Chasing the Scream: Sunshine and Weaklings

1. "Second, by driving up the cost of drugs by more than a thousand percent, the new policies meant addicts were forced to commit crime to get their next fix" (pg. 37).
• I chose this quote because I was fascinated by the cycle of how drug addiction works and the role  drug lords played in keeping the sequence ongoing. I especially found it enthralling that as the the cost of the drugs went up, that was when addicts configured ways which usually involved crime to get their hands on specific drug they were addicted to.
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2. "Some 22 percent of addicts were wealthy, while only 6 percent poor" (pg. 36)
• I selected this quote because it was a statistic I was quite familiar with. Most of us tend to believe that drug use is mostly predominant in poor and underrepresented communities, however, as this quote will show, most drug use and interdependently drug addiction is most prevalent in wealthier individuals and wealthier communities. 
3. "Drug prohibition put the entire narcotics industry into their hands. Once the clinics were closed, every single addict became a potential customer and cash cow" (pg. 40). 
• I chose this quote because I felt that it was interesting to see how the drug dealers perpetuated the war on drugs to basically keep money in their pockets. I also find it sad that though Harry Anslinger had his own motives when it came to the war on drugs, he indirectly became a puppet or rather THE puppet to further push the agenda on the war on drugs that were set up by the very people he claimed to despise which were drug dealers.
4.  "The United States government, as represented by its [anti-drug] officers, Henry explained, had just become 'the greatest and most potent maker of criminals in any recent century' (pg. 37).
• I chose this quote because I reckoned it was interesting to see Henry Smith Williams take on the role of the United States government on the war of drugs and the creation of criminals as a result. Due to the harsh policies that were set in place to prolong the war on drugs, it drove individuals who were addicted and dependent on those drugs to resort to criminal activities to obtain said drugs. 
  

Chasing The Scream: The Black Hand

1. "Before, black women had -with very few exceptions- been allowed on stage only as beaming caricatures, stripped of all real feeling. But now. here she was Lady Day, a black woman expressing grief and fury at the mass murder of her brothers in the South--their battered bodies hanging from the trees." (pg. 10).
• I chose this quote because it truly showcased the resilience of Billie Holiday as an artist and as a black woman. Her song "Strange Fruit" brought to light the brutal and essentially diabolical lynchings of blacks in the South. She did this in a time when the pain and perils of blacks were silenced particularly in political matters that involved the death of blacks caused by whites.



2. "Ban the sale of alcohol for medical purposes. Massively increase prison sentences for alcohol dealers until they were all locked up. Wage war on booze until it was only a memory" (pg. 14).
• I chose this quote because it reminded me of the current outlook and policies set in place in regards to the regulation of marijuana and its relation to the mass incarceration of minorities in this country.

3. "Why? He believed the two most-feared groups in the United States --Mexican immigrants and African Americans-- were taking the drug much more than white people and he presented the House Committee on Appropriattions with a nightmarish vision of where this could lead" (pg. 15).
• I chose this quote because it gave an insight into the mindset of Harry Anslinger. It will further explain why his targets on his war on drugs were specifically people of color, especially African-Americans. I also found it ironic that he truly believed African-Americans and Mexicans were takings drugs much more than white people, when for instance, Billie Holiday's first introduction to heroine was through a white man. This is still evident today, white people tend to do drugs (hard drugs at that) a lot more than any other racial demographic yet minorities are often reprimanded for engaging in drug use or selling these said drugs. This further proves the notion that when it comes to drug use - in this case illegal drug use, white people commit the crime whilst black people do the time. In the rare case that white people are convicted of the crimes they commit they are quite frequently given a slight slap in the back of their hands, in this case it is either rehab or community service, while black convict are penalized for minor drug charges with hefty sentences.

4. "Cocaine was, it was widely claimed in the press at this time, turning blacks into superhuman hulks who could take bullets to the heart to the heart without flinching. It was the official reason why police across the South increased the caliber of their guns" (pg.  27).
• I chose this quote because I found the last sentence to be quite alarm and I could not help but to be deeply saddened when I came across it. The fact that a black man's near death experience of being shot straight in the heart, was threatening and unsatisfactory enough to cause entire police forces to change the caliber of their guns to ENSURE that black man do not, under any circumstances whatsoever, escape death was certainly eye opening.

5. "They fingerprinted Billie on her hospital bed. They took a mug shot of her on her hospital bed. They grilled her on her hospital bed without letting her talk to a lawyer" (pg. 31).
• I selected this quote because it was flabbergasting to see the difference in how Billie Holiday was treated in regards to her addiction in comparison to Judy Garland, another heroine addict who was a white woman. Anslinger was said to have a "friendly chat" with Judy Garland  about her drug addiction and offered to give her advice on how to go about overcoming it.

A River of Anger

1. "The big nostrils, flat nose, massive jaw, protruding lip and kinky hair will register their animal marks over the proudest intellect and the rarest beauty of any other race. The rule that has no exception was that one drop of Negro blood makes a negro" (pg. 255).

•  I chose this quote because it was appalling to me that the most distinct features of African Americans that physically sets them (us) apart from other races was viewed in such a negative manner. The fact that white people of this time felt as if one drop of "blackness" will somehow taint their whiteness. Therefore mixed raced children, including those who were white-passing, were categorized as black and were considered to be indefinitely inferior to whites due to their one drop of negro blood. This quote reminded me of the infamous quote (shown below) by African-American poet, novelist and activist Langston Hughes about the power of the negro blood. 
  

1. "From that claimed evidence, Dr. E.C. Ferguson extrapolated that the 'negro is monkey-like; has no sympathy for his fellow-man; has no regard for the truth, and when the truth would answer his purpose the best, he will lie. He is without gratitude or appreciation of anything done for him; is a natural born thief, - will steal anything no matter how worthless. He has no morals...His progeny are not provided for at home and are allowed to roam at large without restraint, and seek subsistence as best they can, growing up like any animal" (pg. 257).

• I chose this quote because as soon as I finished reading it, I could help but grimace and convey my discontent with this outlook. It saddens me, that African-Americans were viewed as barbaric and bestial individuals incapable of sentiment or intuition and were consequently and rather unfortunately treated as such. 

1. The new science of anthropology embraced the notion that quantifiable characteristics of whites, blacks and Indians--such as brain size-- demonstrated the clear physical and intellectual superiority of white" (pg. 257)

• I chose this quote because it reminded me of German comparative anatomist Blumenbach's scientific explanation of race. He proposed that white people had larger frontal lobes in comparison to blacks, which automatically indicated that whites were indeed more intelligent than blacks thereby indicating and affirming their status as the superior race. 

A Summer of Trials, 1903

1.      "… I have also been again and again informed by these persons that this peonage system is more cruel and inhuman than the slavery of antebellum days, since then the master conserved the life and health of the slave for business reasons just as he did that of his horse and mule, but now the master treated the slave unmercifully and with the sole object of getting the greatest possible amount of labor out of him. Moreover a peon costs but a few dollars while a slave used to cost several hundred” (pg. 235).

• This quote stated by Department of Justice investigator Stanley W. Finch gives a general perspicacity of the treatment of blacks who were enslaved under the peonage system. I chose this quote because it highlights the disparities of how slaves under peonage were treated no better, and in most cases worse than animals, especially given the fact that peons...

1. "The Advertiser, like most local whites, remained certain that Pace would never actually be imprisoned, regardless of whether the guilty pleas were affirmed by the court of appeals. “He is in an almost helpless physical condition. He suffers from a bone disease which has affected his feet, and he walks with great effort. It is said that he will be able to produce a surgeon’s certificate showing he is in a terrible physical condition” (pg. 237).

• I selected this quote because it prompted me to think about the media's propensity in recent times to conjecture a white criminal as "mentally unstable" in cases where a crime or an injustice has been committed against people of color. However, if a black defendant is charged with a crime, they are often demonized and ridiculed in the media, often referred to as "thugs". For instance, Dylann Roof (photographed on the left below) is an 18 year old White male charged with the murder of 13 African-Americans. During his initial arrest, terms such as "misunderstood teenager"and "mentally unstable teenager" with a "troubled past" were used to describe him. Whereas in the case of Michael Brown (photographed on the right), was an 18 year old African American male accused of theft was shot 6 times and killed by police, in contrast to Dylann Roof, Mike Brown was often referred to as "no angel" and a "thug" repeatedly by the media thus disclosing the media's blatant partisanship in the portrayal of white criminals vs. black criminals.

1. “In 1883, the U.S Supreme Court declared even those laws unconstitutional, ruling that the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments—approved in 1868 to abolish slavery and establish black citizenship—didn’t authorize Congress to pass such enforcement laws. Following the growing national sentiment that race matters be left alone, Congress did nothing to fill the vacuum—leaving a constitutional limbo in which slavery as a legal concept was prohibited by the Constitution, but no statute made an act of enslavement explicitly illegal” (pg. 244)

• I chose this quote because it clearly explains the loopholes of the 13th and 14th Amendment which made convict leasing and forced labor as another form of slavery legal. Fundamentally, even though slavery was abolished legally and blacks could institute their rights as citizens, the loophole which was created by Congress' lack of action made it possible for blacks who were convicted of trivial crimes to be enslaved under convict leasing. A good documentary that explains the loophole of the 13th Amendment in great detail is 13th directed by Ava Duvernay and available on Netflix!

1. “No acknowledgement was made that in a local court, the prosecutor would be a white man elected in all-white elections, the jury guaranteed to be all-white, the judges likely involved in the slaving conspiracy, the buyers of men almost certainly prominent local figures, black attorneys barred from appearing and black witnesses treated as unreliable by nature” (pg. 247)

• I selected this quote because I thought it was significant to comprehend how trials in the South, especially those involving, blacks were conducted. Essentially, all the individuals responsible for the outcome of these were white people or white men to say the least. To my understanding a jury is supposed to reflect the "peers" of the individual being convicted particularly in race, national origin and gender. Can you see where the problem of having an all-white jury in the trial against a black convict/peon lies? Likewise, the judges who are in charge of these cases are most likely involved in the peonage system ergo causing them to be biased in their verdict which is often in favor of white slave/convict leasing owners. 

1. “God forbid that the time will ever come in this country when you are helpless and distressed and have been the victim of oppression when you will be denied that protection of the law to which you appeal and to which every law-abiding human being is entitled among all civilized people…” (pg. 249).

• I chose this quote because it was self explanatory and I reckoned it was an interesting concept to contemplate, the idea of white people being the oppressed and being denied their basic human rights and rights as citizens solely based on the color of their skin. 

The Civil War: It Didn't Happened as I learned in High School

Prior to this course, I had very finite knowledge about the Civil War and the causes that led to it. As an immigrant, I came into this country incognizant about much of American history and in this case the civil war. Alas, going to a predominately white middle and high school was futile in my apprehension of black history and its origins. Certainly, through various history classes I took, I was acquainted with basis of the Civil War such as the date it commenced and ended, those who were entailed in it and the elementary cause of the war. Through the research and scholarship presented about the war through this class and the videos assigned, I have a better apprehension of the numerous causes that lead to the Civil War.

I learned that of the many reasons that ignited the Civil, the four principal causes were Slavery, The Constitution, The Abolitionist Movement. Although the issue of states' rights, the existence of slavery, ineffectual leadership, and each region's perceptions of the other's intentions contributed to the war, none of these issues were a main cause of this historic event. The expansion of slavery and sectionalism were one of the primary causes of the Civil War because it created strain between the North and the South, likewise the industrial and sectional differences between the two areas also contributed to cause of the war. Another important component to what lead to the Civil War was the 3/5 compromise which stated that the population of slaves would be counted as three-fifths in total when apportioning Representatives, as well as Presidential electors and taxes. Moreover, the Abolitionist Movement also caused tension between the North and the South to escalate, Abolitionists in the North opposed the practice of slavery and condemned the lifestyle of those in the South, their dependency on the labor force and maltreatment of African slaves. Lastly, the Republican Party and the nomination of Abraham Lincoln as the 16^th president of the United States caused a rift between the states and eventually led to the succession of slave states such as South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Florida and Georgia to form what was known as the Confederate States of America. 

Love Still Lives Here: The Fight Still Continues

While scrolling through the variety of poster options to write for this blog,  I was visually attracted to the vibrant colors of this superhero’s costume. Likewise, the aesthetic and placement of the well-known quote by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. evoked an immediate admiration for the poster. I recognized the designer's ingenious placing "darkness cannot drive out darkness" in the black portion of the poster and their decision to make the portion that alludes love project in brighter colors.

This poster and female superhero portrays the phrase “the struggle still continues” in a sense that although there has been a considerable number of steps taken to ensure the progression of racial relations since Dr. King uttered those words on this poster, there is still more work to be done. In retrospect, America as a nation has a long way to go in regards to inclusiveness and viewing every individual irrespective of their skin color, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, as equal.

With the recent election and inauguration of President Trump, it is no secret that there has been an increase in racial tension in this country. Many African-Americans alongside other minority groups and people of color have raised concerns and disapprobation with the policies and moral views that Trump and his administration represents.

I chose to write about this poster because I gathered the quote it included was imperative given the recent frenzy and unrest of many groups of people across the nation following the election of President Trump. Of the heap of startling things that have left this post-election commotion, what is especially discouraging is the grave sense that for many young people especially black ones such as myself, the determination to dream will be destroyed because of this idea that the marginalized have been, and always will be underestimated. I reckoned it was important to remind everyone particularly during Black History Month that counteracting hate speech with hate speech does not, and will never resolve the issue at hand. It is important instead to educate people on the importance of being united in solidarity to fight with and for those who are marginalized and unable to do so themselves. One thing I can confidently say is that we - the marginalized - despite historically living in a repressive sphere have a past of survival and feat. In knowing this, I encourage those living in consternation, to dream and fight relentlessly, and to continue to promote and practice peaceful activism in all forms to a greater degree now than ever before. For the power is and always will be in the hands of the people. Lastly, to quote American political activist Yuri Kochiyama "Remember that consciousness is power, Tomorrow's world is yours to build."