Jeff Sessions: The Coming War on African American Communities

Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, the allegedly reformed Alabama White Supremacist (can a white supremacist be reformed?) who as Attorney General of the United States is the country's chief law enforcement officer, thinks that violent crime is on the upswing. He must be smoking something. Certainly One violent crime is one too many. But we should at least expect accuracy from the Attorney General. By all accounts violent crime is down nationally. So why does the Attorney whose employees compile the statistics on crime not know that?

I submit that he does know it and is using this misinformation to justify a New War on Drugs. Let us be clear here. The War Drugs was at its inception and remains until this day a War on African Americans. Arguments to the contrary are at this late date specious at best. Mr. Sessions thinks the War on Drugs should be amped up. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how this tactic works.

First, if the so-called war on drugs is a war to stop drug use in the United States it has been a dismal, unprecedented failure. There is universal agreement on this point. Drugs are more plentiful, more potent and more available than ever before. In fact, it can be argued that the War on Drugs has actually increased the availability if not the use of drugs.

Second, we have seen this tactic before. On June 15, 1969, J. Edgar Hoover, then Director of the FBI declared, that the "Black Panther Party, without question, represents the greatest threat to internal security of the country". He also predicted that they would be out of existence by the end of the year. His declaration was a thinly veiled directive to law enforcement to take down the Black Panthers - by any means necessary. Law enforcement read between the lines and the Black Panther Party was all but exterminated within the year.

Similarly, Jeff Sessions is sending out the message that Federal law enforcement should refocus its attention on the black community. Did he refer to the black community specifically. No. He didn't have to.

The War on Drugs is code for lock up black folks. We can predict that state law enforcement agencies will take the directive as the green light for them to redouble their own efforts. Clearly, Sessions plans to prosecute more drug cases and pursue mandatory minimums. In short, he wants to resurrect the policies of the '80's and 90's that treated drug users as drug traffickers and fueled the mass incarceration of two generations of African Amerian men, women and children.

To lead the assault on the African American community Sessions has appointed Steven H. Cook a former federal prosecutor and street cop who has been quoted as saying “The federal criminal justice system simply is not broken. In fact, it’s working exactly as designed,” I agree. The question is what was it designed to do? Whether by design or not it is clear that its result has been the mass incarceration of African American men, women and children and the wholesale destruction of African American families and communities all over the United States.

Curiously, the United States is in the throes of an opioid epidemic that has resulted in more than 59,000 deaths last year alone. Officially the government position is diferent for prescription pain killers than it is for other controlled substances like cocaine, heroin and marijuana. Surprised?

The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) believes that limiting the supply of prescription painkillers will not reduce abuse. This despite the fact that crack houses are now called pain clinics, dealers now have MD after their names and drug cartels are pharmaceutical firms like Purdue Pharma. Yet we never hear Sessions or the DEA for that matter calling for the incarceration of oxycodone addicts. All we hear about is more money for counseling, rehab and treatment facilities. Huh? What about turning those users into traffickers and locking them up. Oh, I forgot those addicts are overwhelmingly white. Now don't get me wrong. I do not advocate incarceration for people who are afflicted with a disease. I don't care who they are. I only wish to make clear the continuing hypocrisy that masquerades as justice in America but is really the reenslavement of African Americans. Forewarned is forearmed.

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Johnnie Cordero holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science and a Doctorate in Jurisprudence. He is the author of Total Black Empowerment: A Guide to Critical Thinking in the Age of Trump.