Ain’t No Stopping Us Now

“Ain’t No Stopping Us Now,” which came out in 1979, was considered a Black national anthem in disco form. The song is an assertion of Black optimism about ending racist oppression–though it came out several years after the US government launched the so-called War on Drugs which criminalized drug addiction & eventually led to the incarceration of tens of thousands of Black & Latino youth for drug use–many for life without the possibility of parole for smoking a joint.

It was an extremely successful bait & switch operation by attributing drug dealing to Black youth “narcoterrorist” gangs & taking heat off international bank money laundering & CIA & government officials up to their eyeballs in trafficking. It was a political campaign that effectively reversed many consequential gains of the civil rights movement.

Civil rights for Blacks, Latinos, American Indians & other persecuted nationalities remains one of the most important struggles in the US.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=RDVuAZTWGfQTs&v=VuAZTWGfQTs

I wrote this originally in 1992 for a Harvard student publication & updated it in 2007 for a Black community newspaper. At the time it was published, it was mocked as naive hogwash but it is now accepted as political reality:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/mary-scully/the-war-on-black-youth/267267043287137/?hc_location=ufi