LOUIS ‘HOP’ KENDRICK
Too frequently, Blacks are guilty of believing the asinine remark that “other Blacks do not want to work and too many fail the drug tests.”
That kind of remark is a reminder of Willie Lynch’s How To Make A Slave.
In every race of people there are those who have atrocious work habits and fail drug tests, not just Black people. Of course too many Blacks have engaged in acts of violence, drug using and dealing and are filling up the penal institutions. However let us focus less on the end results and more intently on the causes, because I am a firm believer in prevention.
I want to provide you with a couple of contradictions that have permeated society for untold numbers of years. In the days of slavery when we were the property of another person, the slaves were compelled to labor often from dawn to dusk and were treated worst than the livestock. Slave masters would describe them as lazy. (Blacks not wanting to work?)
Another contradiction is how drugs became a part of Black culture. I will always remember a scene from The Untouchables where a underling said to the mob boss, “this dope is the equivalent of poison.” The boss responded by stating, “so what sell it to the monkeys (Blacks).” This calloused, insensitive and destructible attitude was identical to that of White politicians, gangsters and police across this nation.
I was born and raised on the Hill, and we witnessed how police shared in the drug profits and their attitude about drugs. Later on in 1966, I was a co-founder of the first Allegheny County Narcotics squad and saw first hand how little they cared about the negative effects drugs were having on the Black communities. Their lack of concern resulted in drugs reaching an epidemic proportion in Black neighborhoods. Those in the White communities who had limited concerns about what they perceived as a monkey problem ignored it too long, because in 2013 White youths are over dosing on drugs, such as heroin in record numbers.
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