for which I and other white people now stand accused.

Things really aren't as they seem and those on the Left need to be reminded of some inconvenient historical facts.

President Reagan hands his wife, First Lady Nancy Reagan, the pen he used to sign a $1.7 billion anti-drug bill at the White House. Looking on from the far left is Representative Charles B. Rangel.

'On tapes secretly recorded by former president Richard Nixon, Congressman Charles Rangel can be heard in closed door meeting encouraging Nixon to be more aggressive on the ‘War on Drugs.’ ‘Public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive,’ the Harlem Democrat can be heard saying in words that Nixon would later mimic. Rangel opposed drug legalization and embraced police militarization. He stood proudly by Nancy as President Ronald Reagan signed another drug-war law.'

NBC: Black Leaders Supported Clinton's Crime Bill

'The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 contained an expansion of the federal death penalty to include drug offenses, the 'Three Strikes, You're Out' rule, and billions in funding for police, prisons, and states that made it harder for people to get parole (though Mr. Clinton neglected to mention this when he mentioned that most prisoners are incarcerated by the state).

But if Bill and Hillary Clinton were the pot, black politicians, activists, and pastors were the kettle. Their support of punitive measures actually paved the way for Clinton. It began with the man Ebony Magazine called the 'front-line general in the war on drugs.' ...

In addition to the dozens of pastors who signed a letter in support of the bill, it also had the support of black mayors. Kurt Schmoke, the first elected black mayor of Baltimore, was a vigorous supporter.

Even then U.S. Representative Kweisi Mfume, then chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) who understood the bill was a means to 'find better ways to incarcerate people' eventually buckled, not only supporting the bill, but was ultimately responsible for its passage by rallying a majority of CBC members to vote for it after the bill was nearly derailed on a procedural issue.

The Clintons quite likely were motivated by political expediency -- appealing to white voters with 'tough on crime' measures; however, it is clear black leaders were simply desperate to rid communities of the gang violence terrorizing their communities. The crime wave was real with rapes, assaults, and murders at never before seen levels, especially in inner-cities.

How Liberals Put Black America Behind Bars: Review of The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America by Naomi Murakawa

The Shift In Black Views Of The War On Drugs

'This idea — that strict drug laws have done more harm than good in black America — is common these days. But early on, many African-American leaders championed those same tough-on-crime policies.

The Rev. George McMurray was lead pastor at the Mother A.M.E. Zion Church in Harlem in the 1970s, when the city faced a major heroin epidemic. He called for drug dealers to spend the rest of their lives behind bars.

‘When you send a few men to prison for life, someone's going to pass the word down, 'It's not too good over here.' ... Instead of [robbing] and selling dope, 'I want to go to school and live a good life.'‘

Black support for the drug war didn't just grow in New York alone. At the federal level, members of the newly formed Congressional Black Caucus met with President Richard Nixon, urging him to ramp up the drug war as quickly as possible.

Michael Javen Fortner, a political scientist and historian at Rutgers University, says that ‘the silent black majority of Harlem and New York City felt constantly accosted by drug addicts, by pushers, by crime.’'

Black Leaders Once Championed the Strict Drug Laws They Now Seek to Dismantle

‘African-Americans are portrayed as passive victims to this, as the prison boom just washed over their communities, as if they were just completely victimized,’ said Vanessa Barker, author of The Politics of Imprisonment. ‘I find that stance dehumanizing, I also find that stance empirically, historically inaccurate.’

Barker and others argue that in the 1960s, residents of black neighborhoods felt constantly under threat from addicts and others associated with the drug trade, and their calls for increased safety measures resonated at community meetings, in the pages of black newspapers like The Amsterdam News, and in churches.’

Charlie Rangel, The Congressional Black Caucus And Their Part In The War On Drugs

Ebony (1989): Charlie Rangel: The Front-Line General Of The War On Drugs

Has Charlie Rangel ever apologized to the Black Community? The Congressional Black Caucus? Leaders of the Black Community? No. If they are not silent, they are blaming ‘racist White America’ and ‘institutional racism’.

And, as you can see, Congressman Rangel has been hard at work trying to ‘right’ his ‘wrongs’…

The Race War No One Can Win

Consider one of the big talking points of politicians and others who claim that the harsher penalties for people selling crack cocaine than for people selling powder cocaine show racism, since crack cocaine is more likely to be used by blacks.

The cold fact, however, is that black political and community leaders, back in the 1980s, spearheaded the drive for more severe legal penalties against those who sold crack cocaine. Black congressman Charlie Rangel of Harlem was just one of those black leaders who urged these more severe penalties. So did the New York Times, the promoter of many crusades on the left.

Fast forward to the present, when both black leaders and the New York Times are blaming white racism for the more severe penalties for selling crack cocaine. If you want to see what they were saying back in the 1980s, check pages 154-159 of The War on Cops.

When the political winds change, politicians change. But that does not change the facts about what they said and did before.

- Dr Thomas Sowell

Related Reading: The Inconvenient Truth About Race And Crime