Dear Editor:
It never fails. Every time I read the paper or hear the news, someone’s home was invaded. Or, some youngster was shot and killed. Another mother is crying. Another vigil is held somewhere. Someone else is shot. And someone always cries out “THIS HAS GOT TO STOP!”
Well, it won’t stop until someone has the guts to come up with an obvious solution. If you want to stop the home invasions, the shootings and killings, you have to get guns off the street. To get guns off the street, you have to get drugs off the street. To get drugs off the street, you must legalize them. Yes, legalize drugs.
I have no data as far as violent crime being related to drugs, but I believe there is a very high correlation. If legalizing drugs doesn’t do anything, it will take the criminal element out of it. There is an old saying that goes something like, “If you forget the past, you are bound to repeat.” Remember prohibition? As long as liquor was illegal, Al Capone, Frank Nitti and all the rest of those thugs caused violence and crime to run rampant just as it does today. Just as soon as they repealed prohibition and made liquor legal, crime was greatly reduced. And the same will happen if they legalize drugs.
Just like back during prohibition, people said you can’t repeal prohibition. Everyone will be walking around drunk. Well, if you don’t drink, you don’t drink. The same is said of drugs. If you don’t use drugs, you don’t use drugs.
Believe me if you legalize drugs, the only ones that will be using them are the ones that are using them now. Regulate them. Take all the money spent on losing the fight against drugs and put it toward the education of the dangers of drugs. Let’s face it. We are not winning the war on drugs and as long as drugs are illegal, we never will. Legalize drugs and stop the killing. Stop the home invasions. Stop the car-jackings and stop another mother from crying.
George E. Knox
Beltzhoover

MARC H. MORIAL

(NNPA)—It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.—The late National Urban League and civil rights leader, Whitney M. Young Jr.
Last week, during the National Urban League’s 10th annual Legislative Policy Conference in Washington, D.C., we released the 37th edition of the State of Black America, Redeem the Dream: Jobs Rebuild America. This year’s report commemorates the racial milestones that have occurred in the 50 years since the height of the civil rights movement and shines a sobering light on the unfinished business of achieving full equality and empowerment for every citizen.
One of the most encouraging signs in the report is the progress African-Americans have made in fulfilling Whitney Young’s vision of preparing ourselves for real and hoped for opportunities through education.
Since 1963, the high school completion gap has closed by 57 percentage points. There are more than triple the number of Blacks enrolled in college. And for every college graduate in 1963, there are now five.
Anti-poverty measures have also improved our living standard since 1963. The percentage of Blacks living in poverty has declined by 23 points. And the percentage of Blacks who own their homes has grown by 14 points.
But these numbers don’t tell the full story. While Black America has achieved double-digit gains in educational attainment, employment, and wealth over the past 50 years, we still have made only single-digit gains against Whites. With an Equality Index of 71.7 percent, African-Americans enjoy less than three-fourths of the well-being and economic status of White Americans. Similarly, Hispanic Americans, with an index of 75.4 percent, are experiencing only three-quarters of the full opportunity America has to offer.
For example, in the past 50 years, the Black-White income gap has only closed by 7 points (now at 60 percent). The unemployment rate gap has only closed by 6 points (now at 52 percent). And with March unemployment figures showing African-American joblessness now at 13.3 percent and Hispanic unemployment at 9.2 percent, compared to an overall rate of 7.6 percent, we still see a tale of two Americas that continues to break down along the color line.
But rather than bemoan these problems, the National Urban League is using these findings to sharpen our focus on meaningful solutions. Earlier this year, we launched a ground-breaking endeavor Jobs Rebuild America, a $70 million series of public/private investments to create pathways to jobs and put urban America back to work.
But Washington must also be part of the solution. During our visit to Capitol Hill this week, we reiterated our support of the Urban Jobs Act and the Project Ready STEM Act, a bill sponsored by Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Marcia Fudge. We also support the stated goal in the president’s 2014 budget released last week: to invest in the things needed to grow our economy and create jobs while reducing the deficit in a way that does not unfairly impact the most vulnerable communities.
Again, while much progress has been made over the past 50 years, The State of Black America remains a tale of two Americas. The National Urban League has put some real solutions on the table. Its time for Washington to put them to work.
To obtain a copy of the State of Black America visit www.nul.org.
 (Marc H. Morial, former mayor of New Orleans, is president and CEO of the National Urban League.)

by Van Jones

(CNN) -- Richard Biennestin was only 20 years old when he was shot and killed on April 13. Jessie Leon Jordan was 23. Sione Fakatoufifita was 19. Titania Mitchell was only 13. Of the nearly two dozen people reported killed that day, about half were under age 30.

JULIANNE MALVEAUX

(NNPA)--The right wing seems determined to associate President Obama with any government program that helps people on the bottom. Thus, the term Obamacare was used to attack the health care program that President Obama fashioned and worked with Congress to approve.  While Obamacare is not perfect, it brings more people into the health care system, and further solidifies the safety net that many have attempted to fray.
Now these folks are running with the term “Obamaphone,” which speaks to the fact that President Obama has simply extended a Lifeline plan that was authorized by Republican President Ronald Reagan when it was clear that those who were either isolated by poverty or by their rural status needed telephones to connect themselves to the world.
The Reagan program used taxes on some of us to provide telephones for the rest of us. People were able to get a telephone that offered basic service for a basic fee. With the onset of technology, Lifeline customers had the option of getting a landline phone or a cellular phone. This is not an Obama initiative.  It began in 1996.
Those who get a subsidized telephone have numerous restrictions. They don’t get to choose their phone, but are offered whatever is available, usually a refurbished phone. They get 250 minutes a month if they get a cell phone.  The 250 minutes is about four hours a month, or an hour a week.  Is this really some kind of rip off, or is it a reasonable way to bring people on the periphery to the center?  What do you do with no phone when there is a medical emergency or even a job call?  Absent Lifeline, you are yet again a peripheral citizen.
Obamaphone?  Give me a break.  Until the Tea Party began to hold sway on our national consciousness, Republicans were among those who embraced the notion that every American should have basic telephone service.  Now, anything associated with government assistance is associated with President Obama, despite the fact that both Democratic and Republican presidents have attempted to assist people at the bottom, albeit with different levels of energy.
Let’s not forget that it was Democratic President Bill Clinton who pushed the “welfare reform” that limited government assistance to 60 months or five years.  When President Clinton, long a favorite among African-Americans, proffered a 1996 reform that I described as “welfare deform,” several of his African-American supporters excoriated him.  He weathered the storm, as did the public assistance program.  Still, nobody describes it as Clintonwelfare.  It was an ill- conceived and pandering policy change that allowed President Clinton to brag that he’d gotten “tough” on public assistance.
Associating President Obama with government support to the poor is a subtle way of associating people of African descent with public assistance, and with the pejorative term “welfare.”  This is a most understated form of racial coding, a coding that enabled former Congressman Newt Gingrich to describe President Obama as a “food stamps” president and to falsely assert that President Obama “put” more people on food stamps than any other president in history.  Does Mr. Gingrich remember the Great Recession that the scion of his party, former President George W. Bush, enabled, or is he too busy purchasing jewelry for his blushing bride of a decade to pay attention to our nation’s economic situation?
One in six Americans lives in poverty.  More than one in four African-Americans and Latinos live in poverty.  One in 10 of all Whites live in poverty. The Great Recession and economic restructuring have kicked these diverse groups of poor people, many who are grateful for food assistance, to the curb. President Obama has been responsive to this group of people to the extent that a hostile Congress has allowed it.
If I were President Obama, I’d be flattered by descriptions of Obamacare and Obamaphones.  I would not even mind having food stamps being described as Obamafood.  Would we prefer to describe poverty as Romney starve, or sequester starve?  Make it plain.  Associating President Obama with health care, Lifeline telephones and healthy eating is to his credit, not his detriment.
 (Julianne Malveaux is a Washington, D.C.-based economist and writer.  She is President Emerita of Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, N.C.)