Backpedal Now And Blacks Will Suffer

Thanks to liberal revisionism and today’s cult of victimology, the latest victim of the crack era may well be the truth.

Not long ago, crack cocaine devastated neighborhoods and ravaged families like no drug before. Its victims included tiny, pained, abandoned babies, neglected children, battered spouses, skeletal women walking the streets, bystanders caught in the crossfire of crack market wars, and fear-wracked residents imprisoned at home.

These innocent victims have no place in the current politically correct position on crack. Rather, revisionists with short memories are now rallying around their own victim of crack: none other than the crack dealer himself.

Inflamed by cries of racism and replete with misinformation, the liberal cause-du-jour is to reduce the disparities in sentencing between crack cocaine and powdered cocaine offenders. Those disparities are deliberately great, although not as great as critics claim. Out of ignorance or deceit, they constantly cite the 100 to 1 ratio mandated by Congress. However, that ratio does not refer to sentence length but to the amount of crack versus powder that triggers federal mandatory minimums. The actual sentencing ratio for lesser amounts is typically 6 to 1; for greater amounts, it falls to 2 to 1.

These disparities were not controversial when first enacted. They were welcomed by the black community and received bipartisan support, including that of many members of the Congressional Black Caucus. There were no accusations of a racially biased justice system out to ensnare black men. Race was never an issue.

Today, race seems to be the only issue.

Opponents of the disparities, such as Maxine Waters and Jesse Jackson, who termed the provision “a moral disgrace” condemning “thousands of young African-American men to languish in prison,” claim as proof of an inherent racial animus that more than 90 percent of those sentenced for crack cocaine are black, whereas more than 90 percent of those sentenced for powdered cocaine are white. They blame the disparate sentencing for the sorry fact that nearly one-third of young African-American men are involved with the criminal justice system.

Critics, however, overlook some important points. One is that only 25 percent of incarcerated black men are imprisoned for drug-related offenses. Another is that young African American men, contrary to popular mythology, were not forced by the white establishment to get involved with crack. Those who did the crime knew the time. They undertook the risk because there were great profits to be wrested from the misery of their neighbors.

Which invokes the most salient point: Victims of crack were overwhelmingly black. Few crack babies were white. Few whites contracted AIDS through crack-driven prostitution. Far fewer whites than blacks were victims of crack market turf wars. Fewer whites were robbed to finance crack purchases. From foster homes to emergency rooms, the victims were seldom white.

The disparities in sentencing thus were not implemented as part of some “genocidal campaign” to incarcerate a higher proportion of black men and destroy the black community. Rather the disparities were designed to protect the black community.

Some critics are even more delusional. Adrian Walker claims it is a “myth” that crack is “more potent, more addictive, more lethal, and more menacing” than the powered cocaine favored by whites. Repeated often enough, this will become received truth. Yet it flies so squarely in the face of reality it approaches insanity. Doctors, police, users and dealers alike proclaim the extreme harmfulness, addictiveness and violence associated with crack. The disproportionate sentencing policy correctly reflected the drug’s disproportionate impact.

The lengthy prison terms of our crackdown on crack are largely responsible for the reduction in violent crime we have enjoyed these last several years. They made low-income black neighborhoods livable again, especially since crack-involved inmates admit to more numerous drug and non-drug crimes, and to more violent crimes, than inmates incarcerated for involvement with other drugs.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission has recommended that Congress greatly reduce the sentencing disparities. Perhaps the time has come to whittle them down somewhat, but many liberals insist they be eliminated altogether. If these revisionists truly believe that our sentencing policy is a mere racist ploy and that crack is not so dangerous, then they are so steeped in denial, and so short of memory, that we can’t help but ask, “What the heck have they been smoking?”

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