deborah small. deborah without a doubt really is the most articulate and passionate person on issues dealing with drug policy and war on drugs. you know, worldwide. i just have to say that. at can you talk to us about just how we got where we are, just some of the history and connections and parallels that you see between alcohol prohibition of yesterday end drug prohibition today, as well as the politics around both. >> thank you all for being here and thank you, judge burnett, those like it perfect segue to what i want to talk about. [inaudible] [laughter] >> it's been a while, a longtime. i want to go back to jesse jackson's remarks at the very beginning because he challenged us by saying that rather than thinking of the drug were as a

failure, that, in fact, it's a success. it's a success of the things that were set out to do. which was about not producing drugs but about policing for people. and i think we have to remember that because if you think about it we already had a time in our country where we experiment with the idea of controlling people's behavior and access to something that they wanted. it was called alcohol prohibition. and what did that produce what they produce a lot of crime. it produced a lot of violence. who were the people who were arrested? it wasn't the big guys who were smuggling liquor in, the seagram manufactures, et cetera. it was the immigrants, the poor people. it was the working class people in cities all over the country who the law was designed for in the first place because if you go back and look at the history of it, you see the people put forward these proposals didn't specifically with the idea and intention of using it to control the poor, marginalized in the

powerless. martin luther king said one of the ways that you know a law is unjust is if it was enacted by the majority to be imposed on the minority. so we need to actually ask ourselves, we're all the white drug users, the ones we see an intervention and making bad and all the other programs that are on tv telling us that white folks are using drugs. how come we don't see them behind bars? why is that? because the goal of drug prohibition was never about controlling the drug use of the majority population. it was always to be about controlling us. and for me, the most important thing for us to think about is two things. one, the context of nixon declared the war on drugs, what was going on just before that? you had a civil rights movement of black people who reached a point where they said we are tired of being second class with respect to the law, we want

something different. and when we moved from demanding our basic civil rights to demanding human rights and economic rights, that's when we became a threat. so the drug war was about killing the black nationalist movement and it was also about killing the peace movement, the antiwar movement, the movement of white people who decided they didn't want to become -- and by criminalizing them and becoming the issue of drugs, then you know longer have to deal with the substance of what they were doing. you could now focus on them as criminals and lock them up and thereby shut their voices. so brother garrison who talked earlier about the hundreds of thousands of our men who should be in our community being leaders, their voices were intentionally shot. they were intentionally put there in order to deprive us of the leadership and the kind of strong family structure that we need. but for me the other thing that i feel is really important for us to talk about today is like where we are as a community about this.

because the reality is that the system would not be able to do it to us if we didn't tolerate it. for me one of the conversations that we really need to have in our community is where we are in the punishment paradigm. we know america was built on punishment. the people who came here came here because they were doing the punishment. many of them were convicts were sent here as felons. we shouldn't be surprised that they brought with them that propensity for punishment and they also brought us. and 4400 years we are subject to the idea of punishment as a form of behavior modification. we need to look at where we, where is aware not only have become so immune to it that we do it to ourselves. because we are the ones who allow the police to keep snatching our young men and women away for things they are not doing any other community. i just read an article today in the new times when mayor bloomberg was challenged on the

reason why so many minority youths are being arrested for marijuana possession, an offense that was decriminalized 40 years ago in order to protect white youth, but it's not the principal reason why young black and latino men are being arrested in what he said is that this was an effective crime fighting tool in fact these kids had to spend two days in jail, being booked, fingerprinted, et cetera was no big deal if it reduced crime. you ask me whether not he would say that in west chester, or any other white communities in the city that he would have the nerve to stand up and say to people that are public safety depends on my humiliating your children, my putting them through something i would never want to go through myself but it's okay, because after all i'm doing it for your own good. when are we as a community going to start saying no to that? saying no to that. [applause]

>> so, i'm really happy to be here today, but quite frankly i'm not into conversations about reforming drug laws and i'm not in a conversation about fixing drug addicts. because quite frankly much more willing in our committee focus on fixing people than fixing institutions. but it's the institutions that have been hurting our people since the day we arrived here in massachusetts are. [applause] we need to get off of that. and really start focusing on that which means that we need to end drug prohibition. not in the reduced sentences, not put people into drug courts. we need to end prohibition. if we end drug prohibition we will find ourselves with the same set of circumstances that we did when we ended alcohol prohibition. it didn't get rid of alcoholism. it didn't be rid of people being folks when they're using alcohol. but it did just the opportunity to spend our money in a better way, to take it away from the criminal element.

i don't know how many black folks i knew who made money by running liquor stores. i mean, like let's just be his real about it gave us an opportunity to take a negative and reduce the negativity it was associate with. not eliminating it completely. i want to start a conversation about the ability for us to regulate and control drugs, which is what we did prior to 1914. so let's not pretend this is some radical thing. there was a time when all the drugs that are currently illicit were legal. when they were controlled by doctors, where you got them from pharmacies. and in the first early years of drug prohibition we had heroine maintenance clinics in the u.s. in the u.s. so don't let anybody tell you we can't do these things, that can only happen in your. no, it happened here. >> thank you deborah. [applause] >> what did i tell you? neil, don't go too far. that was a segue to you. we're going to bring up neil

franklin. my goodness. you spent 33 plus years in law enforcement with a vast majority of those years you were involved in aggressive enforcement of drug laws, arresting people, mainly black folks but nonviolent drug crimes, seizing money, seizing property. indeed, i really, not too long ago i saw you in tears when you're reminiscing the level of japan's involvement in the war on drug. so how does it for me -- former law enforcement official like you make 180-degree turn to where you have now dedicated your life to indian prohibition? >> -- indian prohibition? >> before i start on the question from a couple of quick comments. if you have never seen god at work, look around, look around. [applause] and have to acknowledge bishop ron allen. e. and i, this has got to work.

he and i in the past have been at opposite perspectives on this, but i guarantee you we will find common ground. no doubt whatsoever. [applause] so how did i get here after spending so much time demanding drug task force is working undercover, being one of the most aggressive drug prohibition is out there in the law enforcement community? and i wish that mayor kurt schmoke, currently the dean of howard law school with you, because he was a great influence to me. being a baltimore native, when he was mayor of that city, he had the courage to step forward after being the prosecutor and the mayor, prosecutor he

suffered a crime perspective as mayor he saw from a health perspective of aids in the city and hepatitis, and you've heard about that day. as a lieutenant i had the pleasure to sitting on his exchange board and i got to listen to the conversations and fellowship with him. it didn't blossom it, needed water. so i went back in to narcotics and commanding task forces on the eastern shore of maryland, and ended my career there as commander of the training division for the maryland state police, but that very year afterwards this was the water --

i don't know if you can see that, but that's a photograph at my retirement just a few months before he was assassinated. he was presenting this shadowbox to me, which encompasses my career. a few months after that he and i had a conversation. ed was one the best narcotic agents the state of maryland had ever seen. the only time i ever saw him in uniform was twice, shortly after he graduated from the police academy, and a 14 year later would put him in his coffin.

october just after which you see here he was assigned to the fbi, narcotics task force, and that's interesting in of itself because in law enforcement, we recruit these young black police officers right when they come in. to go into narcotics. why is that? you've heard why from hilary and from deborah, you've heard why. not only do we recruit them into narcotics, but then we farm them out to other law enforcement agencies to work communities of color. black communities. now, he was working with the fbi here in washington, d.c., black communities. and ed and i just a couple of weeks before he was assassinated were having a conversation about this case he was working, buying cocaine from a mid-level dealer

when he was going to make the final purchase of cocaine and wrap up the case, as we do. but doesn't usually go much further than that, you know what i mean. and then one night i did a call in the middle of the night. my wife and i get in the car, it was a coworker who said ed had been shot, october 30, 2000, and they knew exactly what it was. we get in the car and we drive down to the general hospital, but it's too late. so, that's the water for me. it's that seed.

and it was shortly after that, i started doing research, and then i started finding information that you have been given today. you know, when your eyes are finally opened, pause and look around. so for those of you whose eyes are open today, pause for a moment and learn, and taken all this information every day, every week i learned something new about the devastating impact of these policies. and deborah, thank you so much. judge burnett, thank you so much, because we have to dismantle this system of drug prohibition. it needs to go, period. there's no tinkering with it. they're so trying to fix it. it needs to be dismantled.

[applause] it needs to be dismantled, and it's not just -- i will close with this. it's not just about cops, drive-by shootings, running gun battles, innocent people, for those of you from baltimore, you remember the dawson family of seven who was murdered a couple years after ed, all seven of them in their home by their neighborhood drug dealer. [applause] >> many politicians have tried to offer easy answers to the drug problem by targeting the pimping farmers who produce them. they say we know where the drugs are coming from so why do we go down there to south america and destroy those drugs before they

can reach our streets and impact our communities in the u.s.? but we've been doing that for a decade under plan colombia and nothing seems to change, so what's wrong with that kind of approach? >> well, first of all that we say thank you for inviting me here. those of you are more observant in the audience might realize that one of us doesn't look like the others on the panel. [laughter] but i assure you i am part of the original ds brought from africa. [laughter] [applause] my tribe just happened to leave 30,000 years early. but we are all of us in this room, and in the audience, watching television connecting through africa. we are all part of that same human family. there are the common house between drug producing countries and the drug consuming countries that i wanted well on because that reflects our common humanity and as you see the

inhumanity of what we do in the drug war here i want to talk about what we do there in those countries. and so, the countries that -- what unites these communities is what i call the pda problem. i don't mean personal digital assistants. i mean poverty, despair and alienation. that's what connects people who consume drugs, rock and victims of the drug war in the united states and also dependent farms to grow these illicit crops who are more marginalized in the own country. just to give you some sense of the reality people live in, in countries like colombia, peru, bolivia where a lot of the cocaine is grown, or afghanistan with a poppy and heroine is produced, we are talking about people who live in extreme poverty. it's not uncommon for people, half the population live below the official poverty line. $2 a day. these are people who live in

very remote areas also what is not a lot of state presence, not a lot of roads or market or electricity, but no police, no military. when you combine that with the high demand in the united states and other drug consuming countries, plus the policies of prohibition, and a prohibition that is the engine that drives this monster because what these peasant farmers are producing are essentially minimally processed agricultural commodities. things like cannabis, cocaine, heroin, these things are easy to produce, cheap to produce. it's our policies of prohibition and ever escalate law enforcement that builds the prophets, the price supports into the system. that's why people are killing each other, continue to do this year after year, decade after decade. so we make these things more valuable than gold and we wonder why they don't disappear. the more we escalate the law

enforcement, the higher the possibility of someone getting captured in the smuggling chain, and the longer the potential prison system they have deserved, the higher the risk premium they're able to charge the next person down the smuggling line. so they're making extreme profits off of things that ought to have no value. these drugs often cost pennies for does and yet we have this incredible price. the last people who want this drug war to end are the kingpins, the smugglers because that's their profit that we give them a price support through our drug war. [applause] >> so, when you combine these factors together, the extreme poverty, the high demand, and the amount of land, keep in mind, colombia is bigger than texas and california combined. bully get the same, peru the same. these are huge landmasses. you cannot police this kind of territory to stop people from doing these things when they have no other option. they live in remote areas and

growing these crops make good economic sense because it's easy transport a bit of opium for cocaine our cannabis to imagine if you're living far away from any road, any civilization, and we tell them you need to grow something else, you need to grow pineapples and bananas. to transport on vehicles you don't have, over roads that literally don't exist, to sell and markets both domestic and export, you can't get access to. even if you could, to compete against which these peasant farmers don't stand a chance. [applause] >> that's why these things don't work. >> thank you so very much. let's give all of our panelists a big hand right now. [applause] >> i was prepared to do another round, but what we want to do is open it up to you right now for questions and answers, about four or five questions before you bring up the executive director to close us out.

someone will come run with a microphone but before we do i see hazel, with communications, formerly with the national newspaper publishers association, just really want to thank for all the assistance with your medications with this effort. [applause] >> okay, let's go to -- >> i would like to start with thank you, you put it dead on point. you talk about, you know, we've had this discussion i'll long time ago. we called it racial disparity. we need to call it what it is. it's racist to its institutional racist to the drug politics institutional basis. it's jim crow revised. like the sister pointed out. nothing has changed. just like between 1865-1875 we

went right back into slavery. that's the same thing they did after the '60s, put us right back where we started. and we are sitting there, continue to do this. one thing like she's talking about, it's the community. we need to stop putting these white names on this crap. we need to call it what it is and understand this is a war on us. and just use it as some kind of a boehner spent you have a specific question? >> i just appreciate what you did. i really do. [applause] >> thank you. and in the course of responding to these questions, somewhat hopefully will address the drug policy, where we go from here at all like this. thank you. >> i entered with a racial justice. i want to push back a little about what we talked about today because a certain extent were

speaking to the quiet. none of us here specifically any kind of disagreement, but train to mention when he to change the narrative. the biggest narratively difficult in changing is the media narrative. what we know here is true, the sax all out there. the system we see on tv is insanity. so i want to ask you all, what's your vision of us changing the narrative. thank you. [applause] >> who would like to respond? hilary shelton, naacp. >> i probably present one of the most conservative organizations at this table. we claim what we are and recognized we have represent communities throughout every city in the message but also military bases in germany, korea and japan to the narrative has changed, the kind of programs were doing right here. but also important is as judge burnett laid that we have to pass the national criminal justice commission act. let me tell you why i say that. when we have these

conversations, they're some kind of marginalized small community thinkers were saying these things, what we really need is your communities and i think back over all, if we create this federal criminal justice commission, it means were able to bring all these issues to the forefront, to the light. we will be holding hearings across the country where we talk about these disparities. we can talk about racism in the process. most americans are not aware of what the actual outcome or result has been on these deeply troubling and deeply problematic policies. they don't know. most people don't know that when we talk about who gets affected, on crack cocaine issue, we made history, you're going to hear from bobby scott, -- african-americans made up 84.7%

of those who were convicted of crack cocaine usage. but only make up about 12% of those who actually use crack cocaine. that kind of data most people were not aware of but we got to show that. we got to talk about why does everybody is using drugs at the same rate but the enforcement of the system is one that is so detrimental and so problematic that has the effect of which were seen. and really destabilizing our entire community with african-american male, one-third of african american male get caught up in the criminal justice system by the time to 24 years old. what that means is you've eliminate a whole lot of opportunities to build to cast a vote, to the differences and in challenge that most people are not connecting the law that was just passed in florida adding five years to rehabilitating your franchise, your right to vote for those who pay their debt to society already back on the street. they have to wait five more years before they can vote. most people think about who that

affected it affects our folks. so many other things. some of our folks are buying into it as well. when you talk about things like photo ids, photo ids to be able to vote. why not? i got a drivers license. well, we did a little statistical analysis as well. that's what we do. we found out that the 25%, one quarter of all voting age african-americans would not be able to vote under the present photo id system. we do not have acceptable level of photo ids to go to the polls and vote in november. us who that's going to affect? so we've got to tie all the together. it's good to see senator webb has reintroduced the bill. we passed in the house last year. we've got to do it again.

>> thank you hilary. never wants to respond and then we'll go to the next question. keep our responses brief. >> i want to respond briefly on the issue of the media, which is quite frank i think we need to accept the fact that we have a corporate media now. we no longer have a force of state has committed to informing the populace. as a result of that, we have a democracy that is very much compromised. i want to just make the point that the civil rights movement didn't come about because we were able to change the immediate conversation about white people that had been believed they needed to change the laws. it changed when we as a community decided that we wanted something different. and we are at a place in this country with that's going to be true not just with respect with a narrative around criminal justice. look at the narrative around labor. look at the narrative around work. none of it is set in reality. and that's intentional. it's intentional in order to

keep us down as a group, as a country. so we just stop having this belief that the me was going to change because as long as it is owned by people like rupert murdoch and all the other corporatist, is going to continue to feed us garbage. if we want something real we have to create our own media. we have to start having our own kind of mutation amongst ourselves. we need to take a page out of the book of what's happening in the middle east and start doing that here. [applause] >> very quickly i would just say it's important for us to embrace the reentry movement because they hundreds of thousands of americans are coming home every year from prisons and their successful stories of reentering society in rebuilding their lives need to be shared because it's proof of its absolute proof that no one needs to spend as long in prison, if at all, as is currently happening.

>> good afternoon. i'd like to thank all the panel. i have a question if any of you can respond. we for a number of drivers regarding the issue of drug our community, anything from crime to poverty. but i'd like to give mention to the 2 million veterans that served in iraq and afghanistan. and conservatively speaking, 25% of those people have been diagnosed some form of mental health impairment including ptsd, also traumatic brain injury. i'd like to get your opinion about those who suffer in silence in many cases, that are going to represent our next demographic of drug users and alcohol abusers, et cetera. and your opinion on proactive intervention support and other programs throughout african-americans, particularly who have served in iraq and afghanistan. >> i think that's a great question, and there's no doubt

that our veterans have been underserved as they have come home. and that's true for every war that we've had. my own brother fought in desert storm, and he is dead now from a cocaine overdose on his 37th birthday. we know individuals who come back for more comeback were sticky literally came back not right. he suffered from alcohol addiction for very long time and then eventually graduated on to using cocaine. but the problem, you're right, it's a crisis and there are increasing numbers of veterans who are using substances and they are at high risk of overdose it does but i mentioned earlier it is the second leading cause of accidental death. try? health insurance for veterans, or active duty, does not provide replacement therapy coverage. so for individuals who have addiction to heroin or to pain medication, they are unable to their methadone covered by

insurance they use, replace it took these that have been widely widely successful. >> coming from the medical community, i think this really explains why i had a revelation over the past 15 years, and begin to see that it was extremely important as an individual practitioner, and as a part of the medical community to join forces with the most structured organization in our community. and that is the african-american church, so that out of that over the past several years, it was created 22 years ago i believe in new york. we develop a chapter you under the leadership of reverend doctor frank tucker three years ago. so that understanding that the

model for health care is a spiritual mental and physical model. reverend kathryn bigelow was one of my mentors when i first started doing drug treatment. and her acronym was always that you have to have compassion, commitment and confidence. there's no place in our community that is stronger than african-american church in terms of compassion, commitment and confidence. so that by joining forces with the medical community, we bring science so that we educate the pastors and the board of the churches affiliated churches, and this is a massive undertaking. it's difficult to get eight or nine different denominations to work together and agree on anything. but the one thing -- [laughter] -- and these are not just christian churches. we have and imam in an

organization, so that this is -- drug addiction has no racial barriers. it has no economic barriers. you're just as likely to see a town in the suburbs, when we talk about the suburban kid to go into the medicine cabinets not getting grandma's oxycontin, or the children in our communities who also suffer from ptsd because of the trauma that they see every day. so it's not just the returning veterans. it's all of our community. and we are getting, getting bombarded from multiple sources. and i'm glad you mentioned replacement therapy. that was an evolution a process for me. when i was in medical school in the late '70s, almost got a moment of alzheimer's -- [laughter] i had a bush about that big. couldn't get my mortar on when i graduated.

but the point is that to use methadone or to use replacement therapy was considered just replacing one drug with another. but that was before we knew anything about aids. that was before we even identified hepatitis c. we called it 989 be. they had identified the virus. now we have these plagues associated with the drudges also up on us. so that one has to grow. one has to learn. and it's about bringing the science of service. bringing science to service. for my job is to bring the science to the religious community, and they're the ones that have the closest contact with the community. so that saves us a lot of time and energy if they sit down and listen and they are listening. they connected, they made the connection between drug

addiction and eight academic. they understand it so that using that as our mouthpiece, that's how all great movements in the community have worked. >> thank you so very much, doctor chapman. [applause] >> we are only going to take at this time when the question then we're going to bring in doctor ron daniel for our call to action. but as we formally closed and c-span is gone and whatever, the panelists hopefully will be around to engage in more individualized question. so last question. >> good afternoon. i am privileged to be here at the gathering, and i made some notes of everybody's input. one of the things we know about in the balance of the american community is several things occur. number one is basically three essential levels of concern. control of goods and services, control of force and violence, and control of the mind which

are all aspects we've talked here at this mean. one of the things we want to consider, a small option, could probably a top the panzer model. the panther model did back in the '70s was to the spiritual leaders in our community, the drug addicts they came together,. [inaudible] their legacy became the breakfast program that ronald reagan eventually took credit for. what we can do is also look at our front line for our warriors, guys after that we talked about and women, combined a with a propensity of a group like this for example, tends to represent, and we can impact several areas, public policy which we discussed in terms of how to alter things, we could look at sentencing guidelines anything else that would help us, including access,

whether that be weatherization or whatever it may be. we often use that as a tool for information so that we can inform the general public of what's really going on because even when people here describe their experiences, there still some noise from the audience, you have to figure on the frontline, why are we doing and all in? because of an going on for a very long time. and thirdly, as we talk about here, we can begin to address the family issues. we can engage in some type of stability and move on from the. thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you so very much. the next person will come up, our last person to present, over the last four decades has played a leading role in some of the most significant social and political movements of the time, and i know he was introduced much earlier, including the

liberation committee, national black committee party, national african immigrant leadership summit, million man march, he was a former executive director of the constitutional rights in a computed essential lecture at new york college city new york college city university of new york, he is the president of the is is a block world 21st century, he's going to come up and get the call of action. doctor ron daniels. [applause] >> let's give a big round of applause for nkechi. [applause] >> she's been on the battlefield for a long, long time. we want to thank all of you for being here this afternoon. and i want to acknowledge the work of our splendid team, but all of the board members of the

instead of the black will 21st century who are here. please stand. [applause] >> we would not a been able to do this without a strong work of the person who keeps us in check and keeps us in line. she is a veteran of many, many years of work. we now know what made him an excellent president. it's all due to rosalynn. stand up and take a bow. [applause] >> what i want to do in conclusion, because as nkechi has said, and i now use the word of my dear friend, we reminisce these things and he says we've been doing this work all of our lives. all of our lives. we've got to revise the resume because it's more like five decades now. i don't really worry about that.

i used to say the autumn of advocacy is almost wintertime. that doesn't matter either because that spirit is i ain't no waste time pics went to keep on doing what we have to do because we have to win the many struggles that we have been involved in. so i also want to give out appreciation to the black family summit, some of those representatives have now had to leave but let's give him a big round of applause for the black family summit. [applause] >> we say that because at the end of the day this is not about the institute of the black world 21st century. this is not about ron daniels. at the end of the day it's about our capacity to collaborate our ability to take each other's experiences. i don't agree that we all have the choir here. that's why we have, not everybody believes exactly the same thing. not everybody here believes that ought to be a legalization of

drugs and regulation. that may be a stretch were some people. some people are not down with a aspects of because at the bottom i think we can all agree to begin with that the war on drugs needs to end. and so the institute of the black world 21st century can play this gathering on this day to declare, and i don't like to use analogy but this is so bad that even had to convince myself to use a war paradigm. a war which was waged on us the way we ended, the way we waged war on drugs but we claim not to have any particular expertise your. i mean, we're glad to all of these brilliant panel survey i don't come you're claiming to know that i make drug policy reform expert. i'm not. but i am a veteran social injustice political activist. i've been on this for a long time. when i see something is wrong, it is my charge and challenge to

see what is wrong to analyze it and to cause us to action. so we're going to be dominated by on this panel to help educate us, help give us more knowledge, the black family summit, the board of institute of the black world 21st century so we can get up on speed. at the end of the date knowledge is power. sometimes we don't to think that we don't have the knowledge. sometimes we have to because we don't have the information that will overcome our fear of doing certain things. we don't come here as experts. we do know this, i know this for many, many years. we have looked at a strategy which has decimated our community. when we look at what's going on in our committees today every urban inner-city committee, and i know elsie scott talked about the small commuters all across the country, as malcolm x said we are catching more felt than ever before. those of us in this room are doing pretty good. because we now have two black americans and we need to

endeavored, the challenge is on us. we live in the black community. that doesn't mean we don't need allies. at the end of the day those who are an effective, strike the first blow. we must be stand up ourselves. we have to acknowledge this fact that we have some of us as the benefit of the civil rights human rights, black power movement who are doing better than we ever thought we would do. i'm a distinguished lecture at new york city university college in new york. that's not too bad from it coal miner's son. i'm doing pretty good. so when i dashed i don't mean i don't do with racism. they follow me around when i'm shopping. they profile me when i'm on the highways. but for me it's an inconvenience. we are now the privileged class in the black community. i'm clear. we are not at the same level of

the counterpart but we doing relatively well off. but on the other hand, i use the term the dark ghettos. the urban communities, inner-city areas, all across this country. are catching more help than ever before. it is open warfare. gunfire, crime, violence. we all admit. we all talk about. but we are not doing a hell of a lot about it in terms of really moving it for because we have a sense of inertia. we don't know what to do about but i'm here to tell you that it ain't the only part, i will talk about that in a minute, but one of the most fundamental pillars of what we see going on in our community, this combustible cauldron of genocide and death is this war on drugs. why? because it's a racist war on drugs. i know many people out there who say my god, i thought racism was gone, why are you negroes still

talking about racism? because the evidence is there. that does not -- if, in fact, we have a phenomenon where largely white people are the ones who use the most drugs, and deborah small said why are white people -- there something wrong with her care, something wrong with a culture, defective human beings. we have been targeted for the police actions. the war on drugs is a war on us. constitutional rights, talk about the street crime. being stopped interest in our community. they rolled on us anyway what they just used to. they stand and let them do it. we have become accustomed to the oppression. the late wife of malcolm x once said we may be oppressed but we do not have to cooperate with the of pressure. and that's the point again i think deborah made.

so we are joining, not creating, we are not leaving, we are joining with our brothers and sisters and those with the drug policy of lines of all these organizations represented on the stage today, and others, we just want to become a part of. we want to broaden, we want to make sure the sociologist and the social workers who may have had his on the agenda but maybe not at the top, we want to elevate it higher on their agenda. the agriculture, the black professional firefighters can all of these organizations, those associate with a black family summit we want to broaden the discussion to include them in the discussion because they also bring expertise, they also bring ideas taste of their profession. they're not coming at it a professional way that others. they come at it from an african perspective, that's why been the national association of black psychologist when they were told

there is no such thing as black psychologist. we suggest there is an all these things. so the already bring an african set of respective. now what we need is something to educate ourselves and begin to move forward. what we at the institute of the black world 21st century want to do, and in decline this war on drugs is we want to organize an army, using that word terminology, an army of africans and organizes to in the war on drugs. we want to organize an army of africans. we call on you to become a part of this effort. and on our website, you will see a petition which we just put up yesterday when i got about 5:00 is when and turned on my computer, they very first person had already signed up to be a part go to be an advocate on the war, to end the war on drugs. two categories, advocates.

want to provide you with information on rig of faces, keep you updated. when they call upon you, you can spring into action. but we also need organize. that's what deficit. we need organized. everybody may not be willing to do the same thing but we need advocates but we also need people who are willing to be in the trenches. it will, in fact, receive intensive training and orientation about how to organize our people to engage the struggle. here's the reality. one of the reasons why they cut, they're cutting the wic program, cutting all these programs that affect poor people and black people. why? because black and poor people are not organized. they know they can do it with impunity. they can step all over us and nothing will happen. there will be no consequence. we've got to change that equation. if you step on us, we will step back. we will fight back. nonviolently but we will fight back. it is clear the whole equation between incarceration and, in fact, stripping their voting

rights your let's just look at this. you have a first amendment right to go out here and demonstrate and protest, right? you don't lose that because you don't do it. you have a thing now if you don't vote, you've got to reregister and all that kind of stuff. that's ridiculous. why should it be double jeopardy? you did the time. if you did the time why are you also sentenced to five years of not being able to vote? that is incorrect. that is wrong. we need to change that. so as we move forward, you will see a 10-point program. that program is not just comprehensive as many as it ought to be but it includes such things as ending the 18th one disparity. we do, racism that is out the ending mandatory sentences. ending the legislation for proliferating slave labor. you talk about the new jim crow. anybody knows that history about

what happened right after reconstruction, we know that time, the same manner, the constant racism, the criminalization, beautiful sister wrote the book of a little small book called the criminalization of a raise. ever since living in this country been disproportionate involved in the criminal justice system. because we have been criminalized. laws are passed which make us criminals, but categorize them as criminals. so after the civil war was over were out there, didn't have nowhere to go, so lawyering. loitering became a crime. today, they get you because too many young brothers are hanging out on the corner. so that became a part of how you get criminalized. you gone to the criminal justice system and they would lease us out to increasing us out they would take our slave labor because they did that to slavery

to. they also leased slaves out of the same system going out today. the more things change the more they stay the same. we got to bust that out. criminal profit. in the criminalization of drugs, ending racial profiling which is still going on. mass incarceration. has become the de facto reality of our life today. changes in policy that allow people, this is really bad. you go to the joint, you are incarcerated. many of the people in jail do not belong there in the first place. that's the other thing we in the black you may have got to come to understand. were partly responsible. i remember i was out there in youngstown, ohio. the brothers was out there raising holy whatever out there. all kinds of stuff. we called it the unemployment, this was where all this is going

on. people want a nicely. so they said rang the police in, bring anybody in. what it. we in the black committee were asking for that. really, oh, my? you want this? so they were brought on. they brought it on, tough and strong. but after a while we said way, we didn't really mean that. we didn't really know that you're going to send our sons and daughters to prison. we did know you're going to put them in a situation where they had to plea bargain or face mandatory. we did know all the damage that was going to be done. now we know. now we know, right? now we know what the deal is. now that we know what the deal is we've got to change the deal. we have got to be advocates fighting for the changes that need to be done. brother your doctor his discussion with the patient. we need a dialogue. a dialogue, institute of the

black world 21st century degrees, others did not. that's okay. let's put it on the table and have a discussion about in terms of whether it works, doesn't work. let's discuss it because we're in such bad shape we need to discuss everything. on the basis of evidence, on the basis of evidence that have a rational discussion. we at the institute of the black world 21st century are about doing that. my last point is this. and i will say this over and over again. ending the war on drugs in and of itself and by itself will not end the crisis in the black community. for the last year or two, i joined other saying we have a state of emergency in the black community. a state of emergency or in any other community, we will use new york as an example for the committee service society indicated, when you look at african-americans and latino men under the age of 30, on any one given day, 50% of

african-american men in the city of new york are unemployed, 40% of latinos. if that's not a state of emergency i don't know what is. and yet malcolm said, you suffer peacefully. it's almost like to paint ain't happening. there's no outcry. it's a state of emergency without urgency. a part of it has to do yes with the war on drugs but has do with a larger fact of american life. and that is coming off the civil rights movement. yes, they brought the drugs in because i remember in youngstown, ohio, people were rebelling and organizing and one day, you know, brothers on the street corner, all of a sudden the most ardent militants on the street corner. they had in fact put the revolution to sleep. but there's something else was going on. i talk about the unemployment.

the fact of the matter is there was a backlash against the civil rights movement. is a backlash against again. as we move beyond the question of civil rights, document equity in terms of jobs and economic developer, all of a sudden this was an agenda that became too expensive. martin luther king talked about the conversation that harry belafonte often subscribed and also verified by congressman payne, he said i feared that we may be entering a burning house. meaning we may be entering a period in which america is not willing to make the sacrifices that are necessary to finish this journey. remember what we martin luther king died, martin luther king, the civil rights race was over. his march, that last phase of for economic justice. he was on his way to launch a poor people's campaign for an economic bill of rights to make sure every person, every speck of race, color and creed had a

house, education, income. that was the radical proposition that got martin luther king assassin a. so now when we raise, these dark getters, massive this assessment. because yes, we were played as a political football the whole notion of welfare, food stands, poverty program, all of this that was conceived in the mind of the american public has been programs for black people. but all along frankly in terms of not absolute numbers, more white people are being served by these programs than black people. [applause] right there was a racial subtext. that was used to disinvest massive disinvestment. there are no programs for young black people. they are on the joint partner training programs. there is no job court anymore. in those days we thought that was reform. we were raising against these programs as being too modest. today we wish we had been because they don't exist in more. did not massive

deindustrialization. political economy, love bill cosby but you need to listen to somebody. it ain't about how people speak and how they spent worse. all that is going to be relevant at one level. we want everybody to do better. we want everybody to do their absolute best. we have a situation today where people do their best and it's still not enough because because race still matters. the color was a bar in the 21st century distilled the bar. so the question is deindustrialization. i heard the congressman talked with his district in chicago. work has just disappeared. we can rectify that by stippling the war on drugs so, therefore, we must add a demand to the agenda. we need a domestic marshall plan program with jobs, education, economic infrastructure to in fact a deal a holistic program. we call it a martin luther king,

malcolm an ex-initiative. said it will take that. because in reality what happened was rather than do that, rather than give us the racial socioeconomic justice we deserve, they gave us a policing, a law enforcement program and a judicial enforcement program. that was the substance, the war on drugs is a substitute for the kind of social, economic and racial justice that we should have for black people. so we declare this war on drugs it's got to be holistic. it's got to include all these things. we want all these reforms, all of these, whatever is required to get it into. at the end of the day you must also include a social, economic, racial justice agenda that will make sure we have jobs and economic infrastructure, the kind of equity in our community that will effect you are community. that's what we need. we want to heal our community. we need to heal our communities

and in order to do that we need to move for. i conclude on this note. we want people to join his army of advocates and organizers to end the war on drugs. it's very simple. we will be in touch with you. if we do that but you've got to go to www.ibw21.org and sign-on. as i said before this is not a one person, one organization show. we will be working collaborative that's the other thing. it ain't about turf. it ain't about who gets credit it ain't about who's going to be seen on television or whether the revolution will be televised or not. it's irrelevant. what we want to make sure is that our people get to the promised land. it would get to the promised land if we do the work that we need to do as people of african descent, and friends and allies, because it will require a coalition. there are latinos, asians, whites, arab americans, nati