For years men and boys of color have been incarcerated for selling and using marijuana but now we want to put a suit and white face on it and make it a legal, multimillion dollar business. Law enforcement has been preying on men, in poor communities, for years. Men that are selling weed just so that they can put food on the table. Boys and men that now have criminal records, boys and men that cannot find jobs because of their records, boys and men that will be criminalized for the rest of their lives for something that is now legal.

Since Colorado and Washington have legalized the use of recreational marijuana Michelle Alexander spoke out on the injustice the legalization has posed on people of color. “After waging a brutal war on poor communities of color, a drug war that has decimated families, spread despair and hopelessness through entire communities, and a war that has fanned the flames of the very violence it was supposedly intended to address and control; after pouring billions of dollars into prisons and allowing schools to fail; we’re gonna simply say, we’re done now?” Alexander said. “I think we have to be willing, as we’re talking about legalization, to also start talking about reparations for the war on drugs, how to repair the harm caused.”

So should they receive reparations? Most definitely! This situations reminds me of a statement I recently read, “Why is it easier to believe that 150,000,000 Americans are being lazy rather than 400 American are being greedy?” How does this relate? Let’s oppress an entire race for something we deem to be illegal until we realize it can make us wealthy. Let’s demonize them, call them thugs and less than human for masterminding a hustle in order to pay the bills. Let’s steal their idea, make it our own, become filthy rich and make it damn their impossible for them to now sell weed legally. Let’s not even get into the price tag that has been placed on selling marijuana legally. And then let’s say “my bad” for destroying your lives, hope you understand. So not only do the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, the poor’s futures are destroyed in the process. Reparations, yes please, they all need to be given their own dispensaries if you ask me.