The 'New Jim Crow' ?

Michelle Alexander in The New Jim Crow, Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (see "The New Jim Crow," N&L May-June, 2010), explained about how many Blacks are in prison, especially due to drug arrests. To me there's a difference with Jim Crow that started in the South, and was completely racist. It was when you worked from sunup to sundown all year around.

This new Jim Crow? No one forces people to take drugs; no one make you sell drugs. Alexander says there are a lot of African-American men who don't have jobs. This is true. But selling drugs is wrong. Drugs destroy people's lives. And in my neighborhood in south Los Angeles, drugs are everywhere.

Finding jobs is a real problem. I didn't sell drugs, and I had to work two jobs to keep going. But today it is McDonald's and Jack-in-the-Box, and a lot of the young people don't want to work there. They end up selling drugs. We need better jobs. We need B.F. Goodrich, as when they used to produce tires on Central Ave. and Florence. Or when Bethlehem Steel used to be on Slauson Ave. Bring back those jobs and get rid of drugs. The young won't go for drugs if they could make a decent living. I know capitalism won't bring those jobs back. They sent them overseas. And they aren't paying those workers overseas enough. So how can we stop this?

A lot of times drug enforcement takes the money and drugs, but leaves the drug seller on the corner. One day I asked my neighbor: "Why do you call the police. All they do is take the money and drugs and tell the seller to get off the corner. Then the police get in their car and laugh." It seems there is too much money in it for the police to stop them from selling drugs. I am wondering whether it is even higher up, like when Ollie North used drug money to fund the Contras?

--Georgiana Stewart
South Central, LA

Subscription for one year $5

Home l News & Letters Newspaper l Back issues l News and Letters Committees l Raya Dunayevskaya l Contact us l Search l RSS

Subscribe to News & Letters

Published by News and Letters Committees