TRENTON'S DRUG DEALING IN BLACK AND WHITE

Drug selling and buying has spread further than many people can see or
care to admit.

Drug use takes prisoners of all races, ages, income levels and
community status. Just because ones move to the suburbs doesn't mean
there aren't drugs.

People of every race come into the city to buy drugs and then take
them home to their suburban communities. This aspect of drug use often
goes unmentioned, because when you live in a nice community, it helps
to cover up many things. The truth is that at least half of the drugs
sold in the city go to people from the outside.

Lately, more and more white people from Pennsylvania communities are
coming to Trenton to buy drugs. During certain times of the day around
areas like Passaic Street that are close to the bridge that spans the
Delaware River, about one out of every five cars is driven by a white
person with a Pennsylvania license plate circling the block or stopped
with a drug dealer.

In the area of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Beakes Street,
during lunchtime many county and state workers from out of town pull
up to the corner and buy drugs like it's a drive-thru at a fast food
restaurant.

I often wonder if white people know that when they come into a black
community to buy drugs, they stand out like a neon orange sign. The
blacks sit on their porches saying things like "there goes another
one."

On the street, many drug dealers measure their status based on how
many sales they make to whites as well as by how many white officers
ride by and do nothing.

A sad thing is that because it is becoming so common, many innocent
whites are being stereotyped as drug buyers. Two of my white friends
from Pennsylvania have told me of two separate similar incidents that
happened to them in Trenton. They were sitting at traffic lights with
the car doors unlocked when a drug dealer jumped in their car and
assumed they wanted to buy drugs. They both said it almost gave them a
heart attack. Most importantly, it's good that neither one of them was
hurt.

Another friend told me he didn't realize how bad it was until I gave
him a ride to the train station. On the way, I pointed out the sales
to him. He admitted that he was so focused on how scary the blacks
standing on the corners looked that he never even noticed that they
were selling to whites. Reality hit him when I stopped and pulled over
to the side of the road to get something out of my pocketbook. We were
unaware of our surroundings when someone knocked on his side of the
window and tried to sell him drugs. It really did scare both of us.

Drugs are very powerful and dangerous. Getting involved in your
community helps you to be conscious of them and not think you're above
them. They are like a phantom in the night. If you don't pay
attention, they can creep up on you.

A black girlfriend of mine who lives in Princeton didn't know her
husband was on drugs until his dealer showed up at their door to
collect payment.

Living in a nice community sometimes makes a lot of things look better
or as though the drug traffic doesn't exist. But I often wonder who is
worse: the people who demean themselves when they come and buy drugs,
or the dealers who stand on the corner and demean their own community.