1AC

Marijuana legalization is coming now but for colorblind economic reasons and will re-entrench institutional racism—now is key to hijack legalization for the right reasonsAlexander 14~03/10/14, Michelle Alexander, is an associate professor of law at Ohio State University, a civil rights advocate and a writer Interviewed by Phillip Smith, ""The New Jim Crow" Author Michelle Alexander Talks Race and Drug War",http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2014/mar/10/new_jim_crow_michelle_alexander_tal~~

Michelle Alexander: The landscape absolutely has changed in profound ways. When writing this AND. Enormous harm had been done; we have to repair those communities.

Drug war mass incarceration represents the predominant mode of racist social control—prison expansion maintain racial hierarchies and prevent black self determinationAlexander 6~2006, Michelle Alexander is an Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Civil Rights Clinic at Stanford Law School, "Federalism, Race, and Criminal Justice", Chapter 16 in "Awakening from the Dream Civil Rights Under Siege and the New Struggle for Equal justice", pp. 219-228~

Most Americans today can look back and see slavery and Jim Crow laws for what ANDunimaginable just twenty years ago. And this system is built to last.

Mass incarceration is the cardinal scourge of black masses debilitates resistance movements—we must use every tactic to challenge it including legal reformWilliams 68 ~March 1968, Robert F. Williams was a civil rights leader and author, best known for serving as president of the Monroe, North Carolina chapter of the NAACP in the 1950s and early 1960s. Black Panther Party founder Huey Newton cited Williams’s Negroes with Guns as a major inspiration. "Reaction Without Positive Change", The Crusader, Volume 9, Number 4,http://freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC513_scans/Robert_F_Williams/513.RobertFWilliams.Crusader.March.1968.pdf~~

Next to naked violence and unmitigated terror, racist America’s bigoted court system is the ANDit must be supplemented by actions, sometimes less dramatic, less decisive.

This outweighs—institutional structures of domination create everyday holocausts—you should reject singular focused impacts in favor of working against the ongoing extinctions of people of colorOmolade 89~1989, Barbara Omolade is a historian of black women for the past twenty years and an organizer in both the women’s and civil rights/black power movements, "We Speak for the Planet" in "Rocking the ship of state : toward a feminist peace politics", pp. 172-176~

Recent efforts by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan to limit nuclear testingANDis a threat to world peace as pervasive and thorough as nuclear war.

The world has already ended for people of color—a death culture focused on extinction masks the oppression and exploitation of white supremacyOMOLADE 84 City College Center for Worker Education in New York City Barbara-a historian of black women for the past twenty years and an organizer in both the women’s and civil rights/black power movements; Women of Color and the Nuclear Holocaust; WOMEN’S STUDIES QUARTERLY, Vol. 12., No. 2, Teaching about Peace, War, and Women in the Military, Summer, p. 12;http://www.jstor.org/stable/4004305

In April, 1979, the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency ANDcultural integrity, and nuclear arsenals and housing?  Who will stand up?

Marijuana criminalization has a uniquely debilitating effect by introducing people of color into the cycle of recidivism—targeting it for reform doesn’t tradeoffJarecki 14~08/02/14, Eugene Jarecki is a New York-based writer and film-maker. His Grierson, Emmy and Sundance-winning works include Why We Fight, The Trials of Henry Kissinger and The House I Live In, "As the marijuana economy takes off, let’s not forget the casualties of the US war on drugs",http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/03/marijuana-economy-casualties-us-war-on-drugs-eugene-jarecki~~

Throughout America’s history, official and unofficial systems of racial oppression have arisen, been AND

it retroactive, would dramatically reduce prisoner numbers while profoundly stemming the tide. 

Vote affirmative to endorse the 1AC as a tactic for mass mobilization to legalize marijuana in opposition to racial oppression and the use of incarceration to maintain a racial caste system.There needs to be a change to how we debate policy—actions to reform and change institutional racism have historically failed to disrupt the fundamental equilibrium of the racial order—actions by radicals have ignored that it’s a flawed consensus and not just a flawed policy that lies at the heart of this system of control—in order to change this a mass movement must emerge, and the question of the debate should be how we achieve that consensus, as opposed to what reforms we ultimately utilize—marijuana should be legalized, but as an act of movement buildingAlexander 10, Associate Professor of Law~2010, Michelle Alexander, is an associate professor of law at Ohio State University, a civil rights advocate and a writer. "New Jim Crow : Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" ProQuest ebrary, pp. 221-224~

The list could go on, of course, but the point has been madeANDWe run the risk of winning isolated battles but losing the larger war.

The 1ac combines radical critique and reform, holding them in productive tension to remake common understandings surrounding incarceration – this creates medium-term steps towards complete abolitionSudbury 8, Professor of Ethnic Studies~2008, Julia Sudbury is Metz Professor of Ethnic Studies at Mills College. She is a leading activist scholar in the prison abolitionist movement. She was a co-founder of Critical Resistance, a national abolitionist organization. "Rethinking Global Justice: Black Women Resist the Transnational Prison-Industrial Complex", Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society, Volume 10, Issue 4~

Chronic overcrowding has led to worsening conditions for prisoners. As a result of the ANDwork is rooted in the radical praxis of Black women and transgender activists.

Using the specific reform of marijuana legalization as a focal point is keyTate 2014, Professor of Political Science at UC Irvine (Katherine, Something’s in the Air: Race, Crime, and the Legalization of Marijuana, pg. 9)

For increasing numbers of Americans, legalization of personal- use marijuana is the only ANDis the only path to reversing the dismal trends minorities face in America.