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Rev. Barber: How We Can Address Racial Inequalities in Handling Drug Addiction [time.com]

 

The Rev. Barber is co-chair of The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.

Drug overdoses kill more than 64,000 people per year, and are now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50. To document the nation’s devastating opioid crisis, TIME sent photographer James Nachtwey and deputy director of photography Paul Moakley across the country to gather stories from the frontlines of the epidemic. The result, The Opioid Diaries, is a visual record of a national emergency and a call to action.

Desmond Tutu, the prophetic voice of South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement, was right when he said we have “no future without forgiveness.” Americans cannot talk about forgiveness around the opioid crisis, however, without facing the ugly truth that we denied this grace to black and brown people in the War on Drugs. Yes, all people deserve a chance to heal from addiction. But both Republicans and Democrats failed to see this until the harsh drug laws they passed in the 1980s and 90s started impacting white people.

As a pastor, I know that every addiction reveals a place of hurt. As a patient who deals with excruciating pain from a crippling form of arthritis, I have compassion for any person who turns to drugs in an effort to alleviate any agony. But as a preacher in the public square, I must lift up the cry of the prophets. “Woe unto you who legislate evil,” Isaiah says, “and rob the poor of their rights.” Racial disparity in consequences for drug addiction is no accident. It is the direct result of public policy.

[For more on this story by WILLIAM J. BARBER II, go to http://time.com/5168711/opioids-crack-crises/]

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