War on Black People

The "War on Black People" which was disguised as a "War on Drugs" has resulted in unintended mass casualties of white people. A report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in January revealed that drug-overdose deaths reached a new high in 2014, totaling 47,055 people. Opioids were involved in 60% of those deaths, 90% of heroin users are white.

John Ehrlichman, President Richard Nixon's domestic policy advisor, admitted to a conspiracy when he made the following comments during a 1994 Harper's Magazine inteview concerning the "War on Drugs".

"You want to know what this was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies, the anti-war left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

Until the late 19th century drugs were used legally in the United States with much public indifference and very little government interference. Taxes on psychoactive substances provided a significant part of government revenue for most modern nations prior to the advent of income taxation.

Prior to 1800, opium was widely available in the United States, and throughout the world, as an ingredient in numerous products and “multidrug prescriptions. Morphine, a derivative of opium, was first discovered in 1804. Heroin, an opiate derived from morphine, was “discovered” in 1874 and marketed in 1898 by Bayer Pharmaceuticals as “The Sedative for Coughs.”

States were the first to enact drug prohibition laws. In 1875 San Francisco passed an antiopium law that is widely considered the first of its kind, targeting only the smoking of opium, which was common among Chinese immigrants, and not affecting the myriad other forms of opium use favored by most Americans. The states of California and Nevada passed similar laws and the federal government soon followed. In 1883 Congress raised the import tariff on smoking opium, leaving opium imported for other purposes unaffected

There’s Never Been a Drug Law That Wasn’t Tied to Race

Concern about drug use in America began with associating opium with the Chinese, cocaine with “Negroes,” alcohol with urban Catholic immigrants, heroin with urban immigrants, and marijuana with Mexicans. 

Associating Chinese opium use with corruption of American values and female chastity was an easily alluring explanation for social problems. Smoking opium, like the "Chinamen" who introduced the habit, became a despicable practice.

Changing perceptions of cocaine at the turn of the 20th century were also linked to race. Plantation owners and other employers soon found great value in cocaine as a means of improving productivity and controlling workers, and some even began supplying it to their black crews. 

In the late 1800s poor black laborers in the South developed the habit of snorting cocaine to help them endure strenuous conditions. Sniffing was the quickest and cheapest way to ingest cocaine. Although, cocaine sniffing was more popular with whites and was especially associated with the criminal cultures of prostitutes, pimps, gamblers and other white “urban hoodlums,” poor blacks and cocaine became firmly linked in the public mind. People from the upper and professional class preferred injecting cocaine with a needle. 

Racial tensions in the South soon transformed the image of black cocaine use into a source of white fear. Propaganda about “cocainized” blacks leaving plantations and construction sites on sexual rampages having their way with white women stirred panic. Medical publications supported this myth with stories of how cocaine could transform law-abiding Negroes into menacing predators with increased and perverted sexual desire. Newspapers reported that there was "little doubt that every Jew peddler in the South carries the stuff." 

Other popular legends attributed cocaine giving blacks superhuman strength and that southern police departments switched from .32 caliber to .38 caliber revolvers because cocaine made crazed blacks impervious to the smaller rounds.

In the 1920s the Du Pont Company had developed and patented numerous petroleum-based products, including fuel additives, chemical processes for the manufacture of paper from wood pulp and numerous synthetic products such as nylon, cellophane and other plastics.  

By 1935 raw cellulose from hemp (cannabis) had become a viable option for fuel, fabric and plastics and paper – a cheaper, cleaner and renewable raw material compared to petroleum. Faced with this competition, Lammont DuPont lobbied the U.S. Treasury Department to seek the prohibition of hemp

Business interests of William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate, were also threatened by hemp, as his timber holdings and his joint enterprises with DuPont for wood-based pulp papermaking would have been rendered uncompetitive. Hearst used his chain of newspapers to aggravate racial tensions, portraying Mexicans in particular as lazy, degenerate and violent and as job stealers and smokers of “marihuana” – a word brought into the common parlance due in part to frequent mentions in Hearst’s publications. The aggressive efforts to demonize cannabis were effective, as the sheer number of newspapers, tabloids, magazines and film reels under Hearst’s control enabled him to inundate American media with propaganda. Americans readily accepted the stories of crazed crimes incited by marijuana use, and official accounts of the “evils” of marijuana continue to color popular opinion of the drug today. 

President Nixon embarked on a new era of drug control. Shortly after assuming office in 1969, Nixon announced a global campaign to stamp out drugs and drug traffickers. He launched “Operation Intercept” and ordered the closure of 2,500 miles of the Mexican border and searches of hundreds of thousands of people and vehicles. In 1970 Nixon created the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse and in 1971 he declared drugs to be “public enemy number one.” These actions marked the initiation of the national and international “War on Drugs.” Thanks to Erlickman, we now know the real motivation behind the "War on Drugs" was to target blacks and other political enemies. However, African-Americans have now become the primary targets. See related post, "40 Reasons Our Jails and Prisons Are Full of Black and Poor People".

There was no wave of compassion when addicts were hooked on crack

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people. Overdose deaths in white communities have reached epidemic proportions because society in general was so indifferent to drug addiction when it was a consider a black problem. As was stated in "First They Came", It’s just a matter of time before the injustices people remain silent about, visits them.

It's time to stop denying racism exist and is a major problem.


Bayer and Monsanto: A Marriage Made in Hell

Today, the St. Louis Post Dispatch reported that, "Bayer, Monsanto said to be moving closer to a merger deal". Considering the history of Black people being victimized by medical experimentation and the history of Bayer's participation in the Holocaust while part of IG Farben, the merger is not welcome news to me.

On December 25, 1925 six companies Bayer, BASF, Hoechst including Cassella and Chemische Fabrik Kalle, Agfa, Chemische Fabrik Griesheim-Elektron, and Chemische Fabrik vorm merged to form IG Farben. 

The IG Farben Trial concluded that IG Farben had committed war crimes including active participation in the Holocaust. IG Farben had constructed a plant next to the concentration camp  Auschwitz, with the clear intent to use inmates as slave workers. The indictment against IG Farben included:

  • Planning, preparation, initiation, and waging of wars of aggression and invasions of other countries.
  • War crimes and crimes against humanity through the plundering and spoliation of occupied territories, and the seizure of plants in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, France, and Russia.
  • War crimes and crimes against humanity through participation in the enslavement and deportation to slave labor on a gigantic scale of concentration camp inmates and civilians in occupied countries, and of prisoners of war, and the mistreatment, terrorization, torture, and murder of enslaved persons.

The Soviet Union seized most of IG Farben's assets located in the Soviet occupation zone. However, because of the company's large investment of American companies, the idea of destroying IG Farben was quickly abandoned in the western occupation zone. In 1951, the company was split into its original companies and the four largest including Bayer quickly bought the smaller ones. IG Farben was officially put into liquidation in 1952, however, as of 2012, it still existed as a corporation in liquidation.

It's important to consider a company's past history and consider what it may be capable of in the future. The article below provides information concerning the history of both Bayer and Monsanto.

By Martha Rosenberg, Ronnie Cummins


Bayer has announced a bid  to buy Monsanto in a deal that would expand Bayer's GMO and pesticide holdings and add drugs to Monsanto’s global portfolio. Monsanto has rejected the latest bid, but the two are still in talks.




"All of a sudden we have three major transactions at the same time," Matt Arnold, an Edward Jones analyst, told the News Journal. "One would think that would prompt regulators to really dial up the scrutiny and think long and hard about whether that much consolidation is in the best interest of farmers and consumers."


Already shareholders have spoken out, terming the move "arrogant empire-building," reported Reuters. Shareholders also worry that the takeover would dilute Bayer’s core drug business currently flush with sales of its blood-thinner Xarelto and Eylea, a drug to treat blindness.


Bayer, a history of unsafe drugs



•    Blood clotting drug spread AIDS


In Hong Kong and Taiwan alone, more than 100 hemophiliacs got H.I.V. and "many have since died, "reported the New York Times. Cutter's "financial investment in the product was considered too high to destroy the inventory," said William Heisel of the Center for Health Reporting. "Cutter continued to sell the contaminated AHF to markets willing to accept it, including overseas markets in Asia and Latin America, without the recommended precaution of heat treating the product to eliminate the risk."

•    Statin Baycol recalled


As deaths grew, Bayer stuck to its story "that there is currently no proof that the drug is the cause of the deaths" and assured shareholders that "Our sales this year will increase even though Baycol will now be absent." Recently, Bayer was sentenced to pay damages to Baycol victims in in Argentina and Italy. "Internal documents show that Bayer’s management was aware of the serious health risk for patients and even ignored warnings from within the company," . 

•    Yaz birth control pill causes deaths



•    Xarelto, shady approval of a dangerous drug


•    Baytril, animal antibiotic blocked by FDA

2015 Bayer brochure, coinciding with public awareness of antibiotic abuse in livestock, says Bayer Animal Health "objects" to "routine prophylactic use in healthy animals" of fluoroquinolones, a type of antibiotic. 

Yet it was just such "prophylactic use" that got Bayer's fluoroquinolone Baytril blocked by the FDA a decade ago.  The FDA said  the routine use of Baytril in chickens "has made it difficult for doctors to treat human patients who have food poisoning." Union of Concerned Scientists called the decision a "big victory for public health." The FDA Commissioner at the time, Lester Crawford, remarked that Baytril "has not been shown to be safe for use in poultry." The FDA continues to struggle against the powerful lobbying of drug companies selling livestock antibiotics, often by the ton.

The devil’s chemist




With a view to the planned experiments with a new sleep-inducing drug we would appreciate it if you could place a number of prisoners at our disposal (…)" – "We confirm your response, but consider the price of 200 RM per woman to be too high. We propose to pay no more than 170 RM per woman. If this is acceptable to you, the women will be placed in our possession. We need some 150 women (…)" – "We confirm your approval of the agreement. Please prepare for us 150 women in the best health possible (…)" – "Received the order for 150 women. Despite their macerated condition they were considered satisfactory. We will keep you informed of the developments regarding the experiments (…)" – "The experiments were performed. All test persons died. We will contact you shortly about a new shipment (…)"

From chemical warfare to “crop science”






Is merger a sign of decline?






Republished with permission under license by CommonDreams

How racism has shaped welfare policy in America since 1935


By Alma Carten





Blemished by a history of discrimination







Nor did blacks fare much better under ADC during these years.






Always an unpopular program




Holes in the safety net








The 1990s gear change







The impact




Disentangling intertwined effects of racism and poverty






Republished with permission under license by The Conversation








Police armored cars drive down a Baltimore street following the death of Freddie Gray in 2015. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

By Jessica Millward



Antebellum foundations for unequal treatment

On the eve of the American Revolution, Maryland was second only to Virginia in the number of people it held in bondage. By the beginning of the 19th century, the number of free blacks began to rise. Baltimore had a significant free black population well before the 14th Amendment made blacks citizens. According to the 1790 U.S. census, 927 free blacks resided in the county that included Baltimore city. By 1830, Baltimore city and the surrounding county was home to some 17,888 free African-Americans.

Historian Barbara Field notes that the increase of free blacks in Maryland was a direct result of replacing tobacco harvesting, which required a full-time labor source, to wheat. Harvesting wheat did not require a year-round labor supply. Between the change in labor demands and African-Americans protesting their condition, the free black community in Virginia and Maryland grew.

Arrival of freedmen and their families at Baltimore, Maryland

This was a concern for lawmakers. Laws such as the 1790 Act Related to Freeing Slaves by Will or Testament were designed to extract the maximum amount of labor from the enslaved before they were awarded freedom, or their free black relatives could purchase it for them. This meant enslaved men were freed only when they ceased to be in peak physical condition, and enslaved women were freed after their childbearing years.

Once freed, African-Americans had to show “proof of a sufficient livelihood,” affirming their ability to care for themselves, or otherwise end up in the city jail or re-enslaved. The irony of this proclamation was that once freed, African-Americans found ways to stave off poverty by working in trades similar to the jobs they had while enslaved. If they avoided the county jail, free blacks were subject to curfews and sanctions against traveling. Many counties in Maryland passed laws requiring free blacks to move out of the state for fear they would incite the local enslaved population to rebel.

Perhaps the most alarming attempt to address the problem of black freedom was the development of the American Colonization Society (ACS) and its chapters in antebellum cities such as Baltimore. Under the guise of Christianity and missionary work, the ACS promised enslaved African-Americans all the rights and privileges of freedom, so long as they relocated to Liberia. Organized by white slaveholders, politicians and religious organizations, the ACS offered a solution to both slavery and the rise in free blacks in the United States – resettle blacks outside the country.

Black intellectuals of the time were divided over resettlement campaigns. Abolitionist newspapers published countless articles protesting the efforts of the colonization society. Historian Robert Brugger notes that a group of free blacks surrounded the gangplanks in the Baltimore harbor in an attempt to stop the forced removal of their friends and family to Liberia.

As these 19th-century examples demonstrate, policing African-American freedom has a long history in Baltimore. African-Americans could escape slavery, but they were not truly free. New laws were continually passed to limit, if not completely dismantle, the very few rights they possessed.

Baltimore today: DOJ report documents violations of civil rights

The findings in the DOJ report echo the restrictions on lives of antebellum free blacks in key ways. African-Americans were arrested in greater proportion than their nonblack peers. According to the report:

BPD made roughly 44 percent of its stops in two small, predominantly African-American districts that contain only 11 percent of the City’s population. Consequently, hundreds of individuals — nearly all of them African American – were stopped on at least 10 separate occasions from 2010–2015. Indeed, seven African-American men were stopped more than 30 times during this period.

African-Americans were frequently arrested for loitering. If their presence became a problem, whether real or perceived, Baltimore police exercised a zero-tolerance policy when it came to African-Americans resulting in unlawful searches, seizures and arrests. As in the 19th century, the mere presence of African-Americans provided grounds for arrest.

People gather to remember Freddie Gray and all victims of police violence during a rally outside city hall in Baltimore, Maryland.
People gather to remember Freddie Gray and all victims of police violence during a rally outside city hall in Baltimore, Maryland. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston

In the 19th century, attempts were made to remove blacks from society by, among other means, sending them to Liberia or forcing them to move away. Today, arresting and detaining African-Americans quarantines them from the rest of society. If the arrest sticks and the individual is prosecuted and found guilty, he is incarcerated. If convicted of a felony, he is not allowed to vote.

African-Americans make up 44 percent of the Baltimore police force and 63 percent of the population of Baltimore city. As the New York Times points out, “Baltimore’s police department has a lower percentage of blacks than the population it serves. But in contrast to other cities that have been wracked by tension and protests over police confrontations with black men, the city’s mayor, its police commissioner, the state’s attorney are all black, giving a somewhat different tenor to clashes between the power structure and its critics.” Indeed, arguments about policing that exclusively point to racism or bias among officers as the root of the problem don’t hold for cities like Baltimore. I believe the problem is also tied to anti-black aspects of the laws they are tasked with enforcing.

The DOJ report provides a critical opportunity to assess and reform disparities in the legal system, especially as we continually bear witness to the almost daily death dance between African-Americans and the police. It makes clear that African-American rights are in jeopardy. The key difference between African-Amerians in Baltimore then and now is that blacks are now citizens. They are entitled to, among other things, the right to due process under the law.

However, the DOJ findings make clear that African-Americans in Baltimore are disproportionately harassed, searched, detained and, in the case of Freddie Gray, murdered. The fear is not that the DOJ report has unmasked truths that we prefer to deny. The fear is that there will be a failure to reform the system in light of these findings. Greater than the fear is the reality that policing black citizens will continue to include practices that are eerily reminiscent of the past.

Republished with permission under license from The Conversation.

Jessica Millward is an Associate Professor of History, University of California, Irvine

Dr. Millward's first book, Finding Charity’s Folk: Enslaved and Free Black women in Maryland was published in Fall 2015 as part of the Race in the Atlantic World series, Athens: University of Georgia Press. She is also working on two additional projects. The first is centered on migration and citizenship in the Black Atlantic, 1770-1860. The other focuses on African American women's experiences with sexual assault and intimate partner violence through the end of the 19th century.

Millward writes commentary on topics related to slavery, African American women and US History.

Are Black People Stuck in the Past?

Some people have commented that slavery happened a long time ago and that black people are stuck in the past and need to forget about slavery. People often state that no one alive today has ever experienced slavery and that white decendants are not responsible for the sins of their ancestors. Had white decendants not benefited from the inheritance those sins produced, I might agree with those statements, but when you accept the benefits, you must also accept the liability and responsibility. 

Slavery in what is now the U.S. began in 1619 and ended in 1865. While it is true that slavery ended 150 years ago, it was replace by Jim Crow, a system in many regards very similar to slavery. Jim Crow began at the end of the Reconstruction Period around 1877 and didn't begin to end until the 1950's with the Supreme Court decision of Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka, which declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional, and, by extension, that ruling was applied to other public facilities. However, it took another decade of protest before the civil rights act and the voting rights act provided meaningful relief.

The continued legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and institutionalize racism is  continued discrimination, economic and other forms of oppression. The effects were long term and some have argued African-Americans suffer from Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome.

The video below does a good job of explaining some of the horrors of slavery and demonstrates some of the lingering affects.

Buck Breaking

The video below describes a little known slave breaking technique where male slaves were beaten and raped in front of their family and other slaves on the plantation.

Some of the scenes depicted in the video above were from the movie "Amistad' and  "Goodbye Uncle Tom", a 1971 movie based on historical documents and revealed horrors and hidden evils of slavery.

There are some who claim that sex farms never existed and the concept is black propaganda. An 1849 publication titiled, "A Few Words, on the Encouragement given to Slavery and the Slave Trade, by recent measures, and chiefly by the Sugar Bill of 1846", by Stephen Cave, ESQ, M.A. Barrister at Law; states on page 17:

"It is scarcely profitable here to allude to the quadroons of the slave states; ladies, who in complexion, education, and refinement, might vie with the fairest and most favoured daughters of Europe; who are yet sold as the negroes, into hopeless slavery. Their case, though one of the foulest blots on the American Institutions, is not one of those, encouraged by our commercial policy; their life is a very different one to that of the labouring slaves; but in their case, as on the slave breeding farms of Virginia, are to be found instances of fathers selling their own children, making merchandize of their own flesh and blood."

Another publication, "Letter to Louis Kossuth concerning Freedom and Slavery in behalf of the American Anti-Slavery Society" published in 1852 mentions "breeding plantations" on pages 27-28. The publication, "Lincolniana", published in 1865, mentions slave breeding farms on page 25

Now that we have provided documentary proof that slave breeding farms existed, we now remind you to use common sense and deductive reasoning. During the 1800's, homosexuality was considered socially unacceptable, taboo and in many cases illegal. You wouldn't expect men who participated in this sort of behavior to publicize it, would you? However, think about how effective a technique this would be to make male slaves submit. I can think of no greater method to strip a man of his dignity, sense of manhood and will to fight. I can't begin to imagine the humiliation those men felt who were victims of this breaking techique.



Should the U.S. provide reparations for slavery and Jim Crow?

By Carlton Mark Waterhouse – Professor of Law and Dean's Fellow, Indiana University

photo of a Woman with slave girl in the mid 19th century, New Orleans
Woman with slave girl in the mid 19th century, New Orleans.




The example of a Founding Father

The debate over reparations began not long after the country was founded.




Scholars pick up the cause

photo of Slave market in Atlanta, Georgia in 1864
Slave market in Atlanta, Georgia in 1864.





A popular movement also arose that sparked lawsuits relating to slavery and state-supported racial violence in Tulsa, Oklahoma (see Race Riots). All of the suits were dismissed by the courts, causing many to conclude that legislative action was the only possibility for redress.


A number of cities and universities began investigating their historic relationship to slavery. Several states issued apologies for slavery. The United States House of Representativesfollowed suit in 2008. The Senate joined in the following year. The 2014 article by Ta Ne-hisi Coates in The Atlantic represents a recent resurfacing of the issue.


Social hierarchy and reparations globally






photo of A ledger recording the sale of slaves in Charleston, South Carolina.


Uprooting racial subordination in America









Republished with permission under license from The Conversation

Professor Carlton Waterhouse has served at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law since 2010. He is nationally recognized for his work on environmental justice and is known internationally for his research and writing on reparations for historic injustices and state human rights violations. His views have been published in the Wall Street Journal online and his articles have appeared in prestigious law journals including the Pennsylvania Journal of International Law, the Fordham Environmental Law Review, and the Rutgers Law Review. He attended college at the Pennsylvania State University where he studied engineering and the ethics of technology before deciding to pursue a legal education. He is a graduate of Howard University School of Law, where he was admitted as one of its distinctive Merit Fellows. While in law school, he was selected for an internship with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law where he participated in the preliminary formation and development of the Civil Rights Act of 1992. Professor Waterhouse currently serves as a member of the Indiana Advisory Committee to the United States Civil Rights Commission


Kimberly Gardner given the power to change lives

Congratulations to Kimberly Gardner on her outstanding primary victory!  

Last month, we posted, "We Need Black Prosecutors". The voters of St. Louis decided the same thing and elected Kimberly Gardner as the democratic nominee and the next presumptive St. Louis City Circuit Attorney. In a city that is majority African-American, it is of extreme importance that St. Louis is finally positioned to have it's first Black Circuit Attorney. Ms. Gardner will become the most powerful person in the St. Louis City criminal justice system.

When a kid commits a crime, the justice system has a choice: prosecute to the full extent of the law, or take a step back and ask if saddling young people with criminal records is the right thing to do every time.


Adam Foss, a former assistant district attorney in Suffolk County, Massachusetts discussed how prosecutors can change lives. He is among the type of black prosecutors we had in mind when we wrote our post last month. Below is a video of a TED talk Mr. Foss gave about the power of the prosecutor. At the beginning of his talk, he asked the audience a few simple questions that drove home a very powerful point that too many prosecutors miss.

What makes Ms. Gardner's victory even more amazing is the fact that she won dispite the fact the neither the St. Louis Police Officers Association or the Ethical Society of Police (St. Louis' black police union) endorsed her. Both unions endorsed other candidates. As a result, Ms. Gardner doesn't have any political obligation to police officers. 

I've never had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Gardner, but the limited interviews and news clips I have seen, indicates she shares some of the same sentiments as Mr. Foss.

I believe Ms. Gardner will be a fine circuit attorney dedicated to her new position and will be a refreshing change from the current administration.

However, there is no greater protection than personally understanding your rights. It's still important to educate yourself about the law and how our court system works.


The deaths of Philando CastileAlton Sterling, the police ambushes in Dallas and Baton Rouge resulted in more post being published on this site than any other month in our history. The police shooting of Charles Kinsey while he laid on the ground with his hands up demonstrated that even when you do everything imaginable to prevent police violence against you, it may still occur. 

Court.rchp.com has over 200 pages and posts, hundreds of informative videos and is constantly growing. Bookmark our site so you can visit again, because there's too much information to digest in one visit. Start with our home page, then Understanding Missouri Courts and Legal research for Non-Lawyers to get an overview of what it takes to represent yourself when you have legal issues. You might decide that self representation is not for you. Gaining additional knowledge can help you better understand the legal process and the concepts your lawyer may discuss with you. 

Our rights are under attack and unless you take steps to learn how to preserve those rights, they will simply fade away. Don't learn the hard way that you can not always depend on others to help you. You must learn to help yourself when it comes to legal issues. The article below provides you with 40 reasons why you should use this site to learn more about the law and how to use it for you benefit. 

photo of chained prisoners
What does it say about our society that it uses its jails and prisons as the primary detention facilities for poor and black and brown people who have been racially targeted and jail them with the mentally ill and chemically dependent? It's a crisis not just for those locked behind bars, but for all of us. (Photo: AP)

By Bill Quigley











































The article was republished with permission under license from CommonDreams
