>Sender: >To: >X-Original-Message-ID: <007b01bf313d$3e607c60$9acf69cf@pacbell.net> >From: "Peter McWilliams" >Subject: Hark! A Genuine Christian! >Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1999 12:49:29 -0800 >X-Mozilla-Status: 8001 >X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 > > >A remarkable article from "Sojourners Magazine:" "Rooted in the solid ground >of prophetic biblical tradition, Sojourners is a progressive Christian voice >that preaches not political correctness but compassion, community, and >commitment." > >Feeding the Gods of Unfreedom >It's time to admit: We've lost the War on Drugs >By Will Campbell > > > >Some while back I tarried by the mail box on our country road, pretending to >sift through the mail, because a work crew of county prisoners was >approaching. I wanted to spend a little time with them as they picked up >trash. The guard called a 10-minute rest break right at our mail box. Nine >of the 12 men were black. Our county is 16-to-1 white. Nothing surprising >there, I thought. White people are not locked up as often as black people, >not even for the same offense. > >I learned that all except one were serving sentences for drug-related >offenses. That troubled me deeply, in part because I was a drug addict for >more than 40 years and never spent a night in prison. I was frisked numerous >times, especially during the last several years of my addiction when airport >security had become so exacting. On more than one occasion hard evidence of >my addiction was discovered, sometimes in copious measure. The evidence was >ignored. I was never arrested or detained. > >Unfortunately my drug was legal. I say unfortunately because my drug of >choice, nicotine, will kill you. Directly, undeniably, it kills 150,000 a >year in our country alone. In related, contributory cases it is more like >450,000. If we have any degree of moral accountability left, we cannot >ignore the uncountable millions in what we call Third World countries who >have died and will die from our callous exports. > >Eight of the prisoners I talked with were there for marijuana charges. Two, >both black, were there on crack cocaine offenses. The full import and irony >of my 10 minutes with the prisoners did not hit me until later. The >prisoners were sitting under the shade of a cottonwood tree at the end of a >long country driveway smoking tobacco cigarettes. Prisoners of the state, >under the gun for using or dealing in a drug that is relatively harmless >compared to the drug they were using, partaking of a drug that will kill >them but which is legal. Nothing like dying legally, I reckon. > >I stood there watching as the orange-vested prisoners moved out of sight. A >certain sadness gripped me. They were all so young. None over 25. I >remembered a neighbor's son and daughter, about the ages of these young men. >They have been involved in illegal drugs since their mid-teens. They have >been arrested many times, but never convicted nor even tried. They are white >and their parents can afford counsel. > >THIS STORY IS ABOUT the loss of a war and the sin and insanity of continuing >to wage that war with the same weapon: prisons. From the well-meaning but >nanve "solution" of "just say no" to the equally well-meaning but equally >nanve mandatory maximum sentences, we have been defeated in our War on >Drugs. > >When we finally realized that we had lost the undeclared war in Vietnam, >those remaining in Saigon climbed to the highest building and clung to the >last helicopter leaving the country. Now it is time for the metaphor to be >exercised in the drug war. We have lost. But there are those who will not >admit defeat. Who are they? First and foremost they are the ones who make >enormous profits from what is now recognized as the prison-industrial >complex. Locking people up is big business. Not just for construction >companies but for such private enterprises as the Corrections Corporation of >America, a Tennessee-based company that is leading the way in the effort to >turn all prisons over to private enterprise. Last year its net profit was >$53.9 million. Since corporate prisons make their profits based on the daily >number of prisoners, longer sentences are the strategy. Not rehabilitation. >Not justice. > >Cocaine addiction, like all addictions, is a treatable illness. Why are the >sick imprisoned, not treated? Crack cocaine-the drug that started the panic >of building prisons-is used by more whites than blacks, but blacks are >locked up five times more often. > >We have heard the statistics and horror stories. Every 20 seconds someone is >arrested on a drug charge. Every week, a new jail or prison is built, even >though we already have the world's largest penal system. Every day we read >of such things as a young mother getting life in prison for $40 worth of >cocaine. Six hundred thousand people were arrested in this country last year >for possessing or selling marijuana, a drug most authorities report as less >harmful than alcohol. In 1970 less than 200,000 people were in prisons. Soon >there will be two million. > >The majority of religious people remain silent on the rapid increase in >incarceration and even more quiet on the unfair, racially imbalanced threat >of America's drug laws. That despite the fact that our founder, a prisoner >who suffered the legal death penalty, said that he had come to open prison >doors and let the captives go free. He talked of forgiveness and >restoration. We who claim to be his disciples are obliged to offer >leadership in release to captives. Our actions are incompatible with our >words at prayer. Our talk is of the little ones. The poor. Most often our >actions benefit the moneyed. > >There are glimmers of hope. We are seeing more and more people in each >religious declension who feel compelled to give at least passing attention >to correcting the cancerous condition in America that is roaring out of >control, threatening to destroy us by forever bigger appropriations to feed >the gods of unfreedom and the coffers of the already rich. > >Many years ago a white sharecropper on a Mississippi farm reported to his >landlord that he had witnessed the lynching of a black man over the weekend. >Before leaving the man said, "Now I don't want you to think I'm a >tattletale. But some things just ain't right." We're still lynching a lot of >people. And some things still just ain't right. > >---- > >WILL CAMPBELL is a longtime preacher and activist and the author of several >books, including Race and the Renewal of the Church (1962) and Brother to a >Dragonfly (1977). > >WE WANT TO HEAR from you! Use our direct link to share your views. >http://www.sojourners.com/letters.html Or write to "Letters," Sojourners, >2401 15th St. NW, Washington DC 20009; fax (202) 328-8757. Please include >your name, address, and daytime phone number. Letters may be edited for >space and clarity. > > > > >================================================================ > >This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to > the mailing list . >To unsubscribe, E-mail to: