Tag Archives: social justice

Legalize Marijuana and Abolish Cash Bail for Nonviolent Offenders

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I read once that we’re living in the “justice reform era”. Marijuana legalization seems to be the landmark product of this era.

However, the news coming from post-legalization states is that, for its suspension of much of a local theatre of the long War on Drugs, the poor of color are not the biggest beneficiaries of this regime change.

What we do know, so far, is that white people, Latinos and homeowners are the biggest beneficiaries of marijuana legalization at the state level, especially in California. Black people who use weed while within or near their residence run a higher risk of offending the terms of their lease with their possession of weed, especially those who live in federally-funded housing.

So how do we mitigate the impact of “smoking weed while black”? One way is to abolish cash bail for those accused of nonviolent offenses, like using marijuana.

Imagine marijuana-legal California abolishing cash bail. Being the biggest state that would do so, those who are arrested for nonviolently offending the remaining state-level marijuana laws (among other laws) can be released quickly from jail on their own cognizance so that they don’t lose their jobs, homes, cars, or other life needs. Poor people of color, including those who use legal amounts of marijuana, would be major beneficiaries of abolishing cash bail and related pre-trial expenses.

Ending this financially-oppressive practice for all accused nonviolent offenders can make California a more economically-fair place to both live and use weed for poor people of color.

Maybe this can be encapsulated as a “pro-forgiveness” agenda, in which those who, by indirect way of an authority figure’s perception of a person’s unchangeable background or features, receive more disproportionate punishment for crimes or offenses which are committed at the same rate by all suspect classes can receive effective amnesty and expunging of their records.

With legal weed (in California as of this year), restrictions on civil asset forfeiture (already passed in California in 2016), the shifting of many felonies to misdemeanors (already passed) and cash bail abolition for nonviolent offenders (yet to be passed), we will see greater economic mobility for the poor of color.

I can’t wait to see both marijuana and cash bail reform happen in the same state.

Worthless “Black Privilege”

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My eyes roll into the back of my head….

I’d trade my “athletic ability for survival and also for reward” in for trans-oceanic economic and military power and the lack of a 2nd Amendment.

I’d trade in my “overall and general privilege to put blame elsewhere and be rewarded for playing the victim” in for a time machine to go back in time and find a way to stop European businessmen from buying our ancestors in West Africa.

I’d trade in “regional and national organizations for the advancement of Black People” for reparations.

I’d trade in “Black President” for a new U.S. Constitution which creates a parliamentary republic, a social contract that is much more empathetic to the less-advantaged classes of our society, and features contributions by (and for the equities of) people of color, women, LGBT people and the working class.

Unlike better-minded Euro-Americans, this person wants these things that we “have”. Please, let’s trade.

Progressives Arming Themselves More Like Conservatives

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Communists are not liberals.
Socialists are not liberals.
Anarchists are not liberals.
Antifa are not liberals.

All four groups heavily espouse arming themselves with self-defense and weapons, even firearms if need be. They are also feared by fascists, conservatives and libertarians alike, and may be circumstantial allies to liberals when it comes to resistance against classist, authoritarian violence (even though liberals are not trusted by socialists).

Liberals have a conflicted history with armed self-defense, and are more respecting of nonviolent protest and the democratic process. They’re also laughed at by fascists, conservatives and libertarians alike for this (as many of us are being laughed at by Trumpists right now), but are useful for conservatives when it comes to preserving the political status quo.

At this moment, I don’t know if I want to identify as a progressive liberal or a socialist. I would rather that we had UK-style gun control in which both police and the public are not armed, and that might make me a bad socialist, but I also see that socialists and the far-left speak in the respective language of violence and self-defense which conservatives and the far-right also speak, which might make me a bad liberal.

Meanwhile, since Election Day, racial and gender minorities have been buying up guns and ammo, and taking gun classes, and getting gun licenses, to protect themselves over the next four years.

It’s depressing, but understandable, to see this happen. We’re now huddling into bunkers to prepare for an armed winter in America.

Just some thoughts coming to mind while perusing the Socialist Rifle Association‘s page.

Stop telling us to “stop focusing on the past”.

Everything that exists is from the past. Everything that you like and celebrate about this country comes from the same past which created the things you dislike and find annoying.

The past is all we have. You can’t have it both ways.

For Those Who Still Don’t Have a Choice

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Thinking about The Movement for Black Lives’ Vision for Black Lives manifesto and its inclusion of a pro-Dreamer/anti-Deportation plank.

One can argue this:

The ancestors of most slave-descended African-Americans did not choose to come here willingly. Legally, neither did Dreamers who were brought here as children.

I understand that Dreamers can more readily identify their country of ancestry. But their entire memory has been cultivated here in this country.

I understand that Dreamers have more of an opportunity to go back to their country of origin. But forcefully deporting someone who did not choose to come to this country is gratuitously cutting someone off from their de facto adoptive country.

The 14th Amendment was crafted to apply citizenship to people who didn’t end up here “the right way”, the most privileged way. It established birthright citizenship, which has now become a feature of naturalization for most countries in the Americas.

Some would want to eliminate or curtail birthright citizenship. I think it should be expanded to automatically naturalizing those who arrived in the U.S. as minors and have spent at least 5-10 years of their lives here.

That is the humane thing to do. #Vision4BlackLives

#Intersectionality means that, even as an African-American gay male, I’m still privileged in many ways, such as being a natural-born citizen of the U.S., having a college degree, being born into a military family, and having a love for reading at an early age. It’s not something to apologize for, but something to extend to those who have less.

That “All Lives Matter” protest

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That “All Lives Matter” protest was led by *drum roll please* Glenn Beck and Chuck Norris. Auntie Alveda King tagged along.

I also noticed the pictures of Frederick Douglass. None of these individuals have the fortitude to read his 4th of July speech without putting revision to it, I’m pretty sure. But why only pictures of Douglass and Lincoln? Could someone have had a Malcolm X picture somewhere? Does he leave a sour taste in some mouths when he damned the fundamentals of this system? “Justice” “Courage” What about “Reparations”? What about “Human Rights”? And does their “Justice” come at the barrel of a police’s firearm?

This is very Christian. An assertion that everyone can only come together if they only complied to this “(Judeo-)Christian” framework of society. Not even race, #BlackLivesMatter. Not even class, #Sanders2016.

Religion, or should I say “FAITH” as the religious tribalists who run most local governments would assert and unconstitutionally mollify. And of course, the proceeds of this march didn’t go to any communities affected by police excess or to community institutions, but the current real-life cause celebre of the Christian victims of ISIS’ genocide in Syria and Iraq. Not the Yazidi victims, not the Shia victims, not the moderate Sunni victims, not the Kurdish victims, JUST SPECIFICALLY the Christian victims. Not even, arguably, the Christian minority affected by displacement from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, who rank low in the hierarchy of Middle Eastern “save the Christians” needs. Just those a cozy distance away from the “rapture practice” zone of Israel/Palestine.

Everything about this march says a lot more about the inconsistencies of reactionary Christian U.S. politics toward ethnicity, foreign affairs, undermined populations, and their own comfort zones.

This is a funny march. Obtuse as shit, but funny. The fact that Glenn Beck organized it is just eyeroll-worthy. It doesn’t show the love that “All Lives Matter” asserts to high heaven.