Africans Has Been High

Africa isn’t new to this. The hemp derived from cannabis sativa is the low THC, non-psychoactive sibling of marijuana and has been used to make paper, fuel, cooking oil, rope, soap, building materials, and the list goes on. The earliest reports of Africans actually smoking (or drinking) marijuana (high THC, psychoactive) doesn’t come until the 14th-century when archeologists found marijuana resin in 2 ceramic smoker pipe (“bowls”) in Ethiopia. [DrugLibrary] Originally from northern Africa, nomadic Bantu-speaking tribes are credited for carrying cannabis seeds on their journey down to southern Africa and spreading it across the continent in the process.

Medical Use

Marijuana plays an important largely due to it’s medicinal properties. With a lack of medical professionals and proper healthcare facilities in rural areas, medical marijuana is an opportunity for African governments to legalize a substance that can make people’s lives a little easier. Research has shown that marijuana can help people living AIDS/HIV to eat and sleep better, experience a better mood, and even helps with neuropathic pain. [National Institute of Health] A CNN report highlighted studies which state that marijuana helps with arthritis (reduces pain-causing inflammation), cancer (kills cancer cells and improves radiation treatment), chronic pain, epilepsy (reduce frequency of seizures), and glaucoma (preserve nerves that lead to blindness). [CNN] If you still believe wEeD iS a gAteWaY dRuG, you may need to do your googles and come back to this.

Good for Economy

The weed market has the potential to do to the African economy what it’s already doing in other continents across the globe. CNN.com sites a UN Survey which says more than 10,000 tons of cannabis are produced on the continent of Africa each year. Based on a rapidly expanding global market for legal weed, leading advocates estimate a potential billion dollar industry in Africa. Not only does this give room for opportunity to stimulate the economy, it can prove to be a unique way for the government and independent farmers to work together. Importantly, it can help with reduce unemployment in women, as they are reportedly the biggest dealers in Africa, and young people. With a growing youth population, most of whom are jobless, legalization can help reduce violence and civic unrest.

Good for Farmers

The bottom line is weed is good for farmers. From an agricultural perspective, cannabis is just easier to grow and more lucrative than other crops such as maize and sugarcane. For example, Weed farming is an important cash crop in places like the rural Eastern Cape, in a deeply impoverished economy. If African countries legalize production, it can usher in potentially usher in new farm technology and can tap into a huge learning potential for the local farmers, who often lack formal education. [AcetOfAfrica] African countries will then have to create government institutions to tackle the sustainable food security and production issues.

Regulation Is Too Costly

Regulating cannabis is costly and environmentally damaging with negatively affects on the people. For the past 10 years, Kenya’s anti-narcotics unit has conducted a vicious campaign to stop cultivation and trade of weed (or bhang). Hundreds of hectares of plantations in the Mount Kenya regions of Embu and Meru are bulldozed or put on fire each year. Despite their efforts, high demand and lack of alternative sources of income drives farmers to continue to harvest.

In Zimbabwe, before the legalization of medical marijuana, possession, growing, or use of cannabis for any reason could leave you with a 12 year jail sentence. In Mauritius, an estimated 75% of prisoners are in jails for smoking marijuana. In Gabon, the penalty is six months to two years and a fine. [Moguldom].

There is a human cost as well. Current regulatory practices such as bulldozing crops, spraying pesticides, and long-winded arrests leave devastating collateral damage. For example in Lusikisiki, Kenya, a village comprised of just 32 huts and is accessible only on horseback or by foot, community members recall that at first, police squads marched into villages and uprooted plantations by hand, burning whatever they found and booting suspects into jail. They switched to herbicides in 1980, dispensing chemicals using hand-held pumps. By the end of the decade, helicopters had replaced ground patrols, expanding the operation’s reach and enabling pilots to wipe out entire fields within minutes. authorities spray pesticides in the air and that same poison creeps into homes, cheapens the air quality, and makes the animals fall ill when they eat the plants. The government disregards the fact that cannabis leaves alone are no good for smoking so spraying pesticides as a way to reduce pot smoking isn’t the most narrowly-tailored way to do so. [CityPress] When will we stop the violence against our own people?

African Countries Should Keep Up

Other parts of the world are already on it. Legalization efforts are rapidly advancing in the United States. Over the past decade, several states have legalized medicinal marijuana and a hand full of states legalized it of recreational use. A recent bi-partisan bill proposes legalization on a federal level. Similar propositions are being pitched in Europe and South America. Though still largely illegal in most European countries, the financial impact of marijuana sales is helping grow their economies: cannabis sales make up for 0.64% of Lativa’s GDP, 0.47% of Australia’s, 1.45% of Czech Republic’s, 0.36% of Slovenia’s, and it makes up 0.34% of GDP of New Zealand. [Fortune Magazine]

Did you know it was already legal in some countries?

Don’t get me wrong, a handful lot of countries in Africa have already joined the “green wave”, despite major pushback. Zimbabwe recently legalized the growing and use of cannabis for scientific and medicinal use. Lesotho’s government awarded it’s first cultivation and sale license allowing marijuana farmers to South African alternative medicine company Verve Dynamics. [CNN] Morocco’s marijuana industry employs 800,000 people and is estimated $10 billion a year in sales. The Malawi government is cultivating hemp on a trial basis for the use of fabric and food products. The Ghana Standards Authority recently suggested that the national campaign to cultivate marijuana could generate valuable income. The Swazi House of Assembly of Swaziland has appointed a committee focused on legalization research. With intense pressure from advocates, the South African government has taken strides and is well on it’s way to legalization. African lawmakers need to eradicate prehistoric laws that aren’t up to date with the pace of the modern global market. They need to see the huge education potential for rural farmers, potential for alleviation of ailments in rural areas, and the potential for government institutions and unprecedented partnerships with farmers.

Let’s keep the conversation going, what sort of issues may arise? What sort of problems would be solved?

Walking down the path, my skin tightened in response to the cold winds that invaded the spaces between my layers. A thermal, t-shirt, tweed sweater, jean jacket, scarf and coat combo was no match for this Bronx breeze. As I stepped out of my car, I was reminded that a New York winter is mad dangerous to your self esteem so stay woke. My wireless headphones lasted all but 30 seconds before it met it’s freezing fate and powered off. My fingers — already frozen sausage links — fumble my iPhone 8, clinking on the screen, trying to find a grip. Alas …friction! My beating heart pumped enough blood to reach my glass fingertips, well just enough to incite motion but I don’t think it was enough to stop the impending hypothermia. I grab the phone with my right hand. I then disconnect the bluetooth, fold my Beats, and shove it in my left pocket only to share cramped space with my left fist.

Co-Op City is really beautiful this time of year. Truthfully it’s beautiful every time of the year, but winter/Christmas time allows for just a little more magic. Buildings tower this community in a cyclical formation as if the architects knew this will be the place that I circle back to after work and on weekends to visit my friend. I parked on the edge of the parking lot and proceed to walk about a 1000 feet to the building. At this particular moment, I was clearly phased by the cold and picked up my pace; heading for warmth. Muscles tensed, teeth clenched, and layers in tact — I was on a mission.

In the process of disconnecting my headphones, I must have dropped my phone. Now, before you think it — never mind, you already thought it — just remember that it was BRICK. I clearly wasn’t concerned about this overpriced phone that just dropped on frozen concrete, probably shattering it’s fragile screen, because if I was, I would have heard it hit the ground. I didn’t. I kept speed walking like when your dad pulls over on the highway during a roadtrip to pee and is rushing to the nearest bush to exercise his male privilege. I will note that, if I heard the phone fall, or if I felt it slip, or whatever, I would have stopped to pick it up; risking bare skin exposure during the bend, and subsequent spike in frozen hemoglobin just to pick it up. I didn’t. Instead, I heard the howling winds as it swooshed in between buildings, flying around the columns that held these tall structures, to the open space between the parking lot and my destination. As dry leaves fell to the ground just to crack on impact, I made it to the lobby. Sweet warm victory! Coincidentally, there was some exiting the building; he held the door open for me and I gave a sharp head-nod. I started thawing on my way to the elevator.

I did my phone-wallet-keys pat down after I pressed the floor number. A jolt, then, ascension, the elevator picked up. A fit of panic came over me as I could not feel my phone. No — I can’t loose my phone, I just can’t. Not another one. I started to kinda freaked out. If anyone saw me at this moment, they would describe someone with spiders all over them, tapping mercilessly to get the creatures off. But instead I was tapping my trench coat pockets to feel for the phone’s silhouette. I got off the elevator, searched for the phone over and over again. Find My iPhone proved to be useless.

I have come to a point in my life where things don’t phase me as they used to. I’m young, but I have been fortunate enough to go through circumstances that have helped build my character. I’ll be honest, though. I was pissed. But not like a rage, but more like how most Americans are pissed about large tax cuts and net neutrality, but they knew that deep down in their heart, they couldn’t do anything about it. So 100 phone calls, FMI, a police report, and many many many retraced steps later, the phone still proved lost. Someone just came up. Play on playa. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I work with an after school program in the heart of the South Bronx. Everyday, I not only see the limitations of the Brown v. Board of Education in desegregating public schools, but I see a school that lacks the resources to adequately provide services to a student body that is crippled by the community that surrounds them. A racially segregated public school, with the demographic as mostly black and hispanic students; some of the most witty, introspective, and kind scholars I could ever meet.

During one of our deep conversations about Lil Yatchy, fidget spinners, and the importance of color coordination within friend groups, a scholar & I spoke freely on the cafeteria line during supper. There were obvious barriers between us — I am his supervisor, an adult, who is “cool” but not that “cool” because I won’t go to the store to buy him “Taki’s” or platano chips. I am a college graduate, who always ends most conversations with “…I really want you to seriously think about going to college… or at least chase your dreams.” (Most students have expressed that they don’t have anyone in their lives who set such futuristic expectations.) But that’s besides the point, I think during this specific conversation, we were talking about DJ Khaled while he showed me a trick on his decked-out fidget spinner. Multitasking.

Someway, somehow, I make it a point to make every conversation educational experience. I began to explain to the scholar that a special holiday Juneteenth was coming up. Not only was it hard for him to pronounce the word, it was evident that it was a word that they haven’t heard before. “Mr, what is ‘June-tint??’” — (I kid you not, that’s exactly the response I got). Moments went by and I realized that this scholar, and probably most other scholars in this after-school program, have not heard about this day and consequently, don’t know it’s significance.

I was deeply saddened. Such stories of freedom could be uplifting these students, but instead are washed away and replaced with frivolous counts of Columbus’ great escapades and King James Queen Elizabeth, and George W. Bush in Social Studies. They were not being taught their own history.

So — what is Juneteenth and why is it significant?

On January 31, 1856, Congress passed the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in the United States on a federal level. The amendment did not get ratified until on December 6. On June 19th, then Texas’ General Gordon Granger proclaimed in his General Order Number 3:

In accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.

It doesn’t take an American history aficionado to understand the significance of this: it marked an end to one of the most brutally traumatic and devastating periods of slavery known in human history. Not only that, it put the “United” in United States of America. The fight between states rights, a major threat to the establishment of this nation, took a bit of a turn as the South’s team captain Texas aligned with federal law. The issue of slavery was such a divisive matter, millions died during the Civil War in part because of it. The roll out of this decision was not immediate and of course it got major pushback by the economic backers of slavery and the idealists that believed in the inherent inferiority of brown people, it took quite some time before the legal system of slavery was actually abolished. However, July 19, 1865 was a pivotal moment in American history and further shaped the course of it. Texas’ compliance paved the way for more sensible dialogue between the North and the South and furthermore the formation of a United States. Thanks, black people.

This goes to show that black emancipation has always been good for the United States. You would think the “powers that be” would acknowledge this.

Due to the melding of June and Nineteenth, the word is hard to pronounce. The 7th grade scholar instinctively kicked into slow motion and Juuuunnn-eee-teeeennthhhh until the word was fully comprehended. (That took 20 seconds of my life that I would never get back.) I explained,

Why should we celebrate?

For without the end of slavery, the great country now known as the United States of America would not have been possible.

1. The Juneteenth celebration symbolizes the joy of freedom.

2. It gives us a chance to explore truths about America and the African American slave experience.

3. It proclaims to nation of the world that prioritizing human rights is not only the right thing to do but is also good for the country.

4. It shows that the emancipation of black people was great for The American union and will continue to be.

Who should celebrate?

The scholar, a proud Dominican, exclaimed, “But I’m not black!” I held myself back from talking about intersectionality and kept is short. “Everyone should celebrate it.” You don’t have to be African-American to join in celebrating the anniversary of the end of slavery. Slavery is a terrible thing. Many people of all skin colors fought tirelessly to end it, and their efforts should not go unnoticed. I finished my rant by explaining that the end of slavery was the beginning of togetherness.

At this point he was sitting down at the lunch table. He proceeded to look at his food suspiciously. Thoroughly unimpressed, he stuffed his spinner in his pocket, opened his chocolate milk and gave a huge sigh before gulping.

America takes black people for granted. That’s is as non alternative of a fact as saying Tom Brady broke half of America’s heart in the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history. It’s sad that tellers of the history of the United State have perfected the art of tucking the stories of the black freedom struggle to a dim corner. The insult becomes insurmountable when we collectively reach back, once a year, to highlight a token Martin Luther King, Jr., dust him off and use his image as a backdrop as if to metaphorically claim that racial issues are behind us. We just finished the 8-year tenure of the first black president and in 2008 and 2012 white liberals rejoiced with the walking representation of a post-racial society. But this perceived victory for race-relations in the U.S.A. missed a key point.

Because we haven’t really unpacked the past, we can never fully move on. This means, some visible barriers will be broken. We might even elect a black woman as president, but the institutional systems that prevail to keep white Americans “superior” still stand tall. Until the stories are told, heroes are honored, vigilantes exonerated, reparations given, this country will never heal. The pathetic regurgitation of historical events in history books (with significant omission of the achievements of black Americans) is like scratching an oozing wound.

The fact is black emancipation has been great for America and will continue to be.

As Black Americans continue to fight for civil rights and liberties and win (i.e. pursue federal policy to limit police brutality), the resulting freedoms, isn’t reserved for the 13% of the population but to ALL Americans. What is ironic is that blacks don’t always reap the benefits of their own campaigns (fact: Affirmative Action largely benefitting white women). What this means: blatant racial oppression provoked a strong reaction by the oppressed to change their conditions and the long-drawn battle of Affirmative Action, a call to the federal government to rectify the systematic barriers that were hindering blacks from entering the workforce, university, and police service was wagered by African Americans. The sole recipients of the Affirmative Action policies that resulted have been white women. That ricocheting effect is something that is all too familiar to black Americans — fighting for a perk that gets lost in translation.

The American legal system has seen drastic changes since the top of the 20th Century. Americas mantra: fairness and freedom has been and will continue to be actualized by the hardworking black Americans seeking to change their oppressive conditions. By scratching out their stories, then we are doing the entire nation a disservice.

Legal protections that came as a response to the gross mistreatment of black defendants:

A. The right to an attorney when charged with a serious offense. (Powell v. Alabama)

B. Place federal statutory and constitutional limits on the capacity of states to criminalize conduct. (Bailey v Alabama 1911)

C. Right to be free of torture aimed at eliciting a confession? (Brown v. Mississippi 1936)

D. The right to a trial absent of mob intimidation. (Moore v Dempsey 1922)

E. The right to federal procedural safeguards and due process under the law. (Bailey v Alabama 1911; Scottsboro Scandal)

F. Right to be tried by a jury selected without purposeful exclusion of black jurors. (Batson v Kentucky 1986; Norris v Alabama)

…G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, and way, way more.

The United States of America allocates the shortest month of the year to highlight its longest and most troubling dilemma. How do we tell the story of such historic mistreatment while simultaneously ignoring the general good that has resulted from it? It’s ironic isn’t it? White fragility is like that.

President Donald Trump spent a majority of his campaign borrowing from Nixon’s playbook — promising to focus on public safety and be extremely tough on crime. “I will be the champion of the inner cities,” he said during a campaign stop. He’s even promised to send the “feds” into Chicago if the Mayor Rahm Emanuel fails to get things under control. His promise to be the “law and order” candidate is not new. In fact, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Jr — and even Bill Clinton relied on the same rhetoric to secure their party’s nomination and eventually clinch the presidency. The seemingly “good” obsession with punishing street crime with punitive measures is rather ironic because of the lack of focus on the structural and socioeconomic changes that not only attribute to the likelihood of crime but the localization, fostering, and pervasiveness of crime in the first place.

Measures made by these types of presidents usually start squarely with the problem and almost always ignore the cause of the problem, thus are met with large failures and more damage: like Reagan’s War on Drugs which has resulted in a prison industrial system that focuses on packing private prisons with black prisoners who double as workers for the profit of the prison-owners. The reverberating effects was another phenomenon known as the school to prison pipeline that ensures black and brown students have a fair shot at prison if they really put their minds to it.

But Trump is better than this! He could take actions to end all of this… After all, Nixon was president in 1969 — just a year after Martin Luther King was murdered by the FBI — and this is Twenty-Seventeen! We’re passed all that, right? Well. Just hear me out here and let us examine a couple of ways that a Trump administration could end police brutality while simultaneously being consistent with the law and order rhetoric of the campaign.

1. Acknowledge the attitudes of Americans that does make policing difficult — and why these attitudes have come to past.

I think he’s already doing the first half of this one. In fact, Nixon, Raegan, Bush Jr., and Clinton have gotten this part right. They had noticed that there is a large anti-police sentiment in the nation and it serves as an impediment for law enforcement to truly preserve law and order. This attitude, for example, causes some black citizens to not cooperate with police investigations and quite alarmingly — it causes some black jurors to be unreasonably skeptical about police testimonies in court (admittedly, for good reason. Think: Officer Mark Fuhrman in O.J. Simpson case) which can lead jurors to not willing to cast a guilty ballot despite overwhelming evidence proving the defendant’s guilt (Think: OJ Simpson himself). This is where Trump and his cohort fall short. They don’t focus on understanding why these attitudes have come to past, they merely claim officers aren’t respected but fail to somehow that they have to earn back their respect.

Trump must remedy this. As a law and order president, his priority should be improving the effectiveness of police and prosecutions; he needs to give high priority to correcting and deterring the illegitimate racial practices that diminish the reputation of law enforcement. He will have to get out of his comfort zone and use his words to acknowledge past indiscretion by police and encourage us all to move on as a people.

2. Trump has to make sure police officers follow the rules.

This applies to all administrators of law and order, up and down the criminal justice chain. Trump must demand that they follow the authoritative rules that are in place and he should pledge to fervently discipline officers that fail to comply, just as he has threatened every day citizens. This would set a precedent around precincts across the country that lawlessness by officers will not be tolerated. His administration should also understand and work against something that might be uncomfortable, but true: implicit bias can and does affect all aspects of criminal law. Therefore, that is a point that Attorney General Jeff Sessions should keep in mind.

“Why hasn’t this hasn’t happened yet?” You may ask. Well, for one, some politicians have used the phrase “law and order” as code to signal the whites who are still upset with much of the social change that came during the Civil Rights Movement. It can be seen as an anti-black movement aimed to push back these changes. They have used a read-between-the-lines to coat largely racist ideology. They don’t really want to end crime, they just want to be perceived as working to end crime.

I’ll use an example. Maintenance of the body as an athlete is very important in their success in their respective sports. If a basketball player sprains her ankle, the treatment of the sprain is just as crucial as learning how to not sprain her ankle again. Thus, the player must understand that how she lands from a jump-shot is just as important as how she lifts.

For a campaign of law and order to exist, the law must not only be applied to the people but equally to the facilitators of law and order. This one’s on you Trump.

However, research has shown the opposite. In a survey I recently conducted, 30 student leaders at Penn State University overwhelmingly site social media as a means for communication, organization, and real political activism. Most participants state that social media has had a direct effect on their access to information, amount of invites to events and/or programs, and thus has increased their political participation. The results of the study showed that social media amplifies solidarity, raising awareness, and accelerates the spread of information across the globe.

The internet has constructed sort of a language with hashtags, notably on Twitter. Do you remember #Kony2012? Or the #IceBucketChallenge? The #BlackLivesMatter movement has specifically called into the systematic racism seen in the American criminal justice system and has used Twitter to execute and social media to organize a body of people. Survey data shows that college students are using the internet for political activism. Penn State student leaders who participated in the survey claim social media as their main source of communicating politically related ideas, thoughts, opinion, and political activities.

Participation in activities such as going out to vote, to meetings, participating in protests, marches, boycotts, cold-calling, canvassing, getting signatures, etc. have been amplified by social media, according to the survey data. About 85% of respondents claim that social media has made them more politically powerful; a feeling generated through participation in political processes. However, 95% of respondents state that social media has helped them become more politically active. The data, which overwhelmingly shows social media’s positives, comes in contradiction to mainstream ideas about the potency of activism that happens on Twitter or Facebook.

Political and social scientists, Alcides Valesquez and Robert LaRose conducted a study in 2014 that explained the thought process behind the mind of the politically active. Their paper explains the collective participation of youth on or through social media. It is important because most studies focus on the youth’s individual participation, leaving the collectivity aspect in the dark. Valesquez and LaRose argued that collective participation of youth on or through social media is due to a concept of internal political efficacy, the idea that one’s actions can affect the political process. Social media is the tool of the generation, where print, radio, and television might have been the tools of the past.

The dissenters must not be seeing what dynamic difference social media is making in today’s world. People are using social media to hunt war criminals, win the White House, defeat an American House Speaker, change banking regulations, and overthrow dictators in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen. In each instance it was social media that facilitated broad-based social activism and empowered the aspirations of millions. Its power has just begun to be tested, but the evidence so far indicates that social media has successfully reinvented social activism.

References

Velasquez, A., & LaRose, R. (2014, January 7). Youth collective activism through social media: The role of collective efficacy. Sage Journals, 17(No. 6 899–918), 900–918. Retrieved February 15, 2016, from http://intl-nms.sagepub.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/content/17/6/899.full.pdf html

Social Media and Activism