Speaker 1: On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and fair Weather
Speaker 1: Friends Media. Today's episode addicted to anti Blackness.
Speaker 2: Today, we're stepping into a chapter of American history that's
Speaker 2: both sobering and enlightening. The crack cocaine era.
Speaker 3: They call it crack, a killer drug, wasting innocent lives.
Speaker 2: It's a time that shook communities, and the stories that
Speaker 2: emerge from it reveal a complex web of struggles, truths,
Speaker 2: and the power of narratives to shape our perceptions.
Speaker 1: During the crack cocaine era, the media played a huge
Speaker 1: role in shaping public opinion about addiction. Often, Black people
Speaker 1: struggling with the day were portrayed as sub human super predators,
Speaker 1: determined to destroy anyone in anything they came in contact with.
Speaker 1: It's crucial to understand how storytelling and media, be it films,
Speaker 1: TV shows, or news coverage, influenced the way we saw
Speaker 1: crack users during that tumultuous time.
Speaker 2: Take, for instance, the film Knwjack City. While it's a
Speaker 2: powerful critique of the crack epidemics impact on communities, it
Speaker 2: also painted crack users with a broad brush, often showcasing
Speaker 2: them as violent, uncontrollable criminals. Pooky, played by Chris Rock
Speaker 2: is a crack user who resorts to crime, reinforcing the
Speaker 2: idea that addiction inevitably leads to criminal behavior.
Speaker 1: And knows romping on that glove that's got men.
Speaker 3: Oh, got no control over it now.
Speaker 1: And then there's the infamous Just Say No campaign, spearheaded
Speaker 1: by the Reagan administration and the subsequent local PSAs. These
Speaker 1: initiatives oversimplified addiction as a personal feeling, neglecting the systemic
Speaker 1: issues that contributed to the crack epidemic devastating effects. By
Speaker 1: framing addiction as a purely individual problem, they ignored the
Speaker 1: social and economic factors that were at play.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing. It's not that these stories didn't
Speaker 2: have elements of truth. There were people whose lives spiraled
Speaker 2: into crime due to addiction, and communities did experience heightened
Speaker 2: violence during those years. However, the danger lies in reducing
Speaker 2: an entire group of people to a single narrative, a
Speaker 2: single story. The crack cocaine era was far more complex
Speaker 2: than what these portrayals implied.
Speaker 1: And let's not forget the role of music during this era.
Speaker 1: Hip hop artists used their lyrics to address the crack
Speaker 1: epidemic head on, while Grandmaster flashes White Lines critiques both
Speaker 1: the drug trade and the systemic issues that contributed to
Speaker 1: its proliferation. Other songs like The Dogs Your Mama's on
Speaker 1: Crack Rock ridicules addicted women in particular and their family members.
Speaker 2: And while the crack era was in the nineteen eighties
Speaker 2: and nineteen nineties, its impact and the way we interact
Speaker 2: with it through stories is still very much present today.
Speaker 1: The way we frame stories about addiction still impacts how
Speaker 1: we perceive crack addiction and other forms as well. It's
Speaker 1: a reminder that we must challenge the oversimplified narratives that
Speaker 1: lead to stigma. Addiction is a complex interplay of biology, environment,
Speaker 1: and circumstance, and just like back then, we need stories
Speaker 1: that reflect the full spectrum of experiences, from struggle to
Speaker 1: recovery and everything in between.
Speaker 2: And today we're speaking with an author who is telling
Speaker 2: a more nuanced story of the crack era.
Speaker 1: I'm Katie, I'm Eves, And today we're talking to Donovan
Speaker 1: X Ramsey about his book When Crack Was King.
Speaker 3: I am Donovan x Ramsey. I am a journalist and
Speaker 3: author from Columbus, Ohio. I report on the Black experience
Speaker 3: and patterns of power.
Speaker 2: All right, Donovan, So we had a time reading your book.
Speaker 2: When I first heard about it, I had a vision
Speaker 2: that it would only be about crack users, and then
Speaker 2: of course when I read it, you had those multiple perspectives.
Speaker 2: So why was it important for you to include multiple
Speaker 2: perspectives the addict, the dealer, the mayor, the family member
Speaker 2: instead of just focusing on the addict.
Speaker 3: You know, I really wanted to make an attempt to
Speaker 3: write a comprehensive history. I feel like black stories sometimes
Speaker 3: get not sometimes a lot of times get short shripped,
Speaker 3: and we don't get people's best efforts. So for me,
Speaker 3: because there hadn't been a comprehensive history of the crack
Speaker 3: epidemic written, it seemed like an opportunity to tell the
Speaker 3: story from just more than one perspective. So I wanted
Speaker 3: to make sure to get multiple cities. I wanted to
Speaker 3: tell the story of the pre crack era, what the
Speaker 3: era was actually like, what the world is like now
Speaker 3: as a result of it. But I definitely wanted to
Speaker 3: get different ways that people were impacted by it besides
Speaker 3: just addiction, because all those stories are important to that history.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also that is such a big story to tell. Like,
Speaker 1: it's already a big story to tell to just talk
Speaker 1: about the users, but to talk about the entire context
Speaker 1: around it is an even bigger story to tell. How
Speaker 1: did it feel to you to approach such an expansive topic.
Speaker 3: Well, I am foolishly overconfident. That is one of our
Speaker 3: gifts and you know curses, is that everything seems seems doable,
Speaker 3: at least within journalism. I think, oh, you know, I
Speaker 3: could do that. And I didn't realize until I was
Speaker 3: deep into the reporting and writing process just how much
Speaker 3: I have betten off, you know, like trying to we
Speaker 3: those pieces together and all of those disparate pieces was
Speaker 3: it was really difficult and hopefully uphold it off.
Speaker 2: I feel like every writer is like, oh, shoot, now
Speaker 2: I gotta write.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounded really good in my head, but now
Speaker 1: it's time to put the words on the paper and
Speaker 1: it's like, wait, different ordeals exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But I think that over confidence in storytelling is how
Speaker 2: a lot of the best Black stories, for sure get told.
Speaker 2: Like if you think about like Eyes on the Price
Speaker 2: or Roots, or you know, those those stories that really
Speaker 2: like go deep and take it there. If the if
Speaker 2: the person who would who thought those up knew what
Speaker 2: it would take to bring these stories to the page
Speaker 2: or to the screen, like they might have they might
Speaker 2: have like second guessed themselves a little bit. So having
Speaker 2: that over confidence to just go ahead and like tell
Speaker 2: the story and I don't know, tell everyone you're going
Speaker 2: to tell the story, so then you feel peer pressure
Speaker 2: to actually finish it, I think is really important too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know what it also is, I think
Speaker 3: like a part impetus to just jump into a big
Speaker 3: story is also I feel a part of the Black
Speaker 3: storytelling tradition. Like you know, I grew up around people
Speaker 3: that were storytellers and very funny and very persuasive and convincing.
Speaker 3: And they might start telling you one story and then
Speaker 3: they hit you with the you know, well quiet as
Speaker 3: it's kept, or you know, truth be told or if
Speaker 3: you take all of these diversions, as they realize the
Speaker 3: story is much bigger then they thought it would be originally,
Speaker 3: and you know, and you get there. You know, it's
Speaker 3: like it's like a part of our storytelling tradition is revision,
Speaker 3: it is addendums, and so I just try to like
Speaker 3: embrace that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like it's part of the human experience,
Speaker 2: like nothing is just so linear, Like you're going to
Speaker 2: go off on tangents and you're going to find these
Speaker 2: like really obscure connections, and especially with something like the era,
Speaker 2: which is, you know, we see it as recent history
Speaker 2: that you know, either many of us were kind of
Speaker 2: too young to be really in the know about it,
Speaker 2: or even people younger than us weren't even born yet.
Speaker 2: It kind of gets sanitized to like this happened, this happened,
Speaker 2: and then this happened, and it doesn't doesn't. We don't
Speaker 2: get the full breadth of it, which is like very hard.
Speaker 2: So I'm so glad that when krack was king was
Speaker 2: out so people can see those different connections, see those
Speaker 2: different perspectives. And the person that I really loved reading
Speaker 2: about was Lenny, who was a crack user, and I
Speaker 2: noticed that she was the only woman out of the
Speaker 2: four main people that you spoke with. Was that intentional
Speaker 2: with that characters selection to have a woman speak to
Speaker 2: the experiences of being addicted to crack with all that
Speaker 2: comes with that, the sexual violence and the prostitution and
Speaker 2: you know, the pimps and all that coming.
Speaker 1: In her in her orbit.
Speaker 3: You know, it intentional that I knew that I wanted
Speaker 3: women to be a part of the book for sure,
Speaker 3: and to have some central characters as women. I found
Speaker 3: Lenny early on and I interviewed, i should say, like
Speaker 3: hundreds of people across the countries, across the really twelve
Speaker 3: hardest hit cities in twenty eighteen. So, you know, as
Speaker 3: I got down to it in the actual writing process,
Speaker 3: after having interviewed her, I realized that her experience as
Speaker 3: a black woman addict included really everything that can happen
Speaker 3: to a person while they are experiencing addiction, that you know,
Speaker 3: she didn't have the protection of maleness in some cases.
Speaker 3: You know, women were all all over and all through
Speaker 3: out the crack epidemic, Black women in particular that they
Speaker 3: were you know, city officials, they were drug dealers, they
Speaker 3: were police officers and prosecutors. They were also addicts, but
Speaker 3: more importantly, they were people who loved folks in all
Speaker 3: those positions too. And you can't, you know, discount the
Speaker 3: extent to which black women experienced the crack epidemic just
Speaker 3: by loving people that were caught up in it.
Speaker 1: And it's really impactful for you to just show the
Speaker 1: entire breath of a person like that with so much empathy,
Speaker 1: which is antithetical to the kind of portrayals that happened
Speaker 1: in media. So I'm wondering, Donovan, for you what it
Speaker 1: was like to maybe I don't know if this is
Speaker 1: the word that you would use, but form this counterpoint
Speaker 1: to media or mainstream and historical media narratives about people
Speaker 1: who use crack and how there was there were these
Speaker 1: depths that they couldn't get out of versus the people
Speaker 1: in your stories whose lives you know, were turned around
Speaker 1: and often did end in these positive ways. You know,
Speaker 1: there was an alchemy in the way that they turned
Speaker 1: their stories into ones that could change other people's lives
Speaker 1: in positive ways.
Speaker 3: That was essential to me. You know, in writing this
Speaker 3: book that the place that I started from was the
Speaker 3: fact that we were living in a post crack era,
Speaker 3: and I felt like that was something that we hadn't celebrated.
Speaker 3: So I started from the place that Black Americans survived
Speaker 3: the crack epidemic and that we survived it without a
Speaker 3: whole lot of help. So in finding people who were
Speaker 3: going to tell that story or sort of illustrate that story,
Speaker 3: you know, I then was looking for survivors of course,
Speaker 3: knowing that through telling each of their stories that they
Speaker 3: would include lots of other people who actually didn't arrived.
Speaker 3: But that in talking about where we are today, we
Speaker 3: are a community, a country, you know, really a society
Speaker 3: that has survived the crack epidemic.
Speaker 1: We got to take a quick break, but we'll be
Speaker 1: right back.
Speaker 2: I don't think I ever met someone that I could
Speaker 2: tell that they were using crack. But you have this
Speaker 2: woman in your neighborhood. Do you remember like hearing songs
Speaker 2: or watching TV and seeing someone that was portraying a
Speaker 2: crack user and how you responded to that versus how
Speaker 2: you responded to the people that you saw in your neighborhood.
Speaker 3: I really despise TV representations of addicts, So you know,
Speaker 3: I think about especially crack addicts, like I think about
Speaker 3: the Dave Chappelle Tyrone Bigham's character, which is a you know,
Speaker 3: comical character, and he does, you know, play it in
Speaker 3: a funny way, and there are you know things that
Speaker 3: listen we like laugh to keep from crying. Right, So
Speaker 3: when you see people in your community who are you know,
Speaker 3: doing ridiculous things and that you know that they're doing
Speaker 3: it because they are either high or you know, just
Speaker 3: just just out of their minds a little bit. It's like,
Speaker 3: you laugh, because that's just like a part of their
Speaker 3: character in the neighborhood. So you know. But but we
Speaker 3: do that for whatever reason, with crack and not with
Speaker 3: other drugs. And yeah, you know, I can't help to
Speaker 3: think that it's you know that, like, you know, there
Speaker 3: aren't the comical representations of opioid users. And even though
Speaker 3: they're probably funny too, right, Like, there are things that like,
Speaker 3: you know, humor that we can find in the behaviors
Speaker 3: of people who are like nodding off, you know, on
Speaker 3: their drives to work. I don't think it's funny, but
Speaker 3: but you know, somebody might. There are a lot of
Speaker 3: people who either used or became addicted to crack in
Speaker 3: the eighties and nineties. The vast majority of those people
Speaker 3: were white, because like anything in this country, the vast
Speaker 3: majority of people who experience it use it whatever it is,
Speaker 3: or white because most people in this country are white.
Speaker 3: Black and Latino people use drugs, will use use crack
Speaker 3: in particular, at a disproportionate rate. But we're still the
Speaker 3: minority of users because they were because we are minority
Speaker 3: groups in this country. But for whatever reason, the sort
Speaker 3: of image of the crack user, you know what I
Speaker 3: shouldn't say, for whatever reason, because of anti blackness, the
Speaker 3: the image of the cracks you know, like like like
Speaker 3: a black person, you know, tweaking and you know, being erratic,
Speaker 3: which you know is a part of like the behavior
Speaker 3: of people high on cocaine. But of course, right there
Speaker 3: is like a spectrum of behaviors among people who do anything.
Speaker 3: So so those people were a minority of a minority
Speaker 3: of a minority. What I should say is that when
Speaker 3: we create those kind of characters out of a dynamic,
Speaker 3: what it does is it makes it so that other
Speaker 3: people who are dealing with addiction, even addiction to crack
Speaker 3: kind of become invisible. So you know, when you're looking
Speaker 3: for a quote unquote crackhead, you're looking for tyrone biggems,
Speaker 3: and then you're unable to see other people who are
Speaker 3: struggling with addiction who may not look like that. And
Speaker 3: and I think it just does a disservice to our
Speaker 3: understanding of addiction.
Speaker 2: Also, you reminded me when you said, like the anti
Speaker 2: blackness in the crack era versus like folks who are
Speaker 2: on opioids and we're not getting those like comical depictions
Speaker 2: the white people get like the benefit of, you know,
Speaker 2: like all the stuff that the black people went through. Like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: you don't want us making fun of like opioid users
Speaker 2: because you said doing that with crack.
Speaker 1: What's bad, Like it's an epidemic now and we can
Speaker 1: actually label it that instead of a quote unquote war.
Speaker 2: It's so clear when it's like white people versus black people,
Speaker 2: and it's like you can like couch and like, oh well,
Speaker 2: it's the twenty twenties, like we're woke now, like we
Speaker 2: don't make fun of people. But I would venture to
Speaker 2: say if the crack era was going on right now,
Speaker 2: people would be doing the same thing, you know, because
Speaker 2: it would be like the oh yeah, the personification would
Speaker 2: be like a black person, and we wouldn't be like
Speaker 2: public health oriented about the situation because it would still
Speaker 2: be like about black people. But of course, like you
Speaker 2: can't say that for sure because it's not happening, and
Speaker 2: like opioids are the new thing.
Speaker 3: I mean, we sadly, I think might soon be able
Speaker 3: to make that comparison because the opioid epidemic has shifted
Speaker 3: from prescription pills, which was its original form, and it
Speaker 3: has now shifted to street drugs like heroin, and we're
Speaker 3: seeing now also with fittanol since about twenty twenty, so
Speaker 3: you know, there is actually a heartening of attitudes around
Speaker 3: opioids that corresponds to its blackening, so to speak. So
Speaker 3: you know, I would just say keep your eye out
Speaker 3: because America is a wild place that is addicted to
Speaker 3: anti blackness.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about how in your book you get to
Speaker 1: see the hirety of the way that things shifted over time.
Speaker 1: How did that in your view and your perspective and
Speaker 1: the work that you've done see that shift happening in
Speaker 1: the way that the media told stories about people who
Speaker 1: were using crack from the beginning of the era to
Speaker 1: the end of it.
Speaker 3: So in the beginning of the crack epidemic, the media
Speaker 3: was actually pretty late, you know that that it was
Speaker 3: really hip hop and like rap music that you know,
Speaker 3: it's like where we have the earliest sort of accounts
Speaker 3: of the crack epidemic back when it was called freebase,
Speaker 3: so it's early. It's like nineteen eighty three. You have
Speaker 3: rappers like mc shan on. You know, Jane stopped this
Speaker 3: crazy thing, talking specifically about a neighbor of his that
Speaker 3: is using freebase and telling her to stop the same
Speaker 3: thing about White Lines are from White White Lines by
Speaker 3: Rand Master Flash, which was an anti cocaine, anti freebase song.
Speaker 3: Mainstream media doesn't really catch up until about nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 3: so and the representations that we get then are almost
Speaker 3: all about celebrities. You know, it's about Richard Pryor blowing
Speaker 3: himself up. It's about you know, athletes in baseball and
Speaker 3: basketball testing positive for cocaine because they're using this new
Speaker 3: thing called free base. It's about people like Lynn Bias,
Speaker 3: who was the number one NBA draft pick. He died
Speaker 3: of heart figure because he used cocaine, dying the night
Speaker 3: of his draft from a cocaine overdose. But the representation
Speaker 3: at that time was still pretty i would say, curious
Speaker 3: and certainly not as harsh, are kind of demonizing, because
Speaker 3: they were still working around this idea of cocaine as
Speaker 3: like this like glamour drug that rich and famous people used.
Speaker 3: It wasn't really until I would say Lynn Bias's death
Speaker 3: in nineteen was at maybe eighty seven that we see
Speaker 3: a shift into the crack narrative, So we stop calling
Speaker 3: the substance freebase and we start calling it crack, and
Speaker 3: it becomes associated with poor people in the inner city.
Speaker 3: And then you see this kind of heartening of the
Speaker 3: reporting where it's focused on, you know, just how depraved
Speaker 3: the users and dealers are. And that's where we start
Speaker 3: seeing the emergence of you know, the crackhead trope, the
Speaker 3: super predator trope, the crack baby trope. That all of
Speaker 3: those caricature sort of come to light and then they
Speaker 3: take on a life of their own, you know, as
Speaker 3: you see how effective they are to make people afraid.
Speaker 3: And you know, eventually, as the epidemic way, and the
Speaker 3: media just got tired of it and really stopped reporting
Speaker 3: on the epidemic and ultimately didn't really cover its decline
Speaker 3: because the decline isn't as you know, sensational as the epidemic.
Speaker 1: You have an at break, but we'll be back soon.
Speaker 2: It's interesting how it goes from curiosity to oh, it's
Speaker 2: kind of glamorous and mysterious to demonize. And I wanted
Speaker 2: to ask you, like, how do you think about crack
Speaker 2: itself as a character and how it acts as a
Speaker 2: character in when Crack was king, and thinking just about
Speaker 2: how Crack acted on society. And even in the book,
Speaker 2: when Lenny comes back from being pregnant, she notices how
Speaker 2: the neighborhood has changed so much, and like Crack was
Speaker 2: the thing that was acting on the neighborhood and had
Speaker 2: this like very visible impact. So were you thinking about
Speaker 2: Crack as a character when you were writing when Crack
Speaker 2: was king.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. You know, Crack is the fifth character in the book.
Speaker 3: So there's Lenny, there's Sean, there's Kurt, and there's Elgin,
Speaker 3: and the book sort of tracks their lives over this
Speaker 3: period of time alongside Crack, the sort of rise and
Speaker 3: ball of this substance. And you know, as a character,
Speaker 3: Crack is interesting because you know, I established early on
Speaker 3: in the book that you know, crack is cocaine. It's
Speaker 3: just consumed differently. So you know, people, you know, because
Speaker 3: of the way that it's been positioned in our society,
Speaker 3: thinks that it's a different substance and that the process
Speaker 3: of making it somehow transforms it.
Speaker 1: I mean, and it's easy when you're thinking of Crack
Speaker 1: as a character to make it that thing, like is
Speaker 1: this real villain? Yeah, it's the villain. It's this relic.
Speaker 1: It's like the motif. So it's very easy to place
Speaker 1: the emphasis on that object and it being this thing
Speaker 1: that in turn, it being used by that person transforms
Speaker 1: it like it's some sort of magical sword or something
Speaker 1: like that. When you hold on to it, you have
Speaker 1: all these different powers, and it just so happens that
Speaker 1: these powers are ones that everybody's looking at, like, I
Speaker 1: don't want anything to do with.
Speaker 2: That, I think. Also the naming of it, crack sounds
Speaker 2: so harsh, and the cocaine sounds kind of fancy.
Speaker 3: Which is funny because I mean, you like mentioned like
Speaker 3: the name cocaine that you know that the name of
Speaker 3: the plant that is derived from is coca and the
Speaker 3: suffix you know, in means derived from, So it's Latin
Speaker 3: for like derived from the coca plant. So that name
Speaker 3: like sounds fancy because it is actually like scientific language
Speaker 3: for what that substance was. Its original name, freebase, you know,
Speaker 3: was also a like scientific term. It was it indicated
Speaker 3: the process by which it was made. That you read
Speaker 3: the base from other elements. Almost wonder if you know,
Speaker 3: if it had retained its original name, if our relationship
Speaker 3: to it would be different if we would understand that
Speaker 3: it was the same substances. It's almost like renaming it,
Speaker 3: you know, allowed it to be different in the imagination,
Speaker 3: and then it made it harder for us to understand it.
Speaker 2: Donovan, I know that you've been researching this book for
Speaker 2: many years and have collected a lot of media, whether
Speaker 2: it be PSAs or music videos or movie clips. Was
Speaker 2: there one that stood out to you and you're like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I cannot believe this is real.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, the you know, Partnership for a Drug Free
Speaker 3: America was like a big part of my upbringing. They
Speaker 3: did all the big anti drug PSAs. There was one
Speaker 3: that was targeted specifically at at black children in the
Speaker 3: early nineties, and it starts with, you know, Africans were
Speaker 3: brought here in change, you know, hundreds of years ago.
Speaker 3: Do not dishonor your ancestors by using drugs like cracking
Speaker 3: and you know, in alcohol. And they literally show like
Speaker 3: like a room full of kids who are I guess
Speaker 3: like supposed to be high on cracks, so they're kind
Speaker 3: of just like laying down and like sedated, which, by
Speaker 3: the way, crack is a stimulant. People get energy from
Speaker 3: using crack, they don't, you know, like like it's not
Speaker 3: Heroin where they like not off. But then the kids
Speaker 3: are there with their like high top fades and they're
Speaker 3: like you know, rebox stuff on and then a chain
Speaker 3: appears like around their necks as they're like laying there,
Speaker 3: and I remember thinking to myself as a kid, this
Speaker 3: is so damn disrespectful, like why are y'all talking about slavery?
Speaker 3: Like literally the people making this ad do not give
Speaker 3: a damn about slavery, And it was just meant to
Speaker 3: be shaming and like sensational, and uh and I didn't
Speaker 3: like it, you me as a kid, like I don't
Speaker 3: want some disembodied white man voice telling me about slavery.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: That was that was wild to me. And then there's
Speaker 3: one that I think is like, actually, uh, pretty effective.
Speaker 3: The series was called The Real Kids on the Block,
Speaker 3: so they were using real you know, black children in
Speaker 3: this case to like talk about drugs. And it's you know,
Speaker 3: one point telling his brother that he can't hang out
Speaker 3: his friend Walter, and his friend is like, you know why,
Speaker 3: He's like, is Walter do drugs? It was heartwarming to
Speaker 3: see a conversation between two children in terms they would
Speaker 3: actually use about addiction. But when I looked at the
Speaker 3: research about, you know, how the epidemic ended, it ended
Speaker 3: because the next cohort of young people decided just not
Speaker 3: to use crack. That you know, drug trends are like
Speaker 3: any other trends where in order for them to continue,
Speaker 3: they have to be picked up by a subsequent generation.
Speaker 3: So whether it's bell bottoms or pet rocks or you know,
Speaker 3: acid washed genes, if the next group of people don't
Speaker 3: think it's cool, then it ends. Well. Its young people
Speaker 3: looking at the devastation of their communities that said I'm
Speaker 3: actually not going to do this. And you know, rates
Speaker 3: of not just crack but hard drug use for black
Speaker 3: and Latino people in particular completely plummeted around nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 3: and they still are tremendously low, like much much lower
Speaker 3: than they are for white youth.
Speaker 1: Because you interviewed so many people for this book, what
Speaker 1: did you find that were the kinds of stories that
Speaker 1: they were telling themselves. Were you able to see some
Speaker 1: of the real time processing in the ways that they
Speaker 1: told their own stories and their relation to crack.
Speaker 3: I found that there was a tremendous amount of shame
Speaker 3: around the crack epidemic for most people, and for the
Speaker 3: most part, they just didn't talk about it. So, you know,
Speaker 3: the four folks that I have, I feel really lucky
Speaker 3: to have because they were able to talk about their experiences.
Speaker 3: Will one have memories of it, you know, because a
Speaker 3: lot of people that go through traumatic stuff that they
Speaker 3: just lose time and and and and and those folks
Speaker 3: still have pretty good memories that they were willing to
Speaker 3: talk openly to me about what they had been through.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I like definitely saw some processing, especially with Elgin,
Speaker 3: whose father was addicted to crack. You know, it was
Speaker 3: through talking with Elgin that he realized that he was
Speaker 3: dealing with some pretty significant anxiety still some like PTSD
Speaker 3: from his experience, because you know, he had gotten through it,
Speaker 3: he just didn't think about it anymore. But you know,
Speaker 3: I think that it's so important for people that experienced
Speaker 3: the crack up the day firsthand or second hand, and
Speaker 3: also you know, really just everybody in this country that
Speaker 3: we incorporate that period of time into our larger history
Speaker 3: because it is something that we survived and there are
Speaker 3: lessons to be learned from the ways that we survived.
Speaker 3: It was tough, and it was also really hard to
Speaker 3: listen to people's stories of the Crack era. But I
Speaker 3: think it's worth it, like in the end that I
Speaker 3: understand so much more about our country today as a
Speaker 3: result of doing that work than I did before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I feel like it's an American tradition to
Speaker 2: not learn from his.
Speaker 1: I was just about to say that that it is
Speaker 1: a recurring pattern.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, would we be America actually learned from something.
Speaker 1: Right, It's like the United States would probably write it
Speaker 1: on its resume and the skills list like really good
Speaker 1: at not acknowledging what happens so that I can not
Speaker 1: grow from it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Somebody said once that that within Western cultures that
Speaker 3: there is this fear of history and this sphere of
Speaker 3: the dead in particular that is manifested as like fear
Speaker 3: of ghosts and like ghost stories and like Western traditions,
Speaker 3: Whereas if you go into like other societies around the world,
Speaker 3: that there is this way that we embrace ancestors and
Speaker 3: there are people that like literally can continue to guide
Speaker 3: us and to sort of help us. And I think
Speaker 3: about it in that way that like crack is like
Speaker 3: a ghost and you know, in like the Western tradition,
Speaker 3: we're like, oh, you know, like keep that away from us.
Speaker 3: Let's like exercise it, and we don't embrace it as
Speaker 3: an ancestor. That can, you know, continue to inform our lives.
Speaker 3: And I feel like, in a very African way, like
Speaker 3: I want to make the Crack epidemic and ancestor it is.
Speaker 3: It is gone, but it is still very present in
Speaker 3: our minds.
Speaker 2: And now it's time for my favorite segment, roll credits,
Speaker 2: where we give credit to a person, place, thing, idea
Speaker 2: Donovan x Ramsey, Who, what where?
Speaker 3: When?
Speaker 1: Why would you like to give credit to? Today?
Speaker 3: I want to give credit to the city of Atlanta. Okay,
Speaker 3: I went to college in Atlanta. I went to Morehouse.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I mean, I wouldn't be a more House man if
Speaker 3: I didn't announce the fact that I.
Speaker 1: Want to That's true.
Speaker 3: But you know, Atlanta has given me so much. And
Speaker 3: Atlanta's actually where I also wrote when Crack was king
Speaker 3: that after I did the reporting, I wanted to be
Speaker 3: somewhere where I felt like I could be at peace
Speaker 3: and I could be comfortable, and I could work without
Speaker 3: feeling like the pressure to do anything else. And you
Speaker 3: haven't gone to college here. I was like, Atlanta is it.
Speaker 3: I encourage, like any black person that is doing creative work,
Speaker 3: if you haven't spent significant time in Atlanta, to spend
Speaker 3: significant time in Atlanta, because you will be surrounded by
Speaker 3: characters that will bring out the best of it, and
Speaker 3: you will be in an environment that kind of like
Speaker 3: wants you to be here in a way that I
Speaker 3: feel like other cities are resistant to not necessarily black people,
Speaker 3: but to like blackness, you know what I mean, like
Speaker 3: real sauce and flavor, and Atlanta is all about again,
Speaker 3: it's the dirty bird. It's all about the flavor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, doing it loudly at Eves. I'm want to
Speaker 1: give credit to water today. I've been thinking a lot
Speaker 1: about water recently because I'm usually in the warm months.
Speaker 1: I like water, but I don't spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time in it, and I realized that recently, so I've
Speaker 1: been trying to reconnect to the ways and I'm linked
Speaker 1: to water, thinking of thinking of as Donovan mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: was talking about earlier ancestors, the way in which rivers
Speaker 1: are connected to ancestors, submerging myself and bodies of water,
Speaker 1: meaning things in connection to baptism, rebirth, and also just
Speaker 1: cooling down because it is super hot. We like to
Speaker 1: say every summer that it's so hot. I never liked
Speaker 1: this before warning but I know. But it's just funny
Speaker 1: that that that's the talking point every year. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean water and also like obviously it's life giving
Speaker 1: and in the drinking form. So thankful for that because
Speaker 1: everybody doesn't get that either, truthfully. Yeah, that's that's my
Speaker 1: shout out today.
Speaker 2: Okay, I feel like y'all are so positive. I would
Speaker 2: like to give credit to pet peeves. I have a
Speaker 2: ton of pet peeves, and I feel like pet peeves
Speaker 2: allow me to like, no, if I'm going to rock
Speaker 2: with somebody or not, Like if I say, like, what's
Speaker 2: your pet peeve and you say you don't have none,
Speaker 2: I just know like we can't be friends. So I'm like,
Speaker 2: yes you do, and you just don't want to complain
Speaker 2: with me and like you're not my type of girl.
Speaker 2: But yeah, pet peeves, it lets me know like what
Speaker 2: type of person you are if I ask your pet
Speaker 2: peeve and you let me know, like, oh, my pet
Speaker 2: peeve is this, and I'm like I really identify with that,
Speaker 2: or like nah, I am rock with that for real.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's just like a really quick way to
Speaker 2: judge people, and I know I need that.
Speaker 1: But thank you, thank you, thank.
Speaker 3: You so much for having me. This was a blast.
Speaker 2: If you would like to keep up with Donovan, you
Speaker 2: can follow him on Twitter and Instagram at Donovan x Ramsey.
Speaker 1: Go buy his book When Crack Was King, and also
Speaker 1: a special shout out today to Donovan X Ramsey for
Speaker 1: all the media clips that he provided from the Crack era.
Speaker 1: On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media.
Speaker 1: This episode was written by Eves Jeffco and Katie Mitchell.
Speaker 1: It was edited and produced by Tari Harrison. Follow us
Speaker 1: on Instagram at on Theme Show. You can also send
Speaker 1: us an email at hello at on Theme dot Show.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.