Crack, The Anniversey Into Hopeless Darkness

I sit looking at my dear friend of over 40 years. He's 51 years old , my age. Yet, the man looks old enough to my father. His eyes are sunken deep in their sockets, his eyes have very dark circles, and bags around them. His eyes are blank, hollow, and absent any glint of hope. His cheeks are so sanked in that the outline of his teeth shows through his jaws. His skin is ashen, very aged, leathery and, lined. Even his skin tone has changed, he went from a young man with ebony skin, to an older man with powdery pale skin.

He is on all fours picking at my rug. He is feverishly scratching at the rug fibers looking for crumbs of crack he says he dropped on my floor (of course he had'nt dropped anything, he's fiending). The Chicken Scratch. He has lost all zest for living a meaningful life. He has but one desire in life, Crack Cocaine. He rises from sleep chasing crack, he spends all his waking hours, from early morn to late eves looking for ways get cracked up. He only ends his quest when he exhausts himself to point where his body collapses from lack of sleep. He's on the never ending mission to get the very addictive drug.

Crack, the most devastating thing to ever happen to the black community.

In the mid 1980's I was introduced to Crack Cocaine via the CBS news special 48 Hours On Crack Street. This was the first 48 Hours special, it took place in NYC, and it focused on the trail of destruction through broken lives and community that the drug caused. Crack, perhaps the most deliberate, cold calculating additive substance known, addicts it's users with such speed and efficiency that users are most often hooked the very first time they try it. Therefore, most of crack victims never knew what hit them. They never stood a chance.

Fortunately, for me, I have never been the type to use random drugs. Tragic for a very large numbers of my peers, who trusted their relatives and friends. Relatives and friends that gave them their first hit of crack. A very low-down thing to do. These relatives and friends were only thinking of ways to get more crack for themselves.

My friend says he's not had any sleep in two days. He finally falls out on my floor, he is so tired he can not will himself to stay awake any longer. I will let him get the much needed sleep his body demands. Since he only visits when he needs sleep, and is to embarrassed, or he can't to go to his home. He had to move back with his mother, for he stopped caring about paying rent for his own place, over two decades ago.

I often wonder if the people who so causally flooded the community with this terrible stuff ever took a look at what their greed has caused. Total Despair. I also wonder if they ever thought of consequences, and please believe me when I tell you, the consequences are dire. Families destroyed, there are so many children orphaned by crack in this country, that crack orphans in America rivals AIDs orphans in Africa. Entire communities dismantled by crime, business closings, homelessness, gang violence, abandon homes that are now used as crack houses, and all the other social problems that such a drug causes. Prostitution has become a career, for both men and women addicts. Crack is a neighborhood killer. I am sure the people that dumped crack in the community were aware of all of this. They just didn't care.

I call this entry Anniversary into Hopeless Darkness, because for a crack addict everyday is one less day since he or she was normal and, one more day into hopeless darkness.
The sixty second, sixty minute, twenty four hour anniversary. This is a realty for my friend and millions of others in this great country of ours. No hopes, no dreams, no looking ahead for a decent life, just a never ending mission to get Crack Cocaine.

Stop It! You Idiots

I write this post with a heavy heart. Being child of the civil rights movement I have take a a real critical look at the black youth today, and wonder if this is what we the people who marched for, got beaten down streets by law enforcement for, had the skin stripped from our bodies with powerful fire hoses for, had our bodies chewed up by big police dogs for, endured being treated less than zero for, and was killed for. So many were killed. We gained our rights through much brutality. We gained our rights through pure human tenacity. We knew what we up against, and we went up against all the odds, and we prevailed.

On November 25, 2006 Shawn Bell was gunned down by NYC police officers while leaving his bachelor party. Most of the so call black leaders in this country were all up in arms over Shawn's senseless murder, and rightfully so. That same day there were over 50 other young blacks murdered by other young blacks in this country. Yet, not a word of protest about these senseless murders from these same so-called leaders. Why not? My opinion is that black on black murders don't carry the same potential financial benefit for these leading men as police killings do, or blacks killed by whites in general carry. I know Sharpton and Jackson are the biggest racial ambulance chasers we have in this country.

The young thugs that roam our streets these days kill more backs in a year than than the kkk killed all during the worst years of the civil rights movement. These black terrorist killed so matter of factually, and with such ease that law abiding blacks have to wonder if these haters are trying to wipe out their own race in the country.

A majority of these baby face killers can barely read, they speak in broken sentences, and know math above at preschool level. Not because they can't learn, but because they don't want to learn anything except how to be a thug. They can and learn, they learn how to use foul language. They learn how to make crack cocaine out of powder cocaine(most could be chemist if they tried). They learn how to change money in drug transactions so fast it rivals calculators. They learn how to make babies to be raised singles mother and supported by the system. They learn how aim guns and shoot so precisely that master surgeons are perplexed. They learn how to contribute nothing meaningful to society(exceptions being the fatherless children they create). They learn how to adapt in the criminal justice system, and they learn how to die young, and violently, not bravely, but in the throes of fear. Yes they are able to learn, they only want to learn in the negative.

One would think with the high rate of black on black crime in this country that our self appointed black leaders would be much more concerned about this phenomenon than they would be about the random murders of our black youth by law enforcement. One would think the leaders would be in the community shouting from rooftops to stop the violence. After all it's not law enforcement or civilian whites destroying or communities, it's our own youth. Yet all these leaders do is make excuses for the thugs. There are no excuses.

Blacks are the third largest majority in this country. Black are the number one victims of murder in our country. Blacks are number one perpetrators of murders in our country. Blacks are 12% of population, we are 49% of murder victims. 94% of black murder victims in this is country are killed by other blacks. Pitiful statistics of blacks inhumanity to each other.

To the "leaders" in the community these are the victims that should really speak to your concern of senseless brutality. Law enforcement abuse against anyone has no place in our world, but compared to abuse we inflict on ourselves, authority abuse is a rarity.

To you self appointed community leaders you have to stop blaming everyone for your failure to lead, and try find someway to make your sorry asses useful. To the people who're mainly causing all the sorrow in the community, the black criminals who seems interested only in destroying their own race, the ones who complains the loudest when some people avoid meeting them on a lonely street, just please; Stop it, You idiots.