Hip-Hop and Friends Turn Up The Volume

by Preston Peet

posted at DrugWar.com
June 7, 2003

Russell Simmons addresses the crowd
photo- Steve Wishnia

A heavy police presence and a dark gray sky threatening to pour more rain upon already drenched downtown New York City streets did not keep thousands of young people from standing shoulder to shoulder for nearly 3 blocks to peacefully express their anger on June 4, demanding a repeal of the Rockefeller Drug Laws.

“The Countdown for Fairness” event was organized by Randy Credico and Anthony Papa of the Mothers of the New York Disappeared, Russell Simmons and Bill Gibson from the Hip Hop Summit Action Network, Bob Gangi of Drop the Rock, Dr. Ben Chavis, and Andrew Cuomo. Speakers during the 4 hour event along a busy NYC street right alongside City Hall included Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, Rev. Al Sharpton, Sean Puffy Combs, Mariah Carry, Fifty Cent and Busta Rhymes, Donna Leiberman of the NYCLU, Shawn Heller, HT Freedom Fighter of the year for 2002 and head of the national Students for Sensible Drug Policy, along with many other politicians, celebrities and musicians, including Millie Rockefeller, granddaughter of former Governor Nelson Rockefeller, the namesake who first signed the repressive NY drug laws into being.

First-time offenders face 15-years-to-life for selling or possessing small quantities of drugs under the laws passed by then-Governor Rockefeller in the early 70's. Of the 19,000 state prison inmates who have been sentenced under the laws, 94 percent are black and Latino.

“Ostensibly, these laws were to fight the drug trade,” Councilwoman Margarita Lopez told the crowd, “but what they have done is destroy families and made sure that NY doesn’t treat drug users humanely. They only made sure that NY doesn’t know how to deal with drug addiction.”

“I come from the land of hypocrisy, and this is the ultimate hypocrite.” said DC-based Heller, holding up a t-shirt on-stage showing George Bush snorting lines of cocaine, "These laws were made in our name, we are the DARE generation, and we reject these laws. Repeal the Rockefeller laws!”

Voices in the Crowd

“The goal of this event is to get youth involved in politics, and to overturn this unjust law,” said Andrew Lynch of Def Jam Records. Handing out Hip-Hop Team Vote cards emblazoned with a Simmons Quote- “Older people have F**KED UP the system and now it’s our responsibility to fix it and make it better!”- Lynch explained that organizers had “targeted high school students particularly, and want everyone eligible to vote to do so. We want them to take the power back into their own hands. A law like this is perfect for getting young people involved.”

“There’s too many people locked up in jail over petty shit and first time offenses. That’s nuts!” said Harry of Brooklyn. Fellow Brooklynite Robert agreed that he too wants the Rockefeller Drug Laws repealed, saying that both he and a cousin had done time under the laws. “Someone who is an addict and gets arrested, they need help not incarceration.”

“We’re here in support of this coalition, and are optimistic that Pataki will listen,” said Oscar Alvarado of the AFL-CIO DC 137, Manhattan. “This coalition has really brought this issue to front and center. We are labor and represent a lot of municipal employees. This rally signifies a shift. The hip-hop movement has done an outstanding job here. Kids will get involved thanks to this. Politicians should not be able to ignore this.”

“I heard about the protest on the radio,” said Julio from the Bronx. “I’m out here to listen to what they have to say, to learn and get a bit of knowledge about the Rockefeller Drug Laws. I think most likely the politicians will have to listen, and I believe there can be a change. I will be voting. I’ve got a cousin who is in for 2 years on a first offense drug charge. I don’t understand why that is. With all the money they spend on sending and keeping people in jail they could be spending on books and education. Friends and I are here today trying to figure this shit out.”

“I’m here because 30 years of Rockefeller Drug Laws is too many, because not another child should be separated from their parents, nor another parent from their child,” said NYC Drug War activist Dan Goldman. “Since the War on Some Drugs began, it has been justified by the notion that they are protecting the children. But today, NYC children have stood up to say ‘enough.’ Drop the Rockefeller Drug Laws!”

To Reform or Repeal, that is the question

There were heated debates during the planning sessions, “with spit flying” according to Papa, as he and Credico urged Simmons to adopt “repeal” rather than “reform” as the stated goal of the protest.

“I think it was a success if people continue to mobilize and not sell out,” Credico told this writer two days after the event. “I don’t want anyone negotiating a bad deal with the governor. The group should stay together and keep moving towards eventual repeal instead of minor reform. I’m not going to mention anyone’s name, but I was the one negotiating with the governor last year, I was the one who went before the General Assembly, and Russell gets involved and you know, he’s going to go into the same tap dance that I went through already. He’s a nice guy but he doesn’t know a whole lot about the issue. There are some organizations that have a lot of money that need to get results and get their name on it to get continued funding. Our group, the Mothers, spent 9 thousand dollars since last November including salaries, so we’re not in this for the money, we’re in this for a different motivation. I’ve been working on this for 6 years, but since November the Mothers have spent 9 thousand dollars, and now I get something from the Temporary Commission on Lobbying about the Mothers of the Disappeared.”

“Yeah man, the Temporary Commission on Lobbying, they’re on our case now because we stepped on Sheldon Silver’s toes,” Papa told this writer. “This is all heavy political shit, because now with this guy Simmons, they are scared because this guy can get tens of thousands of people into the streets. We started out 5 years ago, on May 8, 1998, when we got about 20 people out in the street with a couple of signs, and from there we’ve progressed to the point where you saw it on Wednesday. It was amazing. We continue to spin this to try to change the laws. They’re seeing that we can definitely do damage to political careers so now they’re responding. They don’t want this. When one plays politics like this, real hard-ball stuff, it can come back at you. So now they’re investigating the Mothers to see if we’ve been violating any of the lobbying laws. If one has a 501 status, you’re not supposed to lobby. You can get heavy fines. Because we’re making all this noise, the government is starting to react, which is good because it tells me we’re really doing something.”

With less than 3 weeks to go in this legislative session, it is not sure whether the politicians can reach an agreement, at worst reforming and at best repealing the Rockefeller laws. On Monday, June 2, the NY Assembly passed a new bill which would reform the laws and set aside $120 million annually for treatments and other alternatives to jail, but it is simply a rehashing of the bill the Assembly leadership introduced last year and doesn’t address giving judges sentencing discretion and leaves control of sentencing outcomes in the hands of district attorneys, according to Bob Gangi of Drop the Rock.

“Our criticisms are the same. Pataki has not put out a new position, so far as we know, so in effect our public statements about the Governor’s and the Assembly’s proposals are still relevant, still timely. We support the repeal bill of Jeff Aubry, Chair of the Committee on Corrections and former Chair of the Black and Puerto Rican Legislative Caucus, numbered A-852.” This bill would give judges the power to sentence as they see fit in all drug cases, make reform retroactive so that prisoners already incarcerated can request review of their cases, and expand funding for alternatives to incarceration.

Despite a stated commitment to reform, opponents charge that Governor Pataki wants to increase the penalties for some drug offenses while doing very little to actually jumpstart any sort of real change. “I think, from my standpoint, we've seen some progress in that what I'd want to see is a balanced approach where, yes, we lower the sentences for offenders who could face 15 to 25 years to life for convictions to make them more reasonable,” Governor Pataki told the NYTimes. But while Pataki claims to want to reform the law, he’s seeking harsher sentencing in many areas. “And I also want to see tougher sentences for people who use children or sell drugs near schoolyards or who have a weapon, use a gun, or drug kingpins, and I think we're seeing some progress toward that,” said the governor. This is not going over well with the grass root organizers.

“Basically we’re for total repeal,” notes Papa. “But Simmons is a business man, so he really just wants to get a deal and get it done, because he doesn’t want to wait another 30 years for something to happen. I respect him for that. The thing is, in our meetings we put forth the importance of getting repeal rather than reform, because only repeal is really going to make a difference. We’ve been out in the streets fighting this thing for years and we just don’t want to give something up, make a deal real quick. We’d rather have no deal.”