Many people by now are very familiar with the movie “Precious-Based on the Novel “Push”, by Sapphire. But, how many of you have heard of the movie “American Violet”? Not many, I would surmise. “American Violet” is an even better movie that addresses how hard-working Black citizens can be railroaded into jail and prison, especially when those charges levied against a Black citizen consist of trumped-up drug charges.
“American Violet” involves the story of a single Black American mother, Regina Kelly, who struggles against a racist/sexist system to clear her name after being wrongly accused and arrested for dealing drugs in an impoverished town in Texas. It is base on a “true story” a film based on the racially charged drug war scandal that rocked the town of Hearne, Texas, nine years ago, and the film explores the devastating impact of America’s “war on drugs”. Directed by Tim Disney and written by Bill Haney, the film stars Alfre Woodard, Will Patton, Tim Blake Nelson, Charles Dutton, and Nicole Beharie as Regina Kelly. It is part of a long, sad, and sorry string of incidents in the lives of the mostly Black citizens who not able to afford high-powered legal defense, threatened with long prison sentences, and excessive bail, when wrongly accused of selling drugs. This story is similar to the well-known incident of Tulia, Texas, where many poor residents, mostly Black, some Latinos, and a few Whites who were dating Blacks, were accused of selling drugs to a corrupt racist White cop, Tom Coleman).
Eventually many of the accused Blacks were exonerated. One young woman, Tonya White , was innocent because she had an ironclad alibi————–charges against her had to be dropped when lawyers produced bank records that proved she was in Oklahoma City at the time that Coleman said the drug transaction had occurred. After the destruction of Coleman’s testimony, the DA’s case aginst many of the accused was torn to shreds. Thanks to the tireless vigilant efforts of The Justice Project, a non-profit organization that works to improve the fairness and accuracy of the criminal justice system, many innocent Black people have actually found justice in an otherwise unjust society, via TJP, with many of those accused living in the state of Texas.
But, I digress.
“American Violet”, shows how unequal under the law people are where it concerns drugs. How the gestapo, police state storm-trooper mentality seeks the destruction of the Black community and how not only the local police, but the federal government’s involvement in the so-called drug war has escalated in the massive concentration-type arrests of Black citizens who are accused of selling drugs.
The so-called war on drugs is unconstitutional. It is racist. It seeks to destroy the very people who do not bring drugs into this country. It paints a face of black on drugs when in essence, and truth, the face of drugs is anything but black: those who have the big money, boats, planes, money laundering, drug kingpins, and international drug cartel connections to mule-traffic drugs into America.
When a weak, cowardly and sniveling Democratic-backed congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act back in 1986, they did not realize the maelstrom they set into action, especially with the dichotomy shown between powder cocaine and crack cocaine and drug sentencing for prison time. Though both drugs differ in looks and composition, they are still drugs which give a feeling of euphoria to the users. But, with the disparate and draconian sentencing that occurs with each drug (crack cocaine users/sellers given stiffer and stronger prison sentencing than powder cocaine users/sellers), the use of federal money and sensational headlines in newspapers across the country, to prosecutors seeking the highest sentence that can be obtained, the so-called war on drugs has let loose a militaristic attack on poor Black communities, to support the drug task forces that storm into and occupy poor Black neighborhoods as if they are some foreign country rife for occupation and decimation.
Power-and-vote-hungry district attorneys have literally taken over the court system with their demagogue law-and-order mantra that poor Black people are the demons to fear where drugs are concerned, and when people like Regina are targeted, they become just one more notch in the scalp belts of district attorneys. The brow-beating of rail-roaded Blacks into copping a plea of guilt to avoid a long prison term, fuels the DA’s desire to obtain more federal monies to create drug task-force units that are funded by the Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance Program (which was refunded under President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan), with the money disbursed based on the number of drug busts and people accused, as opposed to the validity and legal evidence obtained to detain and hold the accused citizens in these bogus drug busts. The more people arrested, the more grants/funding the counties/states receive. Therefore, the stomping on Black citizens is regarded as collateral damage in the war on drugs———–no matter who is destroyed by it. Even a mother with children. Not to mention, that the DA/drug task forces, feel that they will not be challenged on their ruthless actions; the belief that everyone so charged will buckle under their bullying tactics. That no one will speak out against them.
But Regina surprised her accusers and tormentors.
In the ACLU team-led case against the government, Regina and the 16 people who were accused of drug traffiking went to court, with Regina agreeing to be the lead plaintiff in the case. The so-called drug task force was shown up for what it was: attackers who cared nothing for the law on which they trampled (putting the Black residents on lockdown, searching and detaining innocent residents, often in handcuffs for lengthy periods of time and without warrant or cause), but, they also cared nothing for the lives and humanity of the Hearne, Texas Black citizens.
Regina Kelly, and Erma Faye Stewart (another victim in the Hearn, Tx. case), know what it is like to accused, and arrested, unjustly, as this PBS/Frontline documentary shows.
Facts have long been in need of being faced. . . .
. . . .the so-called “War on Drugs” is a dismal failure, and moreso because of its targeting the Black community.
These race-based sweeps are a direct violation of the Fourth Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment and the Ninth Amendment.
In fact, some counties are leaving the so-called drug task forces (mainly because their tactics have embroiled them in controversy and tragedy):
“Travis County Leaving Anti-Drug Task Force”
The American Civil Liberties Union has called upon Congress to reform the Department of Justice Grant Program that subsidizes these race-based drug raids.
(See also:
If you are able, view “American Violet”.
American violence has fueled the so-called war on drugs, and many innocent Black people continue to be the casualties of war in the pathway of this mindless, senseless juggernaut of inhumanity.
Ann
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