SIXTY-ONE PERCENT

The Dallas Sheetrock scandal demonstrates how seductive drug money can
be. Throughout Texas examples abound. Take Tulia, for instance. When I
first learned that 46 Tulia drug dealers had been arrested, I never
guessed that every last one of them was associated with Tulia's black
community either by birth or marriage.

A friend from Dallas was curious about the young black men who weren't
picked up in the Tulia sting, so I told him I'd check into it. A
little library research supplemented by the memories of patient black
friends produced a list of every black male who has lived in Tulia in
recent years. Most black males didn't attend high school during the
'60s and '70s, so I focused my attention on young men who reached
graduation age during the '80s and '90s.

Given the hard economic times, it came as no surprise that 60 percent
of the young men on my list had left Tulia by the time Tom Coleman hit
town. But of those who remained, 61 percent were indicted on the basis
of Mr. Coleman's testimony. For black men young enough to graduate in
the '90s the news got worse: 76 percent had been arrested for
trafficking in powdered cocaine.

And what of the young black men not indicted in the Coleman sting?
Forty percent have since been prosecuted by local authorities. Twenty
percent are currently in prison.

Mercifully, only 32 percent of Tulia's young black women were arrested
in the sting. Only 32 percent! The other 68 percent have inherited the
job of taking care of the 50 orphans created by the drug sweep.

When a single operation obliterates 61 percent of the young black
males in town, something has gone dreadfully wrong. In Tulia, the
victims were black - in Dallas they were Hispanic, but the end result
is the same. Take that many fathers, brothers, nephews, sons and
grandsons out of any community, and the social web disintegrates. When
I contemplate the rage and bitterness festering in the tender hearts
of 50 drug-sting orphans, I begin to shudder. Having sown the wind, do
we really think we can escape the whirlwind? And when another
generation of kids begins to act out what will we do? Send in another
Tom Coleman?

Alan Bean, director, Friends of Justice, Tulia