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https://blackgirlnerds.com/review-when-crack-was-king-a-history-of-a-misunderstood-era/
There are reasons why teachers usually provide their students with firsthand accounts when teaching historical events and issues such as the Holocaust or slavery. When Crack Was King, importantly, follows in that vein, showcasing the material impact of various policies, or lack thereof, as well as the impact of drugs themselves.
Donovan X. Ramsey is a journalist and author on issues of race, politics, and how power manifests itself in America. He’s been an integral voice for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, NewsOne, theGrio, and more.
In 2015, Ramsey decided to take a deep-dive into the crack epidemic: what it was, where it came from, and how it spread. He wanted to understand why one community would be so deeply affected by it, while others were not. His intention was never to write a book, but I’m so glad that he did.
Ramsey takes us on a journey from the development of crack from freebase, its spread across America, policy responses to the crack epidemic, the fear mongering about crack, and how the crack epidemic essentially resolved itself. On one hand, Ramsey’s book is a history lesson; on the other, it’s an account of four people during the epidemic — an addict, two dealers, and a politician.
What I appreciate is the combination of reporting and history, as well as the personal stories of those who survived to tell about it. This is a book that needs to be required reading for college or upper-level high school classes. It is clear and concise, and it has emotional impact.
In the 1970s, there was a sentiment that the Black American could do anything if given the opportunity. Unfortunately, many were not given that opportunity. According to Ramsey, “Unbridled ambition requires a vehicle. Without one, it can torture those who have it, perverting their judgment until ambition meets opportunity and is finally satisfied. It seems that’s what happened for many young Blacks in the late 1970s determined to let ‘nothin’, nothin’’ stand in their way. Cocaine seemed tailor-made for the moment.”
I was a teenager when the “Just Say No” campaign was launched. Police officers came to my school to deliver an anti-drug message and played a video clip with Nancy Reagan. They gave us posters of a K-9 police dog sniffing for drugs and shared their experiences of what they dealt with on the street. They arrived in a car that had DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) on its side. I remember their message being vague and sugar-coated. What was clear was that the majority of us were Black, and we knew that drugs either made your brain fry like that egg in the skillet or die.
From the perspective of white America, Reagan’s message looked much worse — frightening, damaging, and a child-friendly way to justify and perpetuate the “war on drugs” with racially and economically disproportional targets. The “Just Say No” plead fails miserably in comparison to the opioid epidemic today.
Cocaine, or crack after the crackling sound it makes while cooking, spread through urban America in the 1970s, relieving the pain of those who could get it. As with so much in our culture, cocaine was taken both too seriously and not seriously enough. Black America was seen by white America as pathetic and degenerate, while white America refused to take any of the blame onto themselves for decades of systematic racism.
Ramsey seamlessly integrates the history of “the war on drugs” with personal accounts in the narrative. Instead of just reading the facts from a distance, we can experience with heart-wrenching clarity why people used cocaine. The narratives helped this book of over 350 pages become more readable rather than just being a non-fiction attack that would be difficult to digest. The narratives were much needed after such political chapters with Iran-Contra, Nixon, Reagan (War on Drugs), and now Biden.
I also appreciated the way in which Ramsey sympathizes with the plight of those caught up in the crack epidemic while remaining crystal clear about what crack did and how it affected people, families, and communities. He does well at scrutinizing the crack epidemic in terms of the post-industrialization of American urban areas and the heavy-handed response against Black liberation movements of the 1970s. He discusses the belief that crack flooded the cities because of CIA actions; he concludes it was not a deliberate policy but something the government was more than happy to look past even while they demonized and criminalized those who used crack. He provides us with conclusions for each of the four people, and how the next generation avoided crack after seeing what it had done to those who had come before them.
If I had any nitpick with this book it has to do with the four people who were chosen. It should be noted that Ramsey treats all four with the utmost respect. But there are three men and just one woman who happens to be the addict. This is not necessarily a problem, and her story, because of who she becomes, is vitally important. I would have just liked to see another non-addict female voice to balance out the male voices. I do love the fact that Ramsey included a politician; that provides a unique use of the narratives because we are getting different perspectives from all sides of the issue.
The truth is, our criminal justice system continues to fail Black Americans. When Crack Was King is an important read so that we as a society can learn from mistakes to better conquer the current opioid crisis and actually make a difference. The last chapter gives uplifting statistics regarding crime, but there is still much work to be done.
I give the book a 5/5 stars and recommend it to anyone interested in the politics of addiction and crime, as well as the history of how cocaine impacted Black America.
When Crack Was King is available July 11, 2023, on Amazon.
There are reasons why teachers usually provide their students with firsthand accounts when teaching historical events and issues such as the Holocaust or slavery. When Crack Was King, importantly, follows in that vein, showcasing the material impact of various policies, or lack thereof, as well as the impact of drugs themselves.
Donovan X. Ramsey is a journalist and author on issues of race, politics, and how power manifests itself in America. He’s been an integral voice for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, NewsOne, theGrio, and more.
In 2015, Ramsey decided to take a deep-dive into the crack epidemic: what it was, where it came from, and how it spread. He wanted to understand why one community would be so deeply affected by it, while others were not. His intention was never to write a book, but I’m so glad that he did.
Ramsey takes us on a journey from the development of crack from freebase, its spread across America, policy responses to the crack epidemic, the fear mongering about crack, and how the crack epidemic essentially resolved itself. On one hand, Ramsey’s book is a history lesson; on the other, it’s an account of four people during the epidemic — an addict, two dealers, and a politician.
What I appreciate is the combination of reporting and history, as well as the personal stories of those who survived to tell about it. This is a book that needs to be required reading for college or upper-level high school classes. It is clear and concise, and it has emotional impact.
In the 1970s, there was a sentiment that the Black American could do anything if given the opportunity. Unfortunately, many were not given that opportunity. According to Ramsey, “Unbridled ambition requires a vehicle. Without one, it can torture those who have it, perverting their judgment until ambition meets opportunity and is finally satisfied. It seems that’s what happened for many young Blacks in the late 1970s determined to let ‘nothin’, nothin’’ stand in their way. Cocaine seemed tailor-made for the moment.”
I was a teenager when the “Just Say No” campaign was launched. Police officers came to my school to deliver an anti-drug message and played a video clip with Nancy Reagan. They gave us posters of a K-9 police dog sniffing for drugs and shared their experiences of what they dealt with on the street. They arrived in a car that had DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) on its side. I remember their message being vague and sugar-coated. What was clear was that the majority of us were Black, and we knew that drugs either made your brain fry like that egg in the skillet or die.
From the perspective of white America, Reagan’s message looked much worse — frightening, damaging, and a child-friendly way to justify and perpetuate the “war on drugs” with racially and economically disproportional targets. The “Just Say No” plead fails miserably in comparison to the opioid epidemic today.
Cocaine, or crack after the crackling sound it makes while cooking, spread through urban America in the 1970s, relieving the pain of those who could get it. As with so much in our culture, cocaine was taken both too seriously and not seriously enough. Black America was seen by white America as pathetic and degenerate, while white America refused to take any of the blame onto themselves for decades of systematic racism.
Ramsey seamlessly integrates the history of “the war on drugs” with personal accounts in the narrative. Instead of just reading the facts from a distance, we can experience with heart-wrenching clarity why people used cocaine. The narratives helped this book of over 350 pages become more readable rather than just being a non-fiction attack that would be difficult to digest. The narratives were much needed after such political chapters with Iran-Contra, Nixon, Reagan (War on Drugs), and now Biden.
I also appreciated the way in which Ramsey sympathizes with the plight of those caught up in the crack epidemic while remaining crystal clear about what crack did and how it affected people, families, and communities. He does well at scrutinizing the crack epidemic in terms of the post-industrialization of American urban areas and the heavy-handed response against Black liberation movements of the 1970s. He discusses the belief that crack flooded the cities because of CIA actions; he concludes it was not a deliberate policy but something the government was more than happy to look past even while they demonized and criminalized those who used crack. He provides us with conclusions for each of the four people, and how the next generation avoided crack after seeing what it had done to those who had come before them.
If I had any nitpick with this book it has to do with the four people who were chosen. It should be noted that Ramsey treats all four with the utmost respect. But there are three men and just one woman who happens to be the addict. This is not necessarily a problem, and her story, because of who she becomes, is vitally important. I would have just liked to see another non-addict female voice to balance out the male voices. I do love the fact that Ramsey included a politician; that provides a unique use of the narratives because we are getting different perspectives from all sides of the issue.
The truth is, our criminal justice system continues to fail Black Americans. When Crack Was King is an important read so that we as a society can learn from mistakes to better conquer the current opioid crisis and actually make a difference. The last chapter gives uplifting statistics regarding crime, but there is still much work to be done.
I give the book a 5/5 stars and recommend it to anyone interested in the politics of addiction and crime, as well as the history of how cocaine impacted Black America.
When Crack Was King is available July 11, 2023, on Amazon.
In a decision that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson calls “unmoored from critical real-life circumstances,” the United States Supreme Court has ruled that race can no longer be considered as a factor in university admissions. It overturns admissions plans at Harvard and the University of North Carolina (UNC), the nation’s oldest private and public colleges, respectively.
This decision, similar to last year’s abortion ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, marks the realization of a long conservative goal, this time finding that race-conscious admissions plans violate the Constitution and another law that applies to colleges that receive federal funding, as most of them do. These schools will be forced to revamp their admissions practices, especially top schools that are more likely to consider the race of applicants.
What this means is that prospective students can discuss their race on the application, as part of their identity, experience, or personal journey, but it will no longer be considered as an actual factor for admission. This is confusing when you think about the actual process for admission.
I believe those who have always argued against affirmative action, as well as those making decisions about it, don’t really understand what it is. It’s not as if you begin with race and then form a separate branch where a student can then get in. A student is otherwise qualified and considered for a position in the school and has met all the required criteria. Then there are also other considerations such as being a veteran, or a legacy student, or an athlete, or playing an instrument, among other things.
The ruling is devastating, and yet, not surprising that this is what Republicans have wanted for a very long time. Instead of growth and change, we as a nation are unsurprisingly stuck with more of the same. The student population of elite campuses will become whiter, while Black and Brown students will diminish.
According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the numbers tell an interesting story. At Harvard University, 34 percent of students are white; 43 percent of those students are either legacies, children of faculty members, kin of donors, or a recruited athlete. In order words, many of them would not have gotten in if not for special status. So, what are we really talking about?
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy created the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. A Black lawyer by the name of Hobart Taylor Jr. wrote the words “affirmative action” in the margin of a draft of Kennedy’s executive order. Initially, affirmative action encouraged employers to hire marginalized people. Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon both passed executive orders to end race discrimination in hiring.
Soon after these executive orders were set within the workplace, colleges voluntarily adopted similar policies to combat racial discrimination. In 1969, many elite universities admitted more than twice as many Black students as they had the year before. This change was directly linked to the civil rights movement.
Justice Clarence Thomas’ accused Justice Brown Jackson of having a “race-infused world view.” The truth is, Thomas is ignoring the facts, as usual.
Thomas is the longest-serving justice on the Supreme Court and strictly conservative. More than thirty years ago, he made his opposition of affirmative action known. It’s interesting that he’s such a critic of it, knowing that he benefited from it himself. For so long, Justice Thomas has been the only Black voice we’ve had on the Supreme Court that has been able to bring issues such as affirmative action, the 14th Amendment, and our constitutional rights as Black people in this country to the forefront. Well, it hasn’t been good. To be honest, he hasn’t been good since 1991.
Now, we have Justice Jackson who has brought competing views to the table, especially regarding the 14th Amendment. She has the ability to speak both about the history as well as the contemporary reality of race in this country. The majority of the Supreme Court, including Justice Thomas, plant themselves in these ideals of what they hope this country will one day be. What they have failed to do is actually see the work that has already been done or honor the fact that opportunity is supposed to be for all.
President Barack Obama said in a statement that affirmative action “allowed generations of students like Michelle and me to prove we belonged. Now it’s up to all of us to give young people the opportunities they deserve — and help students everywhere benefit from new perspectives.”
Affirmative action is essential so that students can understand what it means to be with other students who have different experiences, who are also qualified to make it in the same school, what’s different in the admissions process depending on skin color, and how much they have to learn that is not rolled into an SAT score.
In the attempt to create healthy diversity and equity on college campuses, this is not the first time a setback has happened. California banned affirmative action in 1996. University of California (UC) leaders said that decades of outreach programs to low-income students and revised admissions policies just couldn’t be sustained. California’s Proposition 209 was the nation’s first initiative to ban consideration of race and gender in public education, and it drastically reduced diversity at UC’s most competitive campuses. By 1998, the number of Black and Latino first-year students drastically declined by nearly half at both University of California Los Angeles and University of California Berkeley.
Affirmative action has always been a complicated policy for many situations because of the prejudices on which America has been built, as well as the effects it have on students of color in the college application process. Due to foundational racism and discriminatory laws targeting people of color in the past, many minority families have only recently been given the chance to send their kids to college. Affirmative action has offered these families a higher chance of being able to send their children to get the education they were deprived of.
The truth is, nothing can fully substitute for affirmative action policies that allow universities to have a diverse student body. If we, as a country, are going to start making needed changes that will allow students to not have to find loopholes in their admission applications to get into select colleges, we need to have honest conversations about our broken educational system and the people we aren’t seeing in the spaces around us.
After years of speculating, in 2022, Marvel Studios confirmed that Deadpool would officially join the MCU for a third installment of the R-rated comic book franchise at the start of Phase Six. This would mark the first official character of the Fox X-Men universe joining the MCU (although Patrick Stewart as a variant Professor X in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness kinda counts too, we suppose).
In addition, another one of Fox’s Marvel characters is joining in for the fun. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Jennifer Garner will reportedly return as Elektra in Deadpool 3. Garner first played Elektra in 2003, almost ten years ago, in the Ben Affleck-starring movie Daredevil, as well as in her own spinoff movie, 2005’s Elektra.
It’s also possible Affleck’s Daredevil will make an appearance in the MCU world. Of course, Netflix’s Daredevil played by Charlie Cox has already crossed over to the MCU and will even have his own Disney+ TV series. But the multiverse means the fun never ends, and anyone could show up in Deadpool 3. Either way, we can’t wait to see Jennifer Garner back in Marvel action as Elektra.
But what else should we expect from the “Merc with the Mouth’s” first MCU entry? Here is everything we know so far about Deadpool 3.
Title
Right now, everyone is calling the film Deadpool 3. However, for superpowered mercenary Wade Wilson’s first entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, at least the first official entry, we think they may choose to give it a more creative title.
A recent bout of friendly banter between Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman teases the possibility of the title being Wolverine and Deadpool.
Also “Wolverine and Deadpool”, bub?
— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) January 4, 2023
Jackman’s slip of the tongue seems casual, but Reynolds specifically alludes to it in his response. Only time will tell if this exchange means anything at all. We’re pretty sure that Deadpool would like the order reversed, one way or the other.
Deadpool 3‘s Plot
The plot of Deadpool 3 remains a mystery. All we know is that Hugh Jackman is returning as Wolverine, and that it takes place before the feral X-Man’s death in Logan. In fact, Jackman has confirmed that time travel will be involved in the threequel in a big way. One rumor suggests that Loki’s Time Variance Authority, or TVA, will have some involvement. But that remains unconfirmed. (We hope it’s true though).
As most folks know by now, Deadpool’s third solo film will reunite him with his X-Men Origins: Wolverine co-star. Deadpool and Wolverine will work together, although they have made it very clear that these two characters “hate each other.” It will not be a love-fest in this story. But the fact that Deadpool 3 is smack in the middle of the Multiverse Saga should give us all a clue as to what’s going to go down, and probable multiversal shenanigans will ensue.
One team everyone would love to see return in Deadpool 3 is the X-Force. Of course, most of the X-Force didn’t meet happy ends in Deadpool 2. But Deadpool has now moved to the MCU, and hints of multiversal shenanigans are already in the air. And that means anything is possible. In fact, Ryan Reynolds himself raised the question of the X-Force in a recent tweet.
The now-edited version of the tweet is above, but the original read, “X-Force will live forever!” This could just be an excited pronouncement. Or it could it be a red herring. But it could also be a tease of the X-Force in Deadpool 3. Only Reynolds knows for sure.
Deadpool 3‘s Cast
We know Hugh Jackman will return, along with the very obvious Ryan Reynolds. Here’s who else we know about: Karan Soni, cab driver Dopinder, Leslie Uggams, Emma Corrin, and Matthew Macfadyen. Conversely, Zazie Beetz, who played Domino in Deadpool 2, recently confirmed that she would not reprise her role in the third movie.
In exciting news, Morena Baccarin and Stefan Kapicic are reprising their roles as Vanessa and Colossus in Deadpool 3. The family is truly coming together once again. Additionally, Deadline reports that Rob Delaney’s Peter, the human member of the X-Force team, will return in Deadpool 3, as will Brianna Hildebrand (Negasonic Teenage Warhead) and Shioli Kutsuna (Yukio). Jennifer Garner’s Elektra from the 2003 Daredevil Marvel Fox movie is also reported to reprise her role in this MCU film.
Behind the Scenes
Deadpool 3‘s director for this third outing will be Shawn Levy, most recently known for his work on Stranger Things. This would be a reunion for Levy and Reynolds, as the pair previously worked together on the movie Free Guy. Levy is also known for the time travel movie The Adam Project.
On the writing side of things are Wendy Molyneux and Lizzie Molyneux-Logelin, writers for the popular animated series Bob’s Burgers. The writers for the first two Deadpool films, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, are also contributing to the third film’s screenplay, as is Ryan Reynolds himself.
Deadpool 3 Release Date
Deadpool 3 will arrive on May 3, 2024.
Originally published on January 4, 2023.
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