Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: legalization, marijuana decriminalization, NAACP, Stopthedrugwar.org
Very good piece by Associate Editor Scott Morgan. Here is an excerpt:
Our marijuana laws have never, and will never, be enforced fairly. The brutality of modern drug enforcement reaches every community, but if young white men were given criminal records and subjected to profiling and police harassment at the same rates as people of color, the criminal justice system would quickly come to a crashing halt. The drug war was built on a foundation of fundamental unfairness, and mitigating its catastrophic impact on communities of color requires measures far more drastic than telling police for the millionth time that there’s more to their job than searching young black men all day and night.
No, legalizing marijuana won’t solve the problem. Not even close. But what it will do is remove one of the primary justifications police rely upon when stopping and searching people in urban communities.
Full Editorial HERE.
Subscribe to The Mo’Kelly Report HERE
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alpha Kappa Alpha, Friends of the Weeping Ivy, Julia Brogdon Purnell
Julia Brogdon Purnell
Former Alpha Kappa Alpha Supreme Basileus Julia Brogdon Purnell joined the organization in 1942…you know at the early portion of WWII. In other words, her dedication to the organization is above reproach. I can tell you that 68 years into my service to Omega Psi Phi…Mo’Kelly will not be filing writs to open the organization’s books. Her loyalty and dedication are simply beyond reproach.
To that end, Purnell has revised her petition for writ for Mandamus for Examination of Books and Records. She goes back to court for a final ruling Thursday, July 1.
It’s clear, if Purnell prevails…game over.
Click HERE
Subscribe to The Mo’Kelly Report HERE
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alice Huffman, Ben Jealous, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, legalization, marijuana, NAACP, W.E.B. DuBois
UPDATE: 2:35pm PDT – Sacramento minister blasts NAACP for public support of controversial marijuana decriminalization measure.
Click HERE.
UPDATE: 2:15pm PDT - Mo’Kelly just received a call from Mr. Hillary O. Shelton Director, NAACP Washington Bureau / Vice President for Advocacy today. There will be a follow up to this piece as Mr. Shelton was kind enough to elaborate and clarify the position of the national office on this issue.
Hillary Shelton
__________________
Black people…don’t fall for the okie doke. Things are what they are, not what they’re often times manipulated to be.
African-Americans…don’t fall for the banana in the tailpipe. It’s official, the NAACP (the California chapter at least) has sold its soul. The debate continues as to whether marijuana should be decriminalized and in some ways has taken an unexpected turn with the California chapter of the NAACP coming out in support of decriminalization. Alice Huffman, president of the state conference offered this in justification of the organization’s stance:
“We are joining a growing number of medical professionals, labor organizations, law enforcement authorities, local municipalities and approximately 56% of the public in saying that it is time to decriminalize the use of marijuana.”
Don't fall for it...
Huffman also said that prohibition has a taken a “heavy toll,” if not disproportionately so on African-American communities.
Stop.
Stop right there.
Did you see it? Did you catch that? If you weren’t paying close attention, you might have missed it.
It’s at this point many may fall for the okie doke. It’s at this point others will fall victim to the banana in the tailpipe. The NAACP has the unmitigated gall to suggest that the legalization of marijuana is now a “civil rights” issue…with racial overtones.
A civil liberties issue? Absolutely. A civil rights issue…hell to the naw.
Before anyone starts in on their predictable comparisons of marijuana to alcohol and tobacco, let’s deal with this singular issue before proceeding any further. “Civil liberties” should not be confused with “civil rights.”
Voting is a “civil right.” Rolling a blunt at the crib would be a “civil liberty.”
Don’t confuse the issues.
Presently there is a measure in California that is set to be voted on in November which would allow individuals age 21 and older to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.
The California chapter of the NAACP also cited statistics from the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, showing that in 2009, 62% of the state’s marijuana arrests were of nonwhite suspects and that 42% were under 20.
Going further, the NAACP argued that the arrests of African-Americans ranged from double to quadruple that of Whites across the state, although the rates of usage skewed more to Whites.
The NAACP is both very shrewd and sickening; couching this debate within the context of racial inequality. It’s illogical, it’s misguided and ultimately patently offensive. The California chapter of this nation’s oldest civil rights organization has no business leading this parade. It shouldn’t be on any of the floats and shouldn’t even be playing in the band bringing up the rear.
The issue of decriminalizing marijuana is a separate and distinct discussion from the inherent inequities of the criminal justice system. Both are legitimate issues, but not meant to be commingled.
You do not send the NAACP to fight to decriminalize marijuana any more than you would have them fight for Ebonics in the public school system because “African-Americans are faring poorer in English.” You don’t send the NAACP to fight to decriminalize marijuana any more than you would have them fight for the Lotto because African-Americans are disproportionately suffering from poverty. You don’t send the NAACP to fight to decriminalize marijuana any more than you would have them fight to legalize speeding if African-Americans received a disproportionate amount of speeding tickets.
The NAACP walking point in this debate reeks of a political shell game with the aromatic stench of back room deals and lobbyist quid pro quo. All at the expense of the tradition of the Civil Rights Movement.
This is akin to arguing violent crime statistics would go down…if you would just legalize murder. It’s attaching the wrong solution to the wrong problem.
The underlying issue of racial inequality is inextricably linked to the criminal justice system and the prison industrial complex. On that we should all agree. If the real issue is the disproportionate number of African-Americans arrested relative to Whites, then the answer is in the disparate enforcement and sentencing guidelines related to the law, not the law itself.
Voting is a “civil right.” Rolling a blunt at the crib would be a “civil liberty.”
Don’t confuse the issues.
I’ll listen to every argument and review every pie chart you have on the dangers of alcohol and how they supersede those of the chronic.
I get it.
I’ll let anyone wax rhapsodic on the documented historical failure of prohibition or the death legacy of cigarettes.
I get it.
Just don’t confuse THESE issues. Compare your alcohol and tobacco “apples”
Ida B. Wells-Barnett
to weed “apples” all day, every single day. Knock yourself out.
But when you start including the civil rights “oranges”…that collective rumbling sound you hear would be W.E.B. DuBois, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and dozens of others log rolling in their graves.
“Civil liberties” are not the same as “Civil rights.” They “sound” similar but they are not the same. Civil liberties deal with the supposed excessive government intervention in the private lives of its citizens. Civil rights have to do with the essential tenets of American citizenry, which can not be denied along the lines of race, creed, gender or sexual orientation.
When Whites can roll a blunt, and African-Americans can not…then and ONLY then has this become a civil rights issue. A disparity in arrests is an argument of the thinnest order that such is presently taking place. Attack the enforcement practices and sentencing guidelines. Anything else is a ruse. Don’t fall for the banana in the tailpipe.
The NAACP, the nation’s oldest CIVIL RIGHTS organization walking point on the CIVIL LIBERTIES issue of marijuana legalization is a farce and an embarrassment. Let the ACLU do what it does…so the NAACP (in California and beyond) can deal with real CIVIL RIGHTS issues, such as the immigration law in Arizona…for starters.
If the issue is purely statistical in nature, (i.e. the disproportionate arrests of African-Americans in related to marijuana,) then attack enforcement and sentencing guidelines. Attack it in the way that the Senate recently passed a bill to reduce crack-to-cocaine sentencing ratio from 100-1 to 18-1. (Under current law, it takes only five grams of crack cocaine to earn a mandatory minimum five-year federal prison sentence, but 500 grams of powder cocaine to garner the same sentence. )
This is a dishonorable fight by the NAACP, be it a local chapter or national body. It is in the same basket as the aforementioned Ebonics and “saving” the N-Word.
If we as African-Americans allow the battle to legalize marijuana co-opt and misappropriate the legacy and tradition of the Civil Rights movement…
Shame on Us.
In college I had to read Stolen Legacy by George G.M. James. Maybe it’s time to write the sequel, Misappropriated Legacy, turn it into a Reality TV show and put it on BET…with malt liquor commercial breaks.
Shame on Us.
From the Sacramento Bee:
Stephen Gutwillig, California director of the Drug Policy Alliance, said the state NAACP is “the first mainstream civil rights organization to endorse marijuana legalization.
“This represents the expansion of the … alliance of forces across the political spectrum from the progressive left to the libertarian right that agree we have to junk this disastrous prohibition policy,” he said.
Roger Salazar, a Democratic consultant working with “Public Safety Now,” a group opposing the marijuana initiative said the NAACP endorsement is “unusual.”
He added: “Reasonable people can argue about the merits of legalization … But the unintended consequences of this initiative will be a disaster for all California communities.”
The NAACP endorsement isn’t necessarily a harbinger of the African American vote.
In 2008, the organization opposed the Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage. But African Americans voted overwhelmingly for the initiative.
Subscribe to The Mo’Kelly Report HERE
Mo’Kelly’s not so sure about this one. I’m going to have to really meditate on this one. My first inclination is to be angry with the NAACP. Lowering the bar so some of us can step over is not something I wish to support. My first read says that “because more African-Americans are put in jail for this…we should change the law.”
Does that mean raise the speed limit if a disproportionate number of African-Americans get speeding tickets? The question is not who goes to jail, the question (and answers) are in how we choose to enforce the laws and what responsibility is on the citizen. Not only that…Mo’Kelly is clearly uncomfortable with couching the legalization of marijuana as a “civil rights” issue.
___________
Saying that prohibition takes a heavy toll on minorities, leaders of the NAACP’s California chapter announced Monday that they are backing passage of a marijuana legalization initiative on the November ballot.
The war on drugs is a failure and disproportionately targets young men and women of color, particularly African-American males, said Alice Huffman, president of the NAACP’s state conference.
The group cited statistics from the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice showing that in 2009, 62% of the state’s marijuana arrests were of nonwhite suspects and that 42% were under 20.
The pattern was consistent in the state’s 25 largest counties, with arrests of African Americans at double, triple and quadruple the rate of whites even though studies show that blacks use marijuana at lower rates than whites, NAACP officials said.
“We are joining a growing number of medical professionals, labor organizations, law enforcement authorities, local municipalities and approximately 56% of the public in saying that it is time to decriminalize the use of marijuana,” Huffman said in a prepared statement.
November’s measure, if approved, would allow people 21 and older to legally possess an ounce of cannabis. Marijuana sales would be taxed, potentially raising billions of dollars for government services. Opponents say legalization would increase crime and drug dependency.
– Catherine Saillant
Subscribe to The Mo’Kelly Report HERE
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Al Davis, Alex Rodriguez, Allen Iverson, Ben Roethlisberger, Forbes Magazine, Gilbert Arenas, Jerry Jones, Mark McGwire, Michael Vick, OJ Simpson, Plaxico Burress, Terrell Owens, Tiger Woods
Michael Vick
Forbes magazine recently released its list of “The Most Disliked People in Sports” a survey of 1,100 people age 13 or older who are active in sports as either a player, coach, manager, broadcaster, agent or owner.
Before we go further, let’s keep this honest. It’s the “most-hated” poll. It is what it is. Don’t get tripped up and tricked by the euphemism of “dislike.” These are athletes that evoke visceral responses, as is evidenced by their “strong dislike” quotients below.
The respondents had to be actively involved as to eliminate the multitude of those who might only know of Vick through his dog-fighting arrest and nothing more. Before we go any further, let’s take a look at the full list with the percent of “Strong Dislike” in parentheses.
1. Michael Vick (69%)
2. Al Davis (66%)
3. Ben Roethlisberger (57%)
4. Tiger Woods (53%)
5. Jerry Jones (53%)
6. Mark McGwire (48%)
7. Terrell Owens (47%)
8. Alex Rodriguez (45%)
9. Allen Iverson (45%)
10. Gilbert Arenas (44%)
Today is only going to ask questions. Some are rhetorical, others are interrogatives actually in search of an answer. But today, it’s going to be more about questions than anything else. This survey is supposed to be the answer to the question of “who is the most ‘disliked’ in professional sports?” The list above is your answer.
Mo’Kelly could extrapolate out and write a scathing editorial on how troubling it is that even the “more informed” (i.e. sports enthusiasts) still have a disproportionate amount of contempt for Michael Vick than anyone else, but no…not today. Mo’Kelly could theorize the implicit role of race in the perception of athletes, but no…not today. Mo’Kelly only has questions, you the readers will have to provide the answers.
Ben Roethlisberger
- How is it that Michael Vick is still the “most-disliked” in all of sports when he’s been a model citizen since he’s been out of jail for more than a year?
- Why is it that Michael Vick tops this list and Ben Roethlisberger who has been accused of rape TWICE is nowhere close in percentage to Vick?
- Should Mo’Kelly make the leap that killing my neighbor’s dog 3 years ago is somehow socially less acceptable than (allegedly) raping the same neighbor’s daughter 3 months ago?
- Why is Terrell Owens as “disliked” as much Mark McGwire and more than Alex Rodriguez, when of the three, he’s the only one who didn’t cheat in his sport (or on his wife for that matter)?
- Did these people somehow forget that Mark McGwire’s career was a fraud and he in essence “pleaded the 5th” before Congress?
Terrell Owens...and the popcorn
- Don’t these people know that being a fraud for your whole career like McGwire is probably worse than making a career of creative endzone celebrations like Owens…and the two shouldn’t be equated on any level…ever?
- How did Gilbert Arenas make this list and not Plaxico Burress? (Is that because since he’s “in” jail, he’s not “in” sports…i.e. ineligible?)
- If Michael Vick were never to have played in the NFL again, (despite not being eligible for the list), Mo’Kelly wonders if people would still dislike him as much…i.e. less jealousy/contempt?
- Why is Tiger Woods so much more “disliked” than A-Rod when Tiger’s never been caught cheating in his sport and arguably equally as unfaithful as Alex Rodriguez?
A-Rod and Madonna
- Does that mean cheating on your wife with a married Madonna (and presumably plenty others) is somehow socially more acceptable than cheating on your wife with porn stars and cocktail waitresses?
- Or let Mo’Kelly ask the same question slightly differently. Why is cheating on your wife (as a superstar golfer) comparable in “dislike” to being accused of raping two women (as a superstar NFL quarterback) and more “reprehensible” than the superstar baseball player who cheated on his wife AND cheated in his sport?
-
Jerry Jones
What did Jerry Jones do to deserve to be on this list? Al Davis, I get it. But Jerry Jones?
- How many people tried to write in OJ Simpson’s name, even though he’s not eligible for this list?
- Is Mo’Kelly the only one who wonders what “other” criteria was considered by the respondents…be it consciously or subconsciously?
Hmm…
