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Why the crack cocaine epidemic hit Black communities 'first and worst'
kwbu ^ | 07/13/2023 | Tonya Mosley

Posted on 07/14/2023 8:08:34 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27

On Sept. 5, 1989, President George H.W. Bush appeared on live television to discuss what he called the nation's "gravest domestic threat." Sitting at his desk in the oval office, Bush held up a bag of crack cocaine that had been seized in a park across from the White House, saying: "It's as innocent looking as candy, but it's turning our cities into battle zones."

Looking back now, author and journalist Donovan X. Ramsey describes Bush's press conference as a form of propaganda designed to create a panic about the crack epidemic and to "demonize drug dealers and also addicts."

"George H.W. Bush really wanted to start his administration with a bang and being tough on crime and was a big part of that," Ramsey says. "His office made a decision that they wanted to give a big address on drugs and they wanted to use crack cocaine as a prop."

(Excerpt) Read more at kwbu.org ...


TOPICS: Conspiracy; Education; History; Local News
KEYWORDS: black; cocaine; communities; epidemic; smallbblack
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Bush 41's fault for crack cocaine? Who knew?
1 posted on 07/14/2023 8:08:34 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
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To: ChicagoConservative27

This again? The first crackpot theory was that the CIA trucked in crack cocaine into black neighborhood to fund counter-insurgency programs around the world.


2 posted on 07/14/2023 8:10:59 AM PDT by NohSpinZone (First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

Targeted by the CIA was one of the early conspiracy theories.


3 posted on 07/14/2023 8:11:17 AM PDT by gundog (It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. )
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To: ChicagoConservative27
Donovan X. Ramsey describes Bush's press conference as a form of propaganda designed to create a panic about the crack epidemic and to "demonize drug dealers"

Terrible. Demonizing drug dealers ? Why they're just as harmless and friendly as your local neighborhood lemonade stand run by 9-year olds.

4 posted on 07/14/2023 8:12:35 AM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (America Owes Anita Bryant An Enormous Apology)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

I’d say the reason the crack epidemic hit the black community first is because the black community is hugely invested in crime. I lived in a nice, middle-class neighborhood. Two of the black families, decent people, had taken in close relatives who had just gotten out of prison. One rapped the underage daughter of his brother. Another was caught robbing the neighbor’s houses as he didn’t have a car and it was a long walk to the next neighborhood.

I worked in a company that made a deal with the city for a “free” building if they hired off the welfare rolls, I realized practically every black there had either been in prison or had relatives currently in prison or they committed crimes and got incarcerated while working at the company. Also, several blacks were murdered by other blacks. This simply didn’t happen to the whites working there. It was an amazing view into black culture. I’d sit in my car and watch them drink malt liquor, smoke pot and crack while on break. The company stopped doing the required random drug tests on account of they were racist. None of the whites tested were caught doing drugs, but practically every black was. Since they’d only be firing blacks, they decided to stop testing. (The whites were often doing drugs too, but not so stupidly.)


5 posted on 07/14/2023 8:21:12 AM PDT by Gen.Blather (Wait! I said that out loud? )
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To: ChicagoConservative27

Because highly populated urban areas are the most efficient places to distribute large amounts of illegal drugs at the retail level. It’s about the money, not race.


6 posted on 07/14/2023 8:29:58 AM PDT by circlecity
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To: NohSpinZone

Doesn’t sound crackpot whatsoever, given these agencies history. I’ve had to rethink quite a few things in recent decades.

Among the very first programs starting in the early 1950s was extensive covert LSD testing on unwitting subjects in prisons, military, and academia. Many of them black. One of the notable examples was 3 inmates dosed on LSD for 77 days, sleep deprivation was part of the test, so when they tried to sleep they were zapped with cattle prods. Many of the CIA “safe houses” were in San Francisco and Watts.

Now keep in mind this “testing” went on for decades, and in retrospect it seems a little too cute by half LSD became the drug of choice for a period of time in the mid 1960s, it was everywhere, and it wasn’t illegal. Whether by intent or not, it had a profound effect on the destabilization of society. I believe it was intentional.

In broad terms, it looks like the black community were and are used as guinea pigs for experiments, and then the programs are mainstreamed into the larger society. Due to compartmentalization it is possible even a Bush would be unaware. Or it could be craven politics.

People forget how bad the Crack epidemic was. It didn’t occur in a vacuum, it was the residents that demanded action, unless you’re trying to argue that people enjoy living in a war zone. They don’t. The problem is young people and the elderly and everyone in between can’t afford to move, and they got no place to go anyway.


7 posted on 07/14/2023 8:32:50 AM PDT by Freedom4US
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To: ChicagoConservative27
--- "Ramsey traces the advent of crack to a group of chemistry students at U.C. Berkeley who devised a recipe for freebasing cocaine using water and baking soda. The resulting substance provided a cheap, smokable way for people to get high quickly."

Better living through chemistry.

But seriously, one observes that Waco Public Radio is PROMOTING a new book. Marketing. Marketing. Marketing.

And a big graphic of the front cover of the book.

As she writes, "In his new book, When Crack Was King: A People's History of A Misunderstood Era...."

And of course, the villainous Bush I and the Reagans feature in Mosley's short article, because....

....Republicans. You know the thing.... Sniff / Cocaine / Sniff / Babies

8 posted on 07/14/2023 8:34:02 AM PDT by Worldtraveler once upon a time (Degrow government)
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To: NohSpinZone

Simple. An extreme cheap high


9 posted on 07/14/2023 8:36:39 AM PDT by gibsonguy
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To: ChicagoConservative27
From the article: "For me, as a Black child growing up in the '80s and '90s, I was treated as though I was a suspect of being a "crack baby," that the ways that teachers treated me and really other Black children in my classes — mainly Black boys — was as though there was something fundamentally wrong with us that we needed to be maybe medicated to be able to be in class, or that any challenge that we presented as students, whether it was talking too much, which was my problem, or if it was not being able to sit still, that that was evidence that something was wrong with us."

I call BS on that!!! As someone who volunteered with black kids in the projects at the time, it was blacks calling each other "crack babies". Yet again it's a situation of loyal Dim voters projecting their own sins onto others. It's as insane as if Stacey Abrams accused Melania of eating too much.

10 posted on 07/14/2023 8:41:47 AM PDT by Tell It Right (1st Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: ChicagoConservative27
Sitting at his desk in the oval office, Bush held up a bag of crack cocaine

Aha, so it wasn't Hunter's cocaine after all!

11 posted on 07/14/2023 8:43:27 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Gen.Blather

“I’d say the reason the crack epidemic hit the black community first is because the black community is hugely invested in crime.”

Interesting post. A lot is said about the problems in slums, especially black ones. Is there a solution?


12 posted on 07/14/2023 8:48:14 AM PDT by cymbeline
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To: NohSpinZone

When you look at the fentanyl scourge, who is affected most, the government cooperation in its import and distribution, it is not difficult for me to imagine sinister forces in DC coordinating this drug.


13 posted on 07/14/2023 8:58:03 AM PDT by hardspunned (Former DC GOP globalist stooge)
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To: cymbeline

“Is there a solution?”

Sure. A massive culture change starting with doing away with permanent welfare and fatherless children. Blacks were doing great until LBJ’s “Great Society.” Their divorce rate was below that of whites. Their incarceration percentage mirrored their percentage of the overall population, about 17%. (It’s usually about 90% today.) When he signed the legislation and with MLK standing behind him LBJ said, “We’ll have these n***ers voting for us for the next hundred years.” So this decline was a Democratic party policy.

If you’re paying women to have babies and not be married that’s what you get.


14 posted on 07/14/2023 8:58:49 AM PDT by Gen.Blather (Wait! I said that out loud? )
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To: cymbeline
Is there a solution?

Over 70% of black babies are born to a single mom. Time to fix that, and that is the solution.

15 posted on 07/14/2023 8:59:55 AM PDT by aimhigh (1 John 3:23 "And THIS is His commandment . . . . ")
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To: ChicagoConservative27

Oh…..

Let’s see…..

Where should I file this information?

Right…..

It goes in the “I Don’t Care Why Just Stop It” file.


16 posted on 07/14/2023 9:04:44 AM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer” )
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To: ChicagoConservative27

Mayor Barry wasn’t any help


17 posted on 07/14/2023 9:09:27 AM PDT by cnsmom
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To: gundog

“They’re animals anyway, so let them lose their souls.”


18 posted on 07/14/2023 9:10:35 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Gen.Blather

The reason the crack epidemic hit black areas is because so many didn’t have to hold a job.

You can smoke pot, or do an occasional line of cocaine, and still show up functional at work the next day. People who had to hold a job had to stay away from heavy drugs.


19 posted on 07/14/2023 9:17:08 AM PDT by SauronOfMordor (The rot of all principle begins with a single compromise.)
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To: aimhigh
Over 70% of black babies are born to a single mom. Time to fix that, and that is the solution.

Why do so many black women become single moms? Because they can.

Welfare allows them to survive without needing a husband. Take away welfare, make it impossible to survive as a single mom, and it will stop.

20 posted on 07/14/2023 9:20:49 AM PDT by SauronOfMordor (The rot of all principle begins with a single compromise.)
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