Separating black women from her kids in New York City

The following is from teh New York Daily News editorial column. It appeared on 23 June, 2018. It is about how the liberal city of New York is separating people from their children, and also offers an insight into cannabis use in a positive way. This is not to say I support people dropping out and smoking dope. But cannabis is a useful medical substance with no lethal or long lasting side effects, and sometimes it is used by honest working people who want to avoid dependency on a single drug that has been prescribed to them. I support the legalisation of cannabis for medical uses and recreational use for people over 21. For more info on that issue, check out www.hempforvictory.blogspot.com

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Shakira Kennedy, NYC

At a press conference this week, Mayor de Blasio said, “We will do everything we can to stop the federal government from separating parents from their children.”

But the city itself is needlessly splitting up New York families through the Administration for Children’s Services. I know because my own family is at risk.

Ironically, the mayor made his statement at a press conference in which he announced a new policy to reduce marijuana arrests. I myself have had my life upended by senseless marijuana enforcement. And the mayor’s new policy will do nothing to help people like me — because it is ACS, not the NYPD, that is targeting me.

I am a 28-year-old loving mother and a taxpaying citizen. I have a beautiful 7-year-old daughter in a gifted and talented program and two beautiful twin baby boys. I would do anything for my children.

What Is This?

Unfortunately, during my pregnancy with the twins, I suffered from extreme morning sickness and could not keep food or water down. I sought the best medical care, and my doctors told me I needed to gain weight for the health of my babies.

But the medicine they prescribed didn’t work. Nothing did, until I tried cannabis.

Making sure to tell my doctor everything, I disclosed that I smoked cannabis and it helped me eat normally. That’s when I became a victim of circumstance. When my children were born, they tested negative for marijuana. But still the hospital called ACS.

I made clear to ACS that I had to use marijuana under unique circumstances — but that I would not continue to use it. I asked to schedule a drug test to prove that it would no longer be in my system.

They made me go to court or face the loss all three of my children. Then, instead of ongoing drug-testing, I was compelled to go to an outpatient rehab program three days a week for an addiction I don’t have.

Now, I have complete strangers from ACS coming into my home and telling me what to do as a parent.

Unless I am able to win my case in Family Court and get my record sealed at a later hearing, I will be blacklisted for alleged child neglect — and unable to get any job near children until my twins turn 28.

Even as the state appears to be moving toward full marijuana legalization, most of the other parents in my rehab program are women and men of color who were sent there by ACS due to marijuana use.

People call mass incarceration the New Jim Crow. As a black woman, I am living the New Jane Crow.

Before ACS got involved, the father of all three of my children and I were doing well and planning to get married. Then, ACS scared him away, accusing him of neglecting our children by smoking marijuana while our daughter was home.

Now he is out of contact. He was my support and they ruined that.

Whatever you believe about cannabis consumption while pregnant, you should know that middle-class white mothers join in Facebook groups crowing about the benefits of marijuana, and they never seem to be investigated by ACS.

I am the face of another reality. While we fight to legalize this drug, we have lots of urgent work to do to unravel the many pernicious consequences of prohibition at the local level. That includes punishing parents simply for marijuana use.

Kennedy lives in Brooklyn.

Jill Stein comes to New York to get money

 [from the www.hempforvictory.blogspot.com site which my friend Gibson runs in support of industrial hemp. After he wrote this he tells me the former Green Party presidential 2008 candidate, Cynthia McKinney, emailed him to say that Jill Stein is NOT Green. Black people are not fooled!]


Jill Stein came to New York today and made more money for her recount project. Which is very good news for companies like Exxon Mobile, Lockheed Martin, etc. She has already $8,500,000 in such firms, so she is a loyal investor. Many in the GOP no doubt approve.

And since she raised over $6,000,000 for the recount of the votes this November in the US, she is going to have a lot more. Which some people think was going to be spent on the recount. In fact that was the premise of her solicitation.

But that is not where the money went. She could have had a recount in Pennsylvania, but she did not want to pay the state fee of $1,000,000 to pay for their workers. Maybe she expected them to do it for free. And keep the money she raised. Play us for suckers.

Arriving in New York at 10am, she headed for the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, across from which she made her speech. The press was there in great force, but only to listen to her. When I showed them the information about her, they rudely ignored it. They know she has lots of money and makes an easy story just showing up to ask for more money.

Most of the passersby knew that too. While the press was rude, the crowd reached out to me, and when I told them the facts about Stein were easy to check - and FREE - they wanted to know why the journalists were acting like petulant brats. Lots of disgust from both Democrats and Republicans on this. I ridiculed them for hours - and told one fool who wanted only an easy scoop that I could face every single American in the face after having done my bit They acted bored and stupid. They did squirm as I pointed them out, and had to endure my honest criticism for their dishonest and sloppy work.

CNN was especially rude, and this after assaulting me on 9 November when I asked them why they were only reporting one side to the story. I had to threaten them with arrest. CNN treats American with contempt by not telling the whole story, ignoring issues like hemp, Clinton's sexual abuse of Cathy O'Brien, etc.

Other outlets are also full of stupid lazy hacks. Just look at the lack of articles on hemp - compared to the multitude of articles on Kim Kardashian. Or dope. Written by dopes.

So while I am not against a recount, Jill Stein is NOT the person to be trusted with it and lots of money. Who knows what she is really doing with it. And how many fools there are in the Green Party to allow someone with the kind of investment she has to be their candidate.

That said, in case someone wants to accuse me of being some kind of right wing activist, go on this very blog and see how many times I supported Cynthia McKinney when she was the Green  Party presidential candidate. A black woman FYI. The press ignored her since she went after Bush, and did not just allow hypocrisy in the Democrat party.

So there. Let's see what Trump will do with the hemp issue, bear in mind that two top Republicans were mor in support than either Greens or Democrats, I am referring to Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, both Senators from Kentucky - and let's not forget Ron Paul, retired Congressman from Victoria, Texas, the town in which my sister runs Minawear ( www.minawear.com ).
And of course, I was wearing Minawear hemp clothing - Jill Stein was not. Very few in the Greens really support hemp now with her as their candidate, maybe they smoke dope. Must be to be giving her money.

Clinton gets oil fired up

In the Daily News on Friday, 1 April, there is a small article about Clinton. What would be a  large article in any objective paper was pushed to the left hand corner of p. 10, after lengthy negative opinions against Trump dominating the first several pages.
The bit about Clinton comes as no surprise for those of us who search beyond the hype; Leonard Greene writes that a Greenpeace activist named Eva Resnick-Day asked whether the candidate would forego contributions from the fossil fuel industry.
Hell hath no fury like a Naked Emperor-Wanna-Be. Clinton came undone and claimed it was the Sanders people lying about her. Naked as she was, her clothes were beautiful and how dare anyone point out the obivous; Clinton raged and pointed her finger at Resnick-Day, unable to force her usual smile in light of the facts.
My environmentalist friend Ken Gibson tells me that the Clintons kept hemp illegal in NY and were a disaster ecologically. But who cares about facts. Not the Daily News, which has so little real environmental reporting (never a word about the crucial industrial hemp debate) that it too may be 'fired up by the fossil fuel industry."