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.