WAR ON DRUGS KILLS BLACKS

I have two T-shirts that date back to last century. Both are black
and white. One has a silhouetted head of an African-American man
within the cross hairs of a gunsight. Underneath the head is a big,
contrasting stencil that reads: "Endangered Species." The second
T-shirt repeats "Endangered Species" 16 times as alternating black,
then white, banners. Dominating its center is a similar silhouette
caught in similar cross hairs.

Although I've owned the two tees for 15 years, they're like new. I've
worn them only three or four times each. The stares I get from some
who see me in my shirts take me out of my comfort zone. The looks
that aren't blank strike me as either too approving or too
ill-at-ease. But between the warm weather and the cold-blooded
murders of Tramaine Gibson and Blair Holt, I've felt the urge to take
my T-shirts out of storage and start spreading their message.

Gibson, a married father of two young children, was shot to death
last week during a stickup at Illinois Federal Service Savings and
Loan because he didn't know the combination to the vault. He was 23.
Holt, a high school honor student, was shot to death 17 days ago on a
CTA bus, protecting a female classmate from a gun-wielding teenager.
He was 16. So is his alleged shooter.

Their front-page tragedies put faces on debilitating statistics.
Black American males between the ages of 15 and 24 have the highest
firearm homicide rate of any demographic group in our nation. Ten
times more black males are shot to death in that age range than white
males. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
about 52 percent of this nation's gun-murder victims are African
American, even though we represent less than 13 percent of the total
population. If all Americans were killed with firearms at the same
rate as African-American males between the ages of 15 and 24, there
would be more than a quarter of a million gun murders in the United
States annually.

Make no mistake about it: This is still that same sad story of
black-on-black crime. But the magnitude is new. I attribute it to the
"war on drugs." Two decades ago, Congress went on a "get tough on
drugs" rampage. The results have visited devastating collateral
damage on the African-American community. Black men have unfairly and
disproportionately been targeted as enemy combatants in this
trumped-up war. A black man is 13 times more likely to go to state
prison than a white man.

And while drug use is consistent across all racial groups, blacks and
Latinos are much more likely to get busted, prosecuted and given long
sentences for drug offenses, according to the latest report by Human
Rights Watch. That explains why African Americans, who make up 13
percent of all drug users, are 35 percent of those arrested for drug
possession, 55 percent of those convicted and 74 percent of those
sent to prison.

Time served for petty crime helped cultivate a criminal culture in
too many black communities. The residue is seen and heard in hip-hop
music. It's studied in school test scores. It's reflected in the
demise of the black family unit. Right now, there are more than 1
million African-American men in prison; more black men are in jail
here than the rest of the world combined. Ex-cons bring lessons
learned in prison back to the community.

So, exposure to thug thought cultivates thug culture, leads to the
thug life and ends in thug deaths. Most times that means one thug
killing another. But increasingly, the good ones, the Tramaine
Gibsons and the Blair Holts, fall victim.

One of my sons could be next -- or one of yours. We need to stop this
cancer from further spreading. We need to scale down the raids and
scale back the sentencing on nonviolent offenses. We need to put our
energies into educating to prevent incarcerating.

So this time I won't be putting my T-shirts away. I need to wear my
alarm on my chest. That's one small way I hope to make others aware
of what's going on. I'll think of others.