DRUG MONEY WINS OLYMPICS

In the recent winter Olympics, American Julia Mancuso won a skiing
gold medal in the women's giant slalom. Before winning the gold,
Mancuso was best known for bragging about her family's criminal past:

"My grandfather had his family in Chicago, and his dad was working
for the mafia; he was a rum runner. I don't know too much about it. I
just like to joke about it."

Having a rum running grandpa in the distant past is no big deal if
your father was a major drug dealer. Mancuso's father, Ciro Mancuso,
ran a $120 million marijuana and cocaine smuggling empire until he
was arrested in 1990, the early days of the horrendous war on drugs.
The story of Ciro Mancuso is a story of corruption in the criminal
justice system. The system never was very just, especially for black
people. The war on drugs resulted in the largest numbers of black
people in shackles since the days of slavery. There are now more
black faces behind bars than there were during the Jim Crow era. Of
course, segregation and lynch law precluded the need for jails.

For decades Black Americans complained about the ravages wrought by
drugs in their communities. First heroin, then cocaine, then crack
cocaine brought crime, illness and the wholesale destruction of
entire communities. The years of pleading resulted in very little
help. It was always possible to get rid of drugs, but the powers that
be were never interested in doing so. Thai war lords, Central
American contras, and the Sicilian mafia were allowed to bring drugs
into the United States because they were favored by the United States
government.A red flag should have gone up when the same people who
allowed drug trafficking to prosper claimed to want to stamp it out.
The war on drugs that began with Ronald Reagan and continued with the
"first black president" Bill Clinton has created as much damage to
black America as the ravages of addiction. Republicans and Democrats
alike outdid one another pledging to put away "kingpins."

If the criminal commercial world is anything like the rest of
corporate American, then few drug kingpins are black. Mancuso was a
kingpin by anyone's definition, he certainly isn't black, and he was
sentenced to 9 years and served only a 5 year stretch. His
cooperation with authoritieseven allowed him to keep some of his ill
gotten gains. One of the most perverse aspects of the war on drugs is
that it empowered the Mancusos of the drug dealing world. They had
the power to snitch. Giving up names brings a lighter sentence and
sometimes no sentence at all. Mancuso ratted on and helped get
convictions for 25 people.

Share your thoughts on this story on the ChicagoDefender.com message board.

Mancuso's snitching gave him most favored drug dealer status. Anthony
White, a prosecutor with a grudge, even indicted Mancuso's defense
attorney, Patrick Hallinan, after Mancuso played let's make a deal .
He would have only been sentenced to probation if Hallinan had been
convicted. The miffed prosecutor renigged on his probation deal with
Mancuso but was still very lenient . Mancuso remained free during his
trial and was allowed to keep between $2 million and $4 million in
drug dealing profits. Clarence Aaron was a college student in Alabama
who made the mistake of being a low level drug mule and earned a
grand total of $1,500. He is now serving three mandatory life
sentences because he had no leverage with the government. He was at
the bottom of the food chain and had no snitching victims to offer up
to the feds.

Clarence Aaron is the face of black mass incarceration. Thanks to the
war on drugs, a new class of criminal was created. "Drug
conspirators" like Clarence Aaron had the book thrown at them. Low
level dealers, parents who wouldn't rat on drug dealing children,
girlfriends who loaned a boyfriend money, a friend or relative who
helped get an apartment or a car for a drug dealer could all be
convicted of participating in conspiracies and get life sentences in
jail.Julia Mancuso has profited from her dad's malfeasance:

"He came over when I was struggling a couple of years ago, arranged
to get a car and a trainer in Austria, and also with an apartment.
It's been really great to have that kind of support."

Black American Shani Davis was vilified for denying a less talented
white athlete a gold medal. Julia Mancuso is descended from at least
two criminals and won a gold medal with the help of drug money. Guess
which one was picked apart by the news media. The war on drugs was
just an excuse, a ruse to bring back the bad old days for black
people. Ciro Mancuso would still be in jail and Clarence Aaron would
be a free man if it amounted to anything else. Julia Mancuso may as
well laugh about having mobster forefathers. It makes her a true
American after all.

Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BC. Ms.
Kimberley is a freelance writer living in New York City. You can read
more of Ms. Kimberley's writings at freedomrider.blogspot.com.