Cliven Buddy and family better get on this ASAP-—or else their cause is lost.
The Bundy’s should make a statement on Facebook or elsewhere-—asserting their support for reviewing unjust prison sentences for African-Americans.
Every night we see a story about a Black man unjustly incarcerated-—imprisoned his whole life b/c evidence was manufactured....or something similar.
It was a common practice way back then that redneck cops would fix cases against Blacks who could not defend themselves.
Even the cranky Ben Jealous—NAACP head—is warming up to Republicans who understand the injustice of long prison sentences that weight heavily against Black men.
It’s definitely true that blacks were treated unfairly in certain circumstances, and I think that would be very difficult to get away with now. As for the drug sentencing, I think in many cases, you’d find that the black defendants were involved with violent gangs or had prior felonies themselves, whereas the white cocaine sniffers were probably insulated from the actual violence...hence the Feds’ pursuit of the white suppliers, such as the Mafia.
That said, since I have lived in the South, I have also realized that a lot of the time the cops were actually pretty lenient with black offenders. It was condescending and probably wrong, but they considered them very prone to crimes like the dresser-top burglary (walking into a home and sweeping the change or a watch off the dresser top) or other low-level crimes, and these things were often arranged without even going to court (the thief would give back what he had stolen and apologize).
The problem in that case was paternalism, and the reality is that the welfare state only increased it. I have an elderly black neighbor who is 96 years old...and she only stopped working (as a cook) 3 years ago! She started working when she was 12.
She had only a couple of children and then her husband died, and they were more or less ok. Probably the children got some kind of aid, but once the LBJ welfare state took over, everything went down the drain. I think most of her grandchildren ended up in jail. Ironically, the only one who did well and started his own business was doing just fine...until Obama became president and killed the building industry.
I think Bundy was simply trying to convey the point that being captives of the Federal Government is not a good situation for anybody. He’s not a politician or a good speaker, and he expressed it from his background. But I don’t really think he was anti-black, just anti-big government. If he’d been more savvy, he would have expressed it differently, because unfortunately, I think he’s shot himself in the foot.