1 00:00:00,280 --> 00:00:07,760 Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ethan Natalman, and this is Psychoactive, a production 2 00:00:07,800 --> 00:00:11,600 Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the 3 00:00:11,640 --> 00:00:15,040 Speaker 1: show where we talk about all things drugs. But any 4 00:00:15,160 --> 00:00:18,760 Speaker 1: views expressed here do not represent those of I Heart Media, 5 00:00:18,920 --> 00:00:23,480 Speaker 1: Protozoa Pictures, or their executives and employees. Indeed, heed as 6 00:00:23,520 --> 00:00:26,400 Speaker 1: an inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they may not 7 00:00:26,560 --> 00:00:30,760 Speaker 1: even represent my own and nothing contained in this show 8 00:00:30,840 --> 00:00:33,680 Speaker 1: should be used as medical advice or encouragement to use 9 00:00:33,800 --> 00:00:43,639 Speaker 1: any type of drug. One of the most popular episodes 10 00:00:43,720 --> 00:00:46,159 Speaker 1: the Psychoactive to date has been the one where I 11 00:00:46,200 --> 00:00:49,560 Speaker 1: invited my friend Julie Holland to service my co host 12 00:00:49,640 --> 00:00:52,919 Speaker 1: and answer questions with me from you the audience. So 13 00:00:52,920 --> 00:00:55,640 Speaker 1: we're going to record another one of those episodes, and 14 00:00:55,760 --> 00:00:59,080 Speaker 1: we need your questions. Leave us a voicemail with a 15 00:00:59,160 --> 00:01:03,880 Speaker 1: question as detailed as possible at one eight three, three, seven, 16 00:01:03,960 --> 00:01:07,680 Speaker 1: seven nine sixty, or you can record a voice memo 17 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:11,560 Speaker 1: and send it to Psychoactive at protozoa dot com. I'm 18 00:01:11,560 --> 00:01:15,200 Speaker 1: sure it's going to be a great second go with this. Hello, 19 00:01:15,560 --> 00:01:23,120 Speaker 1: Psychoactive listeners. Today we have as our guest Philippe Bougua, 20 00:01:23,560 --> 00:01:26,360 Speaker 1: who is one of the more distinguished professors in the 21 00:01:26,480 --> 00:01:31,479 Speaker 1: United States looking at issues around drug users drug markets. 22 00:01:31,560 --> 00:01:37,120 Speaker 1: He's an anthropologist and ethnographer. Whereas many scholars and anthropologists 23 00:01:37,160 --> 00:01:39,520 Speaker 1: will just kind of jump in and we'll go and 24 00:01:39,520 --> 00:01:41,360 Speaker 1: they'll do their interviews and come back and I'll take 25 00:01:41,400 --> 00:01:44,360 Speaker 1: a year or two, Philippe has actually spent almost a 26 00:01:44,440 --> 00:01:48,880 Speaker 1: decade or more in three different communities of either drug 27 00:01:48,960 --> 00:01:52,960 Speaker 1: sellers or drug users in a really deep sort of 28 00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:57,919 Speaker 1: immersion and produced these incredible books, one called In Search 29 00:01:57,960 --> 00:02:01,960 Speaker 1: of Respect, one called Righteous Dope Fiends, as well as 30 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:05,600 Speaker 1: dozens and dozens of articles. He's been a distinguished professor 31 00:02:05,640 --> 00:02:09,880 Speaker 1: at San Francisco State University and University California, San Francisco, 32 00:02:10,480 --> 00:02:13,200 Speaker 1: and University of Pennsylvania, and now he's currently at u 33 00:02:13,200 --> 00:02:15,680 Speaker 1: C l A where he continues to do this work. 34 00:02:16,280 --> 00:02:20,519 Speaker 1: So Philip, thank you for joining me on Psychoactive. I'm 35 00:02:20,520 --> 00:02:24,520 Speaker 1: looking forward to this conversation. Well, thanks, thanks, Ethan. I 36 00:02:24,560 --> 00:02:27,040 Speaker 1: wish I was everything that you said I was. He 37 00:02:27,120 --> 00:02:31,680 Speaker 1: made me sound terrific. Actually, I'm just an obsessed ten 38 00:02:31,840 --> 00:02:34,720 Speaker 1: whatever ten twelve years of field work at all my sites. 39 00:02:35,200 --> 00:02:38,919 Speaker 1: But it's actually even twelve, twenty years or thirty years 40 00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:42,040 Speaker 1: and now sometimes forty. In your first book in Search 41 00:02:42,080 --> 00:02:44,720 Speaker 1: of Respect, which was about the seven years I guess 42 00:02:44,760 --> 00:02:48,360 Speaker 1: you lived from five to ninety two in East Harlem. 43 00:02:48,680 --> 00:02:51,680 Speaker 1: That was exactly the period when the War on drugs 44 00:02:51,760 --> 00:02:55,440 Speaker 1: was going into hyper speed and crack cocaine was becoming 45 00:02:55,440 --> 00:02:57,760 Speaker 1: a major phenomenon. And then here we're talking about the 46 00:02:57,840 --> 00:03:00,360 Speaker 1: Upper East Side of New York right where you you know, 47 00:03:00,520 --> 00:03:02,880 Speaker 1: have some of the billionaires of New York living in 48 00:03:02,919 --> 00:03:06,160 Speaker 1: the East seventies and eighties and up into the low nineties, 49 00:03:06,280 --> 00:03:09,720 Speaker 1: and then things change radically as you move into East Harlem. 50 00:03:09,880 --> 00:03:12,080 Speaker 1: It's kind of a more gradual shift on the Upper 51 00:03:12,120 --> 00:03:13,919 Speaker 1: west Side of New York with the Upper east Side 52 00:03:13,919 --> 00:03:16,680 Speaker 1: has been sort of almost infamous for that great divide. 53 00:03:16,800 --> 00:03:20,920 Speaker 1: Yet that time back when in my day Street was 54 00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:24,120 Speaker 1: it was literally called the demilitarized zone, and it just 55 00:03:24,639 --> 00:03:27,639 Speaker 1: if you were on the subway, that was where all 56 00:03:27,680 --> 00:03:30,200 Speaker 1: the whites got out got out of the subway. It 57 00:03:30,280 --> 00:03:33,880 Speaker 1: was just a caricature of apartheid. So, Philip, if somebody 58 00:03:33,919 --> 00:03:37,000 Speaker 1: asked you your book of Search of Respect, what's it about, 59 00:03:37,200 --> 00:03:39,720 Speaker 1: and you've got all of an elevator conversation to say it, 60 00:03:39,840 --> 00:03:43,680 Speaker 1: what's the answer. It's the phenomenon of what I call 61 00:03:43,840 --> 00:03:48,440 Speaker 1: us inner city apartheid, which is the fact that every 62 00:03:48,680 --> 00:03:55,000 Speaker 1: single large and even small American city has a phenomenon 63 00:03:55,360 --> 00:03:59,760 Speaker 1: of a of a racially and class divided set of 64 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:03,640 Speaker 1: aggregated poverty, and that that is not normal. I wanted 65 00:04:03,640 --> 00:04:07,480 Speaker 1: to show what what its effect is on the people 66 00:04:07,680 --> 00:04:12,200 Speaker 1: scrambling to survive and scrambling to search for a sense 67 00:04:12,240 --> 00:04:16,000 Speaker 1: of humanity and dignity, because that's what they're They're just universal, 68 00:04:16,080 --> 00:04:18,760 Speaker 1: They're they're they're the same as everyone else. They want 69 00:04:19,080 --> 00:04:23,640 Speaker 1: a job that pays them decently, that gives them respect. 70 00:04:23,920 --> 00:04:26,520 Speaker 1: And so that's what I wanted to convey, that the 71 00:04:26,600 --> 00:04:31,880 Speaker 1: tragedy of the crack epidemic was about energetic, charismatic youth 72 00:04:33,240 --> 00:04:38,760 Speaker 1: whose lives were getting damaged by racist and classist policies 73 00:04:38,800 --> 00:04:41,560 Speaker 1: of America, of the US that has set up the 74 00:04:41,600 --> 00:04:46,640 Speaker 1: phenomenon of segregated inner cities in every single large city 75 00:04:46,800 --> 00:04:50,000 Speaker 1: and even small city of the United States. You are 76 00:04:50,040 --> 00:04:54,440 Speaker 1: living in East Harlem with your wife and your young child, 77 00:04:54,480 --> 00:04:56,680 Speaker 1: who is maybe a couple of years old at that time, 78 00:04:57,080 --> 00:04:59,720 Speaker 1: and you described walking around this neighborhood, one of the 79 00:04:59,760 --> 00:05:02,360 Speaker 1: one of only white people living there, and sometimes with 80 00:05:02,480 --> 00:05:05,160 Speaker 1: your little kid on your on your shoulders, and in 81 00:05:05,200 --> 00:05:08,400 Speaker 1: a way it was almost offering a form of protection 82 00:05:08,720 --> 00:05:11,960 Speaker 1: in as you pursued your ethnographic work in your relationships 83 00:05:11,960 --> 00:05:15,080 Speaker 1: in the community. So I really marveled at your I 84 00:05:15,120 --> 00:05:19,600 Speaker 1: guess bravery to some extent in doing this. Well, Actually 85 00:05:19,640 --> 00:05:23,839 Speaker 1: it was really fun, and that was That's the strange 86 00:05:23,920 --> 00:05:27,680 Speaker 1: thing about ethnography is that if you like to hang 87 00:05:27,680 --> 00:05:31,200 Speaker 1: out and chit chat with people, and if you like 88 00:05:31,400 --> 00:05:36,240 Speaker 1: to make new friends and also cross boundaries that are forbidden, 89 00:05:36,839 --> 00:05:39,479 Speaker 1: you actually get paid to do that. You're supposed to 90 00:05:39,520 --> 00:05:43,280 Speaker 1: do that as an anthropologist. So it was fun. It 91 00:05:43,360 --> 00:05:47,680 Speaker 1: was simple too. I just got an apartment. And the 92 00:05:47,760 --> 00:05:51,600 Speaker 1: weird thing was that that's sort of the nature of 93 00:05:52,240 --> 00:05:55,640 Speaker 1: racism and how it gets enforced in the United States, 94 00:05:55,839 --> 00:05:58,880 Speaker 1: is that as a white person at that time going 95 00:05:58,920 --> 00:06:02,360 Speaker 1: into Harlem, you felt like a kuk for doing it. 96 00:06:02,560 --> 00:06:05,799 Speaker 1: So as long as you didn't care about being seen 97 00:06:05,839 --> 00:06:08,960 Speaker 1: as a kuk, people were thrilled that you were there. 98 00:06:08,960 --> 00:06:11,200 Speaker 1: They were curious, they wanted to talk to you, and 99 00:06:11,240 --> 00:06:13,839 Speaker 1: they said, oh, wow, white boy, what are you doing here? 100 00:06:14,040 --> 00:06:16,000 Speaker 1: I guess with the cops were seeing you and saying, yo, 101 00:06:16,080 --> 00:06:18,160 Speaker 1: white boy, what were you doing here? Was a little different. Well, 102 00:06:18,200 --> 00:06:21,440 Speaker 1: they were. They profiled me, and that's the that's, of course, 103 00:06:21,680 --> 00:06:24,640 Speaker 1: what we know. The story of the war on drugs 104 00:06:24,839 --> 00:06:28,840 Speaker 1: is based on racial profiling. It's the simplest, cheapest way 105 00:06:28,920 --> 00:06:33,640 Speaker 1: for for police officers to operate. And so no matter 106 00:06:33,720 --> 00:06:37,040 Speaker 1: what laws we passed saying that that's racist and they 107 00:06:37,080 --> 00:06:40,440 Speaker 1: can't do it, that's what they do. So that was 108 00:06:40,520 --> 00:06:42,839 Speaker 1: what was happening to me. And they could only see 109 00:06:42,880 --> 00:06:45,919 Speaker 1: me as a drug addict. And it was interesting because 110 00:06:46,320 --> 00:06:49,760 Speaker 1: the sellers at first site could only see me as 111 00:06:49,760 --> 00:06:53,159 Speaker 1: a cop. Because the undercover cops at that time in 112 00:06:53,240 --> 00:06:57,279 Speaker 1: New York City were sort of better paid, higher status 113 00:06:57,320 --> 00:06:59,640 Speaker 1: and so forth, then they were almost all white. The 114 00:06:59,680 --> 00:07:02,560 Speaker 1: police sports is notoriously white all the time. All the 115 00:07:02,680 --> 00:07:06,760 Speaker 1: New York's is slightly less or considerably less, but the 116 00:07:06,839 --> 00:07:10,680 Speaker 1: undercovers were white. When I would walk down an active 117 00:07:10,720 --> 00:07:13,400 Speaker 1: street selling block, including my own block, you know, at 118 00:07:13,400 --> 00:07:17,040 Speaker 1: first people would scatter, but then in the in the 119 00:07:17,200 --> 00:07:21,400 Speaker 1: micro neighborhood where people learned to recognize me as a neighbor, 120 00:07:21,640 --> 00:07:25,840 Speaker 1: then I was just assumed to be harmless. There were 121 00:07:25,880 --> 00:07:30,280 Speaker 1: a few elderly white Italians still living in the neighborhood, 122 00:07:30,560 --> 00:07:33,840 Speaker 1: so people also, you know, assumed I had come back 123 00:07:33,880 --> 00:07:36,800 Speaker 1: to live with my grandmother or something like that. I 124 00:07:36,840 --> 00:07:39,120 Speaker 1: know that before you did this, you had done maybe 125 00:07:39,120 --> 00:07:41,760 Speaker 1: your graduate work in a first book doing well. A 126 00:07:41,760 --> 00:07:43,960 Speaker 1: lot of anthropologists do. They went to a foreign country. 127 00:07:44,000 --> 00:07:47,240 Speaker 1: I think you worked in banana plantations Central America. But 128 00:07:47,360 --> 00:07:50,280 Speaker 1: I'm curious. You know, you come back to New York 129 00:07:50,360 --> 00:07:53,280 Speaker 1: East harm You're living not far from you grew up, 130 00:07:53,680 --> 00:07:57,040 Speaker 1: So just to take you backwards, at what age did 131 00:07:57,080 --> 00:07:59,640 Speaker 1: you realize that this is what you wanted to do 132 00:08:00,120 --> 00:08:03,000 Speaker 1: for your adult life? And in what ways were you 133 00:08:03,040 --> 00:08:05,800 Speaker 1: impacted growing up on the Upper East Side living just 134 00:08:05,920 --> 00:08:08,400 Speaker 1: blocks from this, And did you ever imagine you would 135 00:08:08,440 --> 00:08:10,400 Speaker 1: come back to study this community that was just ten 136 00:08:10,480 --> 00:08:12,840 Speaker 1: or twenty blocks north of you. You know, it's strange, 137 00:08:12,960 --> 00:08:17,600 Speaker 1: but I sort of did. Because the only way wealthy 138 00:08:17,600 --> 00:08:21,400 Speaker 1: people in my neighborhood could go out of the city 139 00:08:21,720 --> 00:08:25,240 Speaker 1: was to drive right through the heart of East Harlem. 140 00:08:25,680 --> 00:08:29,080 Speaker 1: So we would take Madison up to a street and 141 00:08:29,320 --> 00:08:32,240 Speaker 1: take a right, or go over to Lexington, right in 142 00:08:32,360 --> 00:08:36,000 Speaker 1: the absolute heart of Puerto Rican East Harlem and make 143 00:08:36,040 --> 00:08:37,920 Speaker 1: it to the Tribe ro Bridge to get out to 144 00:08:38,040 --> 00:08:41,400 Speaker 1: Long Island, which is the pretty place and play land 145 00:08:41,440 --> 00:08:45,600 Speaker 1: of the rich. So my father was French and he 146 00:08:45,960 --> 00:08:50,160 Speaker 1: couldn't stand American racism, and you know, he was basically 147 00:08:50,200 --> 00:08:53,880 Speaker 1: a social democrat. He was a progressive guy, and he 148 00:08:54,320 --> 00:08:57,480 Speaker 1: would say, this country is disgusting. Look how it treats 149 00:08:57,480 --> 00:09:00,240 Speaker 1: its citizens. And he would tell me he was worried 150 00:09:00,320 --> 00:09:03,040 Speaker 1: because he could see that I was becoming a gring 151 00:09:03,080 --> 00:09:06,720 Speaker 1: going American and and so he was like telling me, son, 152 00:09:06,840 --> 00:09:10,200 Speaker 1: this is not normal. Don't think this country is normal. 153 00:09:10,320 --> 00:09:13,040 Speaker 1: This isn't how a state should be run. This is 154 00:09:13,040 --> 00:09:17,280 Speaker 1: an outrage. So that moved me. And then my high 155 00:09:17,360 --> 00:09:21,200 Speaker 1: school would bust us out because there aren't any there 156 00:09:21,320 --> 00:09:24,640 Speaker 1: hardly any parks and playgrounds where we would go to. 157 00:09:24,720 --> 00:09:30,040 Speaker 1: Soccer practice was out in Rikers Island, Randall Island. There 158 00:09:30,040 --> 00:09:32,280 Speaker 1: you go, you you're in New York or legit, legit. 159 00:09:32,800 --> 00:09:35,679 Speaker 1: So the you know, kids in the neighborhood would see 160 00:09:35,840 --> 00:09:38,440 Speaker 1: us rich kids in the bus going out to have fun, 161 00:09:38,520 --> 00:09:41,160 Speaker 1: and they would throw rocks at us, and it would 162 00:09:41,200 --> 00:09:45,080 Speaker 1: be humiliating because you'd realize that it was normal for them. 163 00:09:45,080 --> 00:09:47,280 Speaker 1: To be angry at us, you know. So there'd be 164 00:09:47,320 --> 00:09:51,680 Speaker 1: a few, you know, Latino and African American kids and 165 00:09:51,800 --> 00:09:54,480 Speaker 1: they would try to go out to the window and say, 166 00:09:54,520 --> 00:09:57,319 Speaker 1: don't don't, please, don't throw rocks my people. I remember, 167 00:09:57,400 --> 00:10:00,560 Speaker 1: poor guy did that, an African American kid, and boom 168 00:10:00,559 --> 00:10:03,720 Speaker 1: a rock hit him, and you know, you really felt 169 00:10:04,440 --> 00:10:08,280 Speaker 1: the reality of the inequality and how painful it was 170 00:10:08,400 --> 00:10:11,840 Speaker 1: for people who are suffering on the side that's oppressed. 171 00:10:12,200 --> 00:10:16,280 Speaker 1: And then I was getting mugged. So this these were 172 00:10:16,280 --> 00:10:20,280 Speaker 1: the These were much more violent years, and so the 173 00:10:20,400 --> 00:10:24,840 Speaker 1: kids who were poor would come downtown and and look 174 00:10:24,920 --> 00:10:28,000 Speaker 1: for rich white kids to grab the change they had 175 00:10:28,000 --> 00:10:29,959 Speaker 1: in their pocket. And we didn't know how to fight. 176 00:10:30,040 --> 00:10:32,800 Speaker 1: I've never swung a punch at anyone in my life, 177 00:10:33,080 --> 00:10:36,040 Speaker 1: so we were easy targets. So maybe a half dozen 178 00:10:36,080 --> 00:10:39,360 Speaker 1: times I was mugged, and you would get mildly beaten up. 179 00:10:39,440 --> 00:10:42,000 Speaker 1: I learned to run fast, so I would ushould be 180 00:10:42,040 --> 00:10:44,520 Speaker 1: able to run away fast. I used to joke with 181 00:10:44,600 --> 00:10:47,040 Speaker 1: the guys that I did field work that they had 182 00:10:47,040 --> 00:10:49,640 Speaker 1: probably mugged me. And then they would tell me stories 183 00:10:49,679 --> 00:10:52,240 Speaker 1: of mugging little white boys. You know. They sometimes say, 184 00:10:52,240 --> 00:10:54,439 Speaker 1: you know, a conservative as a liberal who's been mind 185 00:10:54,840 --> 00:10:57,520 Speaker 1: you've got mugged half a dozen times, and and yet 186 00:10:57,600 --> 00:11:01,120 Speaker 1: you become somebody who becomes very left in your perspective 187 00:11:01,120 --> 00:11:04,960 Speaker 1: and analysis and intrigued and better understanding the community. You 188 00:11:04,960 --> 00:11:07,600 Speaker 1: know from where young guys would coming amog you. This 189 00:11:07,640 --> 00:11:12,040 Speaker 1: whole project began as a procrastination from writing my dissertation. 190 00:11:12,679 --> 00:11:15,520 Speaker 1: So I had done my field work for my pH 191 00:11:15,640 --> 00:11:18,560 Speaker 1: d and anthropology on a United Fruit Company plantation that 192 00:11:18,720 --> 00:11:22,920 Speaker 1: spanned the borders between Panama and Costa Rica, and I 193 00:11:22,960 --> 00:11:27,600 Speaker 1: was looking at how the corporation, the United Fruit Corporation 194 00:11:28,120 --> 00:11:32,200 Speaker 1: literally did a divide and convert manipulation, you know, of 195 00:11:32,280 --> 00:11:35,840 Speaker 1: the ethnicity of the diverse workers that it would import 196 00:11:36,040 --> 00:11:38,280 Speaker 1: start a union. They would just bring in a different 197 00:11:38,320 --> 00:11:41,760 Speaker 1: ethnic group. They would bring in Afro Caribbeans from St. 198 00:11:41,840 --> 00:11:45,520 Speaker 1: Kitts And then when this St. Kittsians would organize the union, 199 00:11:45,559 --> 00:11:49,200 Speaker 1: they would bring in Negabay and er Indians from the 200 00:11:49,240 --> 00:11:53,000 Speaker 1: lowlands of of Panama and and break each union. So 201 00:11:53,040 --> 00:11:57,439 Speaker 1: the workers were pitted against each other into virulent racism. 202 00:11:57,520 --> 00:12:00,240 Speaker 1: And so it was just a classic divide and conquer her. 203 00:12:00,440 --> 00:12:03,120 Speaker 1: I wanted to try to figure out who is making 204 00:12:03,160 --> 00:12:05,920 Speaker 1: money off of this, because you could see it on 205 00:12:05,960 --> 00:12:10,080 Speaker 1: the banana plantation that racism was profitable. And that's what's 206 00:12:10,120 --> 00:12:14,200 Speaker 1: always interested me. Why do these cruel systems and these 207 00:12:14,240 --> 00:12:20,520 Speaker 1: irrationalities of such overwhelming cruel racism persist for so long? 208 00:12:20,880 --> 00:12:24,200 Speaker 1: And I really do think that on some level it's 209 00:12:24,280 --> 00:12:27,679 Speaker 1: because they do make money for rich people. I know 210 00:12:27,760 --> 00:12:31,040 Speaker 1: that sounds a little conspiratorial, but it isn't. It's just 211 00:12:31,160 --> 00:12:34,200 Speaker 1: the natural law. Even people who aren't rich try to 212 00:12:34,200 --> 00:12:36,160 Speaker 1: make money. You know, it's sort of more or less 213 00:12:36,160 --> 00:12:39,319 Speaker 1: any which way they can within some limits of ethics, 214 00:12:39,360 --> 00:12:41,760 Speaker 1: but a lot of the time they forget their ethics, 215 00:12:41,880 --> 00:12:46,360 Speaker 1: and so corporations more easily forget their ethics and can 216 00:12:46,400 --> 00:12:49,480 Speaker 1: do it on an industrial scale and more cruelly than 217 00:12:49,559 --> 00:12:53,200 Speaker 1: individuals can. So that's what I wanted to try to 218 00:12:53,320 --> 00:12:56,400 Speaker 1: apply to the phenomenon of the inner city. I was. 219 00:12:56,720 --> 00:12:59,160 Speaker 1: I was. I. I wanted to take up, in a sense, 220 00:12:59,240 --> 00:13:03,760 Speaker 1: my father's challenge to try to show my fellow Americans, 221 00:13:03,840 --> 00:13:07,320 Speaker 1: so to speak, um, because I am hopelessly American despite 222 00:13:07,360 --> 00:13:11,840 Speaker 1: my name, culturally and personally, and you know whatever, baseball 223 00:13:11,920 --> 00:13:15,840 Speaker 1: is my favorite sport, so um, you know how you know, 224 00:13:16,160 --> 00:13:18,240 Speaker 1: what a weird thing for someone with a French name. 225 00:13:18,600 --> 00:13:22,520 Speaker 1: So that I wanted to show that the inner city 226 00:13:22,559 --> 00:13:25,400 Speaker 1: didn't make sense and shouldn't be taken for granted. So 227 00:13:25,440 --> 00:13:28,400 Speaker 1: when you come back, I mean you obviously you start heating. 228 00:13:28,440 --> 00:13:31,840 Speaker 1: You're already living here, and you have to start insinuating 229 00:13:31,840 --> 00:13:34,719 Speaker 1: yourself into this and people are suspicious that you might 230 00:13:34,760 --> 00:13:38,960 Speaker 1: be an undercover cop. And how do you break through that? 231 00:13:39,040 --> 00:13:42,640 Speaker 1: I mean, what was it like to break through into Well, 232 00:13:42,679 --> 00:13:48,320 Speaker 1: luckily I had a very cheap, lousy car for Galaxy whatever. 233 00:13:48,360 --> 00:13:51,680 Speaker 1: It was four hundred or some you know, clunker like that, 234 00:13:52,280 --> 00:13:55,559 Speaker 1: and so it was constantly broken. So I would just 235 00:13:56,200 --> 00:13:59,079 Speaker 1: do mechanical work on it, which I didn't know how 236 00:13:59,120 --> 00:14:02,480 Speaker 1: to do, And so people would feel sorry for me 237 00:14:02,760 --> 00:14:05,840 Speaker 1: making all these mistakes and and and would come and 238 00:14:05,880 --> 00:14:09,160 Speaker 1: help me. And that was literally how I got to 239 00:14:09,280 --> 00:14:12,199 Speaker 1: meet a whole bunch of people. Right in the beginning. 240 00:14:12,520 --> 00:14:15,560 Speaker 1: The first people to befriend me were the little kids 241 00:14:15,600 --> 00:14:18,440 Speaker 1: who were playing in the street. They cross racialized boundaries 242 00:14:18,440 --> 00:14:21,560 Speaker 1: super super easily, and they're thrilled to talk to anyone 243 00:14:21,600 --> 00:14:26,160 Speaker 1: who's nice and friendly to them. So that was basically 244 00:14:26,560 --> 00:14:29,440 Speaker 1: how it began. And and then I basically just made 245 00:14:29,480 --> 00:14:33,120 Speaker 1: friends with my neighbors, and and then my wife got 246 00:14:33,120 --> 00:14:36,000 Speaker 1: pregnant and so forth. So I was just a normal 247 00:14:36,080 --> 00:14:40,120 Speaker 1: person doing what normal people do. And she was Latina, 248 00:14:40,240 --> 00:14:43,960 Speaker 1: and so basically it was easy. When I wandered off 249 00:14:44,040 --> 00:14:46,240 Speaker 1: my block, everyone thought I was a cop. You know, 250 00:14:46,280 --> 00:14:50,720 Speaker 1: New York is so huge, your your neighborhood recognition doesn't 251 00:14:50,720 --> 00:14:54,680 Speaker 1: extend much further than the block you're on. Practically, my 252 00:14:54,680 --> 00:14:56,760 Speaker 1: my son tells me not to feel guilty about it, 253 00:14:56,760 --> 00:14:59,400 Speaker 1: but I used to go to new blocks carrying my 254 00:14:59,480 --> 00:15:02,560 Speaker 1: son because then people knew that I wasn't a cop. 255 00:15:02,640 --> 00:15:05,880 Speaker 1: I was probably a white addict looking for heroin because 256 00:15:05,880 --> 00:15:08,080 Speaker 1: there were a lot of white addicts coming up. I mean, 257 00:15:08,120 --> 00:15:10,640 Speaker 1: that's a big part of the market right there. The 258 00:15:10,760 --> 00:15:13,880 Speaker 1: whites have a lot of money, and and so that 259 00:15:14,040 --> 00:15:16,880 Speaker 1: was what in some sense drove the market, because that 260 00:15:16,960 --> 00:15:19,400 Speaker 1: was outside money coming in, you know. And then I 261 00:15:19,480 --> 00:15:22,600 Speaker 1: would explain, no, I'm not I'm not actually using I'm 262 00:15:22,640 --> 00:15:25,000 Speaker 1: just just hanging out here. I live around the corner 263 00:15:25,080 --> 00:15:27,960 Speaker 1: and I wanted to see how things were. It was 264 00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:31,480 Speaker 1: the moment of crack coming in, which was first the 265 00:15:32,080 --> 00:15:36,880 Speaker 1: basically it's that story of of the perversity of enforcements. 266 00:15:36,920 --> 00:15:40,280 Speaker 1: So it was the US War on Drugs in Florida, 267 00:15:40,720 --> 00:15:44,840 Speaker 1: you know, was targeting marijuana. So the cartels in the 268 00:15:44,920 --> 00:15:48,880 Speaker 1: various importers in the Caribbean and and Colombian and other 269 00:15:48,920 --> 00:15:53,960 Speaker 1: parts of Latin America shift to more profitable, lower volume product, 270 00:15:53,960 --> 00:15:56,400 Speaker 1: which was cocaine, which is what they the other thing 271 00:15:56,480 --> 00:15:58,600 Speaker 1: they produced, which is what I mean. You were looking 272 00:15:58,640 --> 00:16:00,240 Speaker 1: for an apartment in New York, Did you want to 273 00:16:00,240 --> 00:16:03,160 Speaker 1: live in that neighborhood? You know? On the on? Oh yeah, yeah. 274 00:16:03,200 --> 00:16:07,120 Speaker 1: So I had already experienced as an ethnographer by then, 275 00:16:07,480 --> 00:16:11,120 Speaker 1: having worked in in Nicaragua and the Mosquitia, basically an 276 00:16:11,160 --> 00:16:16,480 Speaker 1: indigenous territories, and so I knew that the first thing 277 00:16:16,560 --> 00:16:19,680 Speaker 1: I had to do was become normal. And the only 278 00:16:19,720 --> 00:16:23,960 Speaker 1: way to become normal is to live where you're gonna work. Right. 279 00:16:23,960 --> 00:16:25,680 Speaker 1: But but a question I'm asking is, could you just 280 00:16:25,720 --> 00:16:28,240 Speaker 1: have easily landed up in Washington Heights, which was maybe 281 00:16:28,240 --> 00:16:31,440 Speaker 1: a more Dominican neighborhood, or in or in Central Harlem, 282 00:16:31,560 --> 00:16:34,400 Speaker 1: or more black neighborhood, that sort of thing. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 283 00:16:34,440 --> 00:16:37,560 Speaker 1: There was one other person doing ethnography at the exact 284 00:16:37,600 --> 00:16:40,320 Speaker 1: same a little bit even before me, at the exact 285 00:16:40,320 --> 00:16:43,320 Speaker 1: same time. He was a friend of mine, Terry Williams, 286 00:16:43,520 --> 00:16:46,120 Speaker 1: who's a sociologist. He's I think he's now at the 287 00:16:46,120 --> 00:16:50,960 Speaker 1: New School, and he was right in Washington Heights. He 288 00:16:51,080 --> 00:16:54,040 Speaker 1: was he was married at that time to a Dominican woman. So, 289 00:16:54,160 --> 00:16:57,800 Speaker 1: and that the whole structure of the takeover from the 290 00:16:57,840 --> 00:17:02,960 Speaker 1: traditional Italian mafia was was a Dominican takeover. So that's 291 00:17:03,000 --> 00:17:05,639 Speaker 1: why it hit that part of the city, which was 292 00:17:05,680 --> 00:17:08,240 Speaker 1: their neighborhood. Did you think you're gonna land up spending 293 00:17:08,280 --> 00:17:13,080 Speaker 1: seven years, No, no, no, no, not at all. That's 294 00:17:13,160 --> 00:17:16,439 Speaker 1: because it was too much fun and it's so hard 295 00:17:16,560 --> 00:17:20,480 Speaker 1: to write, right, So you procrastinate on your writing by 296 00:17:20,520 --> 00:17:22,560 Speaker 1: saying I need to do more field work. That's the 297 00:17:22,920 --> 00:17:27,280 Speaker 1: anthropological sin. And you know it's not exactly laziness, because 298 00:17:27,359 --> 00:17:30,640 Speaker 1: you also have to take fieldwork notes. If you don't 299 00:17:30,720 --> 00:17:34,560 Speaker 1: take fieldwork notes when you do your you know, participant 300 00:17:34,560 --> 00:17:38,000 Speaker 1: obposit what we call we call it participant observation ethnography, 301 00:17:39,560 --> 00:17:42,359 Speaker 1: you your mind ends up playing tricks on you. So 302 00:17:42,440 --> 00:17:46,560 Speaker 1: I did have the discipline to take notes because I 303 00:17:46,640 --> 00:17:49,280 Speaker 1: sort of enjoyed writing a diary. So I just turned 304 00:17:49,320 --> 00:17:53,119 Speaker 1: them into a more sort of social science description of 305 00:17:53,160 --> 00:17:56,879 Speaker 1: my daily life, and then around specific themes. And you 306 00:17:56,920 --> 00:17:59,600 Speaker 1: carried a tape recorder. Yeah, yeah, you know. I've always 307 00:17:59,640 --> 00:18:05,000 Speaker 1: found popular language gorgeous and and exciting and poetic. And 308 00:18:05,080 --> 00:18:09,160 Speaker 1: the guys I happened to make become best friends with 309 00:18:09,600 --> 00:18:14,600 Speaker 1: were street geniuses, and they we became close friends. If 310 00:18:14,640 --> 00:18:16,760 Speaker 1: they had grown up in another neighborhood, they would have 311 00:18:16,760 --> 00:18:20,800 Speaker 1: been professors like me, or doctors or horrible corporate executives. 312 00:18:20,840 --> 00:18:23,879 Speaker 1: But I was lucky. I mean, this was also you forget, 313 00:18:23,960 --> 00:18:26,840 Speaker 1: this was the moment of hip hop, and we we 314 00:18:26,880 --> 00:18:29,359 Speaker 1: didn't even know what we were seeing, but it was. 315 00:18:30,200 --> 00:18:33,520 Speaker 1: It was just spectacularly beautiful and so much energy. People 316 00:18:33,560 --> 00:18:37,240 Speaker 1: would put up barricades, and the barricades would be huge 317 00:18:37,359 --> 00:18:42,640 Speaker 1: speakers and just start beatboxing and playing music and rapping, 318 00:18:42,880 --> 00:18:46,200 Speaker 1: and then they're you know, there'd be duels that the contests, 319 00:18:46,280 --> 00:18:49,119 Speaker 1: and and you'd be watching it and and it was 320 00:18:49,320 --> 00:18:54,040 Speaker 1: just so exciting. We'll be talking more after we hear 321 00:18:54,080 --> 00:19:09,440 Speaker 1: this ADM. Well, fully, let me ask you what I mean. 322 00:19:09,480 --> 00:19:11,320 Speaker 1: You can see as I read the book In Search 323 00:19:11,359 --> 00:19:13,800 Speaker 1: of Respect and other things you've written, you know, you're 324 00:19:13,920 --> 00:19:18,160 Speaker 1: basically willing to delve into all sorts of challenging areas. 325 00:19:18,240 --> 00:19:21,879 Speaker 1: But I wonder if there were some questions you never pursued, 326 00:19:22,040 --> 00:19:26,760 Speaker 1: for example, not asking about the sources of cocaine higher 327 00:19:26,840 --> 00:19:29,360 Speaker 1: up to chain, the sorts of things that an undercover 328 00:19:29,400 --> 00:19:31,320 Speaker 1: agent might want to find out with, Like, were there 329 00:19:31,400 --> 00:19:35,560 Speaker 1: certain things you just avoided wanting to know absolutely? You know, 330 00:19:35,600 --> 00:19:39,800 Speaker 1: I was close enough even to the head guy, you know, 331 00:19:39,920 --> 00:19:43,240 Speaker 1: I could I could ask Ray about that. But Ray 332 00:19:43,359 --> 00:19:46,359 Speaker 1: just bought it from a Dominican, so he didn't really 333 00:19:46,400 --> 00:19:50,720 Speaker 1: know that much more. I knew that much, but it 334 00:19:50,760 --> 00:19:55,080 Speaker 1: was just impossible. I never talked to a kilo supplier, 335 00:19:55,280 --> 00:19:57,240 Speaker 1: you know, he would buy a kilo or a half 336 00:19:57,240 --> 00:20:00,159 Speaker 1: a kilo. But that was that was the high is 337 00:20:00,680 --> 00:20:03,439 Speaker 1: that I got right? But fully, do you describe a 338 00:20:03,560 --> 00:20:08,600 Speaker 1: moment in that book where you accidentally dishim not realizing 339 00:20:08,640 --> 00:20:12,560 Speaker 1: that he is illiterate, and he you start I mean, 340 00:20:12,640 --> 00:20:15,280 Speaker 1: you describe moments in the book where you're a little 341 00:20:15,280 --> 00:20:18,399 Speaker 1: worried that he might in the wrong mood, wake up 342 00:20:18,400 --> 00:20:20,399 Speaker 1: on the wrong side of the bed and decide he 343 00:20:20,440 --> 00:20:23,359 Speaker 1: wants to hurt you or kill you. And there are 344 00:20:23,359 --> 00:20:25,399 Speaker 1: some other moments in the book where you find some 345 00:20:25,480 --> 00:20:28,719 Speaker 1: situations there's gunshots going around all the time, and there 346 00:20:28,760 --> 00:20:32,240 Speaker 1: are sometimes straight bullets, and there are bystanders getting killed, 347 00:20:32,320 --> 00:20:35,199 Speaker 1: and there's different gangs, and there's people who are not 348 00:20:35,320 --> 00:20:37,880 Speaker 1: part of the world that's accepted you are one step removed, 349 00:20:37,880 --> 00:20:40,560 Speaker 1: who don't trust you. I mean, weren't you living with 350 00:20:40,600 --> 00:20:43,880 Speaker 1: an incredibly high level of anxiety and sometimes fear while 351 00:20:43,920 --> 00:20:47,159 Speaker 1: you're doing this research? Sort of yes and no, in 352 00:20:47,200 --> 00:20:50,879 Speaker 1: the sense that when it's certainly now when I look 353 00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:54,920 Speaker 1: back at the statistics, you can see the graph they 354 00:20:55,000 --> 00:20:58,760 Speaker 1: just go through the roof right. Homicide, Yeah, yeah, shooting, 355 00:20:58,920 --> 00:21:02,800 Speaker 1: shootings and homicide sides, especially at in the middle of 356 00:21:02,800 --> 00:21:06,480 Speaker 1: my field work, you know, around they just spike up. 357 00:21:07,119 --> 00:21:09,439 Speaker 1: I mean, homicides is what they keep the best records 358 00:21:09,480 --> 00:21:12,240 Speaker 1: on because there's a body they can count tragically. But 359 00:21:12,560 --> 00:21:15,400 Speaker 1: so that was all around, and I still have all 360 00:21:15,440 --> 00:21:19,560 Speaker 1: my tape recordings and they're just riddled with gunshots. So 361 00:21:19,600 --> 00:21:23,440 Speaker 1: it wasn't like it was necessarily every night, but it 362 00:21:23,520 --> 00:21:28,520 Speaker 1: was almost every night that there would be, if not close, gunshots, 363 00:21:28,560 --> 00:21:32,040 Speaker 1: at least they would be audible from five six, you know, 364 00:21:32,480 --> 00:21:37,640 Speaker 1: blocks away. So that was bad, but it was I mean, 365 00:21:37,680 --> 00:21:41,439 Speaker 1: that's the nature, I guess of life. You naturalize it. Plus, 366 00:21:41,520 --> 00:21:45,400 Speaker 1: the guys I hung out with scared people, so they 367 00:21:45,440 --> 00:21:50,480 Speaker 1: were protecting me. And they didn't go out alone either. 368 00:21:50,560 --> 00:21:52,840 Speaker 1: They didn't like to go out alone either, even though 369 00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:55,879 Speaker 1: they knew how to fight super well and had fought 370 00:21:55,920 --> 00:21:58,440 Speaker 1: all their lives. But they would go out in pairs 371 00:21:58,640 --> 00:22:02,280 Speaker 1: and they would never, you know, walk the money home alone. 372 00:22:02,359 --> 00:22:04,920 Speaker 1: They would walk with each other and and take care 373 00:22:04,920 --> 00:22:06,920 Speaker 1: of each other. Well. You know, I was curious because 374 00:22:06,920 --> 00:22:09,760 Speaker 1: I noticed that in your second research project, which is 375 00:22:09,800 --> 00:22:14,040 Speaker 1: from six where you're doing a project with San Francisco 376 00:22:14,359 --> 00:22:17,760 Speaker 1: homeless heroin addicts, and in that case you have a 377 00:22:17,800 --> 00:22:21,159 Speaker 1: partner working with you, a graduate students photographer. And then 378 00:22:21,160 --> 00:22:23,639 Speaker 1: when you moved to Philadelphia and you spend over a 379 00:22:23,720 --> 00:22:26,840 Speaker 1: decade once again in a Puerto Rican community and a 380 00:22:26,920 --> 00:22:29,760 Speaker 1: drug dealing community there, you seem to be part of 381 00:22:29,800 --> 00:22:32,280 Speaker 1: a team. And I'm wondering that in terms of your 382 00:22:32,280 --> 00:22:35,439 Speaker 1: own evolution, did you find as you got older that 383 00:22:35,480 --> 00:22:38,359 Speaker 1: you felt more comfortable sort of managing the risk, or 384 00:22:38,400 --> 00:22:40,919 Speaker 1: that that that that one of the advantages of working 385 00:22:40,960 --> 00:22:44,040 Speaker 1: with a second person or a team was to reduce 386 00:22:44,080 --> 00:22:49,000 Speaker 1: that sense of vulnerability. That's certainly true. Objectively, you're so 387 00:22:49,119 --> 00:22:53,000 Speaker 1: called positionality. What you look like to people, that's what 388 00:22:53,040 --> 00:22:56,919 Speaker 1: we call positionality and anthropology. It affects what you have 389 00:22:57,040 --> 00:23:00,320 Speaker 1: access to and how people see you. So and I 390 00:23:00,359 --> 00:23:02,919 Speaker 1: was starting the field work initially. I think I was 391 00:23:02,960 --> 00:23:06,840 Speaker 1: twenty four or twenty five, twenty six at the time, 392 00:23:07,160 --> 00:23:09,520 Speaker 1: and I have a baby face, so people don't take 393 00:23:09,560 --> 00:23:12,320 Speaker 1: you serious. You know, you can only be up to 394 00:23:12,400 --> 00:23:16,080 Speaker 1: no good if you're that age, basically, and so older 395 00:23:16,119 --> 00:23:18,760 Speaker 1: people wouldn't talk to me that much or take me 396 00:23:18,840 --> 00:23:22,880 Speaker 1: that seriously. Now you know, as a frankly a sixty 397 00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:26,200 Speaker 1: five year old, people treat me with respect because I'm 398 00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:30,800 Speaker 1: an elderly person who is polite and friendly and and 399 00:23:30,800 --> 00:23:34,600 Speaker 1: and and a professor. So people you know, say, oh, 400 00:23:34,640 --> 00:23:38,080 Speaker 1: professor and so forth, and they're they're they're nice to me. 401 00:23:38,400 --> 00:23:41,520 Speaker 1: So you get access to different things. That next project, 402 00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:46,080 Speaker 1: Righteous Dope Fiend was precisely because I hadn't been able 403 00:23:46,160 --> 00:23:51,080 Speaker 1: to face and deal with whatever the meaning of the 404 00:23:51,200 --> 00:23:55,879 Speaker 1: term addiction is. And and that was because my best 405 00:23:55,960 --> 00:24:00,840 Speaker 1: friends were basically dealing with chronic consumption that they couldn't control, 406 00:24:01,320 --> 00:24:04,399 Speaker 1: and and that wasn't their experience of it. Their experience 407 00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:08,440 Speaker 1: was it was of being twenty something early twenty something 408 00:24:08,520 --> 00:24:10,679 Speaker 1: year old, at the height of their life, you know, 409 00:24:10,840 --> 00:24:14,639 Speaker 1: making all kinds of money, selling drugs, having all kinds 410 00:24:14,680 --> 00:24:18,080 Speaker 1: of of people think they were important and so forth. 411 00:24:18,359 --> 00:24:21,159 Speaker 1: And so I coded my notes and I was going 412 00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:24,600 Speaker 1: to write a chapter of it on it on quote 413 00:24:24,640 --> 00:24:27,919 Speaker 1: unquote addiction in in in Search of Respect, and just 414 00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:29,959 Speaker 1: cut it out of the book because I didn't know 415 00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:33,080 Speaker 1: how to deal with it. So Righteous Dope find is 416 00:24:33,119 --> 00:24:37,320 Speaker 1: about the experience of the buyers rather than the sellers, 417 00:24:37,320 --> 00:24:40,280 Speaker 1: even though many of the sellers can't control their habit 418 00:24:40,480 --> 00:24:43,920 Speaker 1: and get destroyed by what they're selling. And so that 419 00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:48,800 Speaker 1: was why I went to people that basically were completely homeless, 420 00:24:48,840 --> 00:24:53,640 Speaker 1: cut off from their families, outcast pariah's who were injecting 421 00:24:54,119 --> 00:24:57,840 Speaker 1: heroine and smoking crack. Quite a bit older, right, yeah, 422 00:24:57,840 --> 00:24:59,640 Speaker 1: they were a little bit. They were about ten years 423 00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:02,919 Speaker 1: older than me on average, because that was the original 424 00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:06,600 Speaker 1: generation that got swept off their feet by crack. I mean, 425 00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:09,960 Speaker 1: my generation was the generation selling it to them, and 426 00:25:10,160 --> 00:25:14,000 Speaker 1: they were the heroin injectors that then, wow, all of 427 00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:16,679 Speaker 1: a sudden, the price of cocaine has gone to almost nothing, 428 00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:19,520 Speaker 1: started injecting powder cocaine, and then the next thing they 429 00:25:19,560 --> 00:25:22,159 Speaker 1: knew there was this new product even more fun than 430 00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:25,800 Speaker 1: powder cocaine, which was the same product but converted into 431 00:25:25,880 --> 00:25:28,480 Speaker 1: a base form that you can smoke. That they considered 432 00:25:28,520 --> 00:25:32,200 Speaker 1: as much fun as injecting cocaine, but easier to do 433 00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:35,600 Speaker 1: because it's complicated and it hurts to, you know, pierce 434 00:25:35,640 --> 00:25:37,720 Speaker 1: your veins. There's a limited number of times that you 435 00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:40,040 Speaker 1: can inject, right. But I mean also in terms of 436 00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:42,119 Speaker 1: the impact on the brain and the feeling of it, 437 00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:45,280 Speaker 1: right that basically smoking a substance or injecting it, the 438 00:25:45,359 --> 00:25:48,800 Speaker 1: quickness of the onset is roughly the same. Actually, according 439 00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:51,720 Speaker 1: to my colleagues at all the medical schools where I've taught, 440 00:25:52,119 --> 00:25:56,320 Speaker 1: it's actually even faster when you inhale, because the the 441 00:25:56,440 --> 00:26:00,240 Speaker 1: vascular system that goes from your lungs to your rain 442 00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:04,199 Speaker 1: is faster than the one that travels through your veins. 443 00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:06,240 Speaker 1: It has to go through your heart and then out 444 00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:08,440 Speaker 1: again and so forth or wherever it goes. But it's 445 00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:10,879 Speaker 1: a matter of a few seconds of difference often times, 446 00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:13,960 Speaker 1: right between smoking or injecting. Right. But that's what the 447 00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:17,399 Speaker 1: whole fun is. That's the problem. Right, that's what you 448 00:26:17,520 --> 00:26:20,360 Speaker 1: become obsessed with when you can't control it and you're 449 00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:25,240 Speaker 1: just craving that. Yeah, and that's that industrialization of drugs. 450 00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:29,560 Speaker 1: That is the tragedy of prohibition, is that what happens 451 00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:32,360 Speaker 1: is the drug goes into its most you know, it's 452 00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:36,320 Speaker 1: most sort of dangerous and toxic form, because the milder 453 00:26:36,400 --> 00:26:40,000 Speaker 1: forms or whatever beer compared to alcohol, you know, are 454 00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:44,400 Speaker 1: considerably less dangerous. When they get integrated culturally, people learn 455 00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:47,240 Speaker 1: how to control them. There's an article that I've quoted 456 00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:49,080 Speaker 1: on a few of these episodes. It was a classic 457 00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:52,560 Speaker 1: piece by Joe Westermeyer in the Archives of General Psychiatry 458 00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:55,679 Speaker 1: called the pro Heroin Effects of Antiopium Laws, and it 459 00:26:55,760 --> 00:27:01,000 Speaker 1: just showed the transition from smokable, eatable, drinkable opium to heroin. 460 00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:03,560 Speaker 1: You know, for all the reasons that it's more discreet, 461 00:27:03,600 --> 00:27:06,520 Speaker 1: it's easier to traffic, it's easier to hide, it doesn't 462 00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:09,359 Speaker 1: smell as much, and similing with alcohol prohibition, you see 463 00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:11,840 Speaker 1: the shift from beer and wine to hard liquor, both 464 00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:14,480 Speaker 1: bootleg liquor and smuggled hard liquor. So, you know, that 465 00:27:14,600 --> 00:27:17,399 Speaker 1: does seem to be a general phenomenon in terms of 466 00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:20,840 Speaker 1: this transition. But you know, Philip, the tension that is 467 00:27:20,880 --> 00:27:25,719 Speaker 1: just palpable through everything you write, right, is that on 468 00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:31,200 Speaker 1: the one hand, you're befriending these people involved in selling 469 00:27:31,280 --> 00:27:34,560 Speaker 1: drugs and Philly or Ease Tarlem or in the drug 470 00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:37,719 Speaker 1: using you know, hero injecting scene in San Francisco, and 471 00:27:37,760 --> 00:27:41,320 Speaker 1: you're befriending them, you're getting to know them. You're also 472 00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:46,479 Speaker 1: becoming aware that they're engaged in types of behavior and 473 00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:51,640 Speaker 1: ways of thinking which you are almost anybody would find 474 00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:59,400 Speaker 1: absolutely reprehensible. They're hurting people, they're killing people. They're racist, 475 00:27:59,480 --> 00:28:03,040 Speaker 1: they're mass soogynist, they're involved in gang rape. I mean, 476 00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:05,679 Speaker 1: these are the people you're hanging out with, and I 477 00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:07,320 Speaker 1: can hear you sort of you know, but these are 478 00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:09,720 Speaker 1: your friends. And then there's this other part of you 479 00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:12,080 Speaker 1: which is saying, but let's look at this from a 480 00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:16,600 Speaker 1: moral structural perspective. Let's understand the conditions that can lead 481 00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:20,959 Speaker 1: people to be this way, and that tension going back 482 00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:24,359 Speaker 1: and forth. If you could just expound a bit on 483 00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:27,959 Speaker 1: what it was like living with that tension and encountering 484 00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:30,440 Speaker 1: when you realize that the people you see as your 485 00:28:30,440 --> 00:28:33,520 Speaker 1: friends kind of would joke about gang rape. That was 486 00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:36,920 Speaker 1: the worst track. You know, the worst violence was was 487 00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:40,320 Speaker 1: was obviously the gang rape, and that was the hardest 488 00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:42,680 Speaker 1: to deal with. They would argue with me about it, 489 00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:46,000 Speaker 1: that that's the way it manifested. By the time they 490 00:28:46,080 --> 00:28:51,360 Speaker 1: started telling me about gang rape, we were already close friends. 491 00:28:51,800 --> 00:28:55,520 Speaker 1: I knew them as human beings, and I could tell 492 00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:57,920 Speaker 1: them what I thought. They didn't call it rape. They 493 00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:01,880 Speaker 1: didn't conceive of it that way. That's the perversity of 494 00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:05,080 Speaker 1: rape is. They were saying, that's what the girl deserved 495 00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:08,080 Speaker 1: because she was hanging out with us, and girls shouldn't 496 00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:12,600 Speaker 1: be out at at night, the classic language of rapists 497 00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:16,360 Speaker 1: and hyper masculinity. So I would argue with them, and 498 00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:20,840 Speaker 1: it was interesting because the guy I called Primo, who's 499 00:29:20,960 --> 00:29:23,080 Speaker 1: who I still stay in touch with, who was really 500 00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:27,560 Speaker 1: my best friend, he came around and he started feeling 501 00:29:27,560 --> 00:29:31,640 Speaker 1: guilty about it. But the guy called Caesar would just 502 00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:34,840 Speaker 1: argue back at me. And I didn't want to sweep 503 00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:37,840 Speaker 1: it under the rug. I wanted to confront it, even 504 00:29:37,880 --> 00:29:40,200 Speaker 1: though it's hard for a man to write about that, 505 00:29:40,560 --> 00:29:42,960 Speaker 1: and it was very hard for me to get women 506 00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:46,120 Speaker 1: to trust me enough to tell those stories. And so 507 00:29:46,560 --> 00:29:50,320 Speaker 1: I write about it, mostly from the perspective of the perpetrators. 508 00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:54,240 Speaker 1: This this other moment, I think we're the filu call Caesar, right, 509 00:29:54,320 --> 00:29:56,960 Speaker 1: it's just kind of joking around, having beat up on 510 00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:00,120 Speaker 1: a kid who who you know, probably a cerebral palsy, 511 00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:02,760 Speaker 1: and he's telling you the story. It doesn't realize that 512 00:30:02,840 --> 00:30:05,080 Speaker 1: this is just after you'd found out that your own 513 00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:07,080 Speaker 1: son had been diagnosed with that. And you say in 514 00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:09,560 Speaker 1: the book like, I could never forgive him for this, 515 00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:12,880 Speaker 1: and do you actually forgive him or oh, yeah, yeah, 516 00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:16,240 Speaker 1: that makes me sad, yeah, remembering that moment. Yeah, because 517 00:30:16,320 --> 00:30:19,880 Speaker 1: my my wonderful son, who's great, he was born with 518 00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:22,960 Speaker 1: cerebral palsy and it got diagnosed in a free clinic 519 00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:26,800 Speaker 1: in East Harlem. My wife and I were just completely 520 00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:30,080 Speaker 1: freaked out and and we couldn't tell yet cerebral palsy 521 00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:33,440 Speaker 1: because he was a happy baby. He just didn't crawl 522 00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:36,360 Speaker 1: and it made him a lot easier baby, and it 523 00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:39,920 Speaker 1: made him much more sociable. But Caesar was one of 524 00:30:39,960 --> 00:30:43,959 Speaker 1: the jerk bullies who was beating up the kids with 525 00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:47,680 Speaker 1: special needs at his school, and so that really really 526 00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:51,440 Speaker 1: made me angry a sad basically, but yet yet on 527 00:30:51,520 --> 00:30:55,040 Speaker 1: some level, you still regarded them as friends, and you 528 00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:57,400 Speaker 1: invited them with to your mother's home on the Upper 529 00:30:57,400 --> 00:31:01,360 Speaker 1: East Side, and Trimo was my friend. Caesar I would 530 00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:07,440 Speaker 1: tolerate because I recognized his genius and there were dimensions 531 00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:11,120 Speaker 1: to his humanity. He was also an abused child. He 532 00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:13,959 Speaker 1: had been in special needs classes all his life, so 533 00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:18,040 Speaker 1: that was part of what threw him into that perverse 534 00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:21,640 Speaker 1: hierarchy of beating on the other kids with special needs 535 00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:24,280 Speaker 1: who were lower on the totem pole than him or 536 00:31:24,320 --> 00:31:26,680 Speaker 1: more visible than him. And he was raised by a 537 00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:30,160 Speaker 1: grandmother who beat the crap out of him, and so 538 00:31:30,480 --> 00:31:33,320 Speaker 1: he had a hard life. So I could understand and 539 00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:37,120 Speaker 1: set him in context at the same time. And they 540 00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:40,280 Speaker 1: were talking so honestly to me. They were pouring out 541 00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:43,200 Speaker 1: their lives, you know, and sometimes we would cry so 542 00:31:43,520 --> 00:31:46,160 Speaker 1: that I think I probably censored that out because for 543 00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:50,520 Speaker 1: my own hyper masculinity. Right, But that is the nature 544 00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:53,840 Speaker 1: of the contradictions, right. A victim can be a perpetrator, 545 00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:56,080 Speaker 1: and a perpetrator can be a victim, and that's the 546 00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:59,640 Speaker 1: complexity of it, and they often go together. When you 547 00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:01,920 Speaker 1: go to San Francistico, then you moved to Philadelphia, take 548 00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:04,720 Speaker 1: the job in City, Pennsylvania, and you get involved right 549 00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:07,320 Speaker 1: in studying this community of drug dealers, Puerto Rican drug 550 00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:11,680 Speaker 1: dealers in Philadelphia, And were there significant differences between what 551 00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:14,760 Speaker 1: you saw in Philadelphia and which you saw in East Tarlem. 552 00:32:14,800 --> 00:32:17,600 Speaker 1: That may have just been about the change that one 553 00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:20,920 Speaker 1: that this was now twenty years later, or that it 554 00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:25,160 Speaker 1: was the locality, or that's exactly what I wanted to study. Yeah, yeah, no, 555 00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:28,040 Speaker 1: you've what what you're asking was the reason, and that 556 00:32:28,120 --> 00:32:30,680 Speaker 1: was the exact reason for the project. I had been 557 00:32:30,720 --> 00:32:34,040 Speaker 1: away for twenty years, and I wanted to see how 558 00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:36,040 Speaker 1: it changed, and I wanted to go to a very 559 00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:41,200 Speaker 1: similar neighborhood. The Puerto Rican neighborhood of Philadelphia is just 560 00:32:41,320 --> 00:32:46,440 Speaker 1: a poorer, even poorer version than the poorest sections of 561 00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:49,280 Speaker 1: the Puerto Rican neighborhood in in New York City. It's 562 00:32:49,320 --> 00:32:53,479 Speaker 1: smaller as a proportion of the city, has less political power, 563 00:32:53,880 --> 00:32:57,800 Speaker 1: and it's a more recent rural migration. But it's also 564 00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:02,360 Speaker 1: the drug clear in ground for retail sales, and it's 565 00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:05,840 Speaker 1: the most hyper policed neighborhood or one of the most 566 00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:09,280 Speaker 1: hyper police neighborhoods, because police tend to be even more 567 00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:14,360 Speaker 1: racist against more segregated African American neighborhoods and more Puerto 568 00:33:14,440 --> 00:33:18,000 Speaker 1: Ricans are rainbow colors, so that the white customers have 569 00:33:18,040 --> 00:33:21,360 Speaker 1: a much easier time coming into Puerto Rican neighborhoods. They're 570 00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:26,000 Speaker 1: ferociously racist too, because they're just normal, tragically normal Americans, 571 00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:29,120 Speaker 1: which means they're racist. Both would get beaten up when 572 00:33:29,120 --> 00:33:31,640 Speaker 1: they went into black neighborhoods to buy drugs, because people 573 00:33:31,680 --> 00:33:34,760 Speaker 1: don't want a white guy breaking into cars on on 574 00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:36,920 Speaker 1: his way into your neighborhood to buy drugs from the 575 00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:39,960 Speaker 1: local sellers in your neighborhood. They were also racist and 576 00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:43,520 Speaker 1: didn't like going in those neighborhoods. So they they could 577 00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:47,840 Speaker 1: deal a little bit more, and they could also pass slightly. 578 00:33:48,200 --> 00:33:52,640 Speaker 1: They weren't harassed as much by the local population that 579 00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:55,760 Speaker 1: was angry about the drug dealing and and that it 580 00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:59,840 Speaker 1: didn't want people burglarizing on their way to get drugs. 581 00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:02,840 Speaker 1: You know, you describe I mean this intense I don't 582 00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:05,040 Speaker 1: know if you want to call it racism or ethnic 583 00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:08,520 Speaker 1: hostility between the Puerto Ricans and the blacks, or between 584 00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:10,840 Speaker 1: the Puerto Ricans and the Mexicans, and as well as 585 00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:13,799 Speaker 1: between the between all of them and the whites. Right, 586 00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:16,440 Speaker 1: And you also describe this thing where where you're talking 587 00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:18,800 Speaker 1: to them and you're saying, don't you realize this is 588 00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:21,640 Speaker 1: the old pattern, just like you saw in Central America 589 00:34:21,719 --> 00:34:25,120 Speaker 1: of the powerful playing marginalized groups off against one another, 590 00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:26,680 Speaker 1: and they kind of look at you and barely know 591 00:34:26,719 --> 00:34:29,480 Speaker 1: what you're talking about. Right. And the same thing you 592 00:34:29,520 --> 00:34:32,960 Speaker 1: describe in looking at a homeless heroin addics in San Francisco, Right, 593 00:34:33,040 --> 00:34:36,879 Speaker 1: this intense kind of interracial racism, right, blacks and white 594 00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:40,160 Speaker 1: white splacks and all of that sort of stuff. I mean, 595 00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:43,480 Speaker 1: you put it in a structural context, But when you're 596 00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:45,719 Speaker 1: looking at them and these are once again your friends 597 00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:50,440 Speaker 1: expressing these hyper bigoted racist views, how do you deal 598 00:34:50,480 --> 00:34:52,640 Speaker 1: with that? Is it just in the context? I mean, 599 00:34:52,719 --> 00:34:56,480 Speaker 1: they're obviously expressing things that you would never find acceptable 600 00:34:56,840 --> 00:34:59,200 Speaker 1: if being expressed by people who came from the middle 601 00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:02,600 Speaker 1: class background, came from the group that should technically theoretically 602 00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:06,759 Speaker 1: no better, right. Right. And you know it was precisely 603 00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:10,799 Speaker 1: against Caesar that when I was explaining that to him, 604 00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:14,440 Speaker 1: the dividing conquer thing, and how he was just naively 605 00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:20,759 Speaker 1: reproducing racism to his own detriment, he completely understood it 606 00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:24,120 Speaker 1: and then started making fun of it, and I put 607 00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:28,920 Speaker 1: fun of me for being you know what. His critique as, oh, Philippe, 608 00:35:29,480 --> 00:35:33,560 Speaker 1: you make us sound like such sensitive crack dealers. So 609 00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:36,839 Speaker 1: so he was. And then and then he goes, I'm 610 00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:39,200 Speaker 1: not sensitive at all, I'm tough. And so he just 611 00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:42,520 Speaker 1: went off on a riff like that, which I had 612 00:35:42,600 --> 00:35:45,880 Speaker 1: to to to counter my argument in some sense. But 613 00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:50,000 Speaker 1: at the same time he's also just highlighting it and 614 00:35:50,080 --> 00:35:54,040 Speaker 1: in some sense making it clearer for the reader and 615 00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:57,080 Speaker 1: to some extent to himself. You know, it's sort of 616 00:35:57,080 --> 00:36:00,360 Speaker 1: a psychotherapeutic process. You know, he was made more self 617 00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:06,400 Speaker 1: aware of that idiocy in some sense. Let's take a 618 00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:21,520 Speaker 1: break here and go to an ad. It's just interesting 619 00:36:21,560 --> 00:36:24,960 Speaker 1: because when I think of most anthropologist ethnographers, right, they're 620 00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:28,000 Speaker 1: going in, they're doing interviews, they're spending some time hanging out, 621 00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:32,000 Speaker 1: but not with the intensity I think that you did. 622 00:36:32,520 --> 00:36:35,640 Speaker 1: Did you ever take any criticism from colleagues for getting 623 00:36:35,680 --> 00:36:38,520 Speaker 1: so deeply a mesh that you had lost object had 624 00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:41,600 Speaker 1: a ton a ton. Yeah, So there was an initial 625 00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:45,440 Speaker 1: reaction to the book that was criticizing it for too 626 00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:49,600 Speaker 1: much dirty laundry is coming out and then there was 627 00:36:49,680 --> 00:36:52,000 Speaker 1: a set of readers who said, no, that's not true. 628 00:36:52,040 --> 00:36:54,440 Speaker 1: I'm from the neighborhood. This needs to be talked about. 629 00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:57,560 Speaker 1: So there were people defending me, and I was worried. 630 00:36:57,640 --> 00:37:00,719 Speaker 1: I didn't know if I had done it in a way. 631 00:37:00,880 --> 00:37:04,000 Speaker 1: Maybe America was too racist for this book to present 632 00:37:04,040 --> 00:37:08,040 Speaker 1: all this material. But in fact, what I see now 633 00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:11,120 Speaker 1: over time is the and and it disappoints me to 634 00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:14,319 Speaker 1: some extent is the only professors who use my book 635 00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:17,839 Speaker 1: are progressive professors. It doesn't get used by the right wing. 636 00:37:17,880 --> 00:37:20,560 Speaker 1: They can't stand the book. They can see that the 637 00:37:20,600 --> 00:37:24,840 Speaker 1: book is against racism. So so it's it did quote 638 00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:28,000 Speaker 1: unquote stand the test of time in that sense. But 639 00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:31,000 Speaker 1: I was worried about it. And that is the worry. 640 00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:33,480 Speaker 1: That is the difficulty of ethnography. You want to tell 641 00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:36,839 Speaker 1: the truth, you want to set the truth in context, 642 00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:40,080 Speaker 1: and you don't know how the reader will understand it. 643 00:37:40,120 --> 00:37:42,560 Speaker 1: You can't control the reader. You know, it's a fundamental 644 00:37:42,719 --> 00:37:46,480 Speaker 1: contradiction of ethnography, the danger of the seduction of a 645 00:37:46,520 --> 00:37:51,279 Speaker 1: pornography of violence, and and the temptation to, you know, 646 00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:54,680 Speaker 1: want to sell a best seller by doing a pornography 647 00:37:54,680 --> 00:37:57,880 Speaker 1: of violence. And and there there are some classic works 648 00:37:57,880 --> 00:38:01,040 Speaker 1: that suffer from that, and so for so that was 649 00:38:01,160 --> 00:38:05,520 Speaker 1: definitely a worry that I had and have and and 650 00:38:05,680 --> 00:38:08,680 Speaker 1: that I was trying to write. And that's why I 651 00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:12,200 Speaker 1: structured the book the way I structured it. So I 652 00:38:12,320 --> 00:38:14,960 Speaker 1: start with, you know, what I think of as the 653 00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:18,719 Speaker 1: political economy or the Marxist analysis of the book, which 654 00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:22,840 Speaker 1: is the d industrialization of the U s inner cities 655 00:38:22,920 --> 00:38:27,640 Speaker 1: that occurred after World War Two, accelerating even faster after 656 00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:31,200 Speaker 1: the end of the Korean War. That's what created the 657 00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:34,880 Speaker 1: the extraordinary levels of unemployment and left the vacuum that 658 00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:39,120 Speaker 1: got filled by the you know, narco industry. And I 659 00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:43,000 Speaker 1: also start with their accounts of having dropped out of 660 00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:46,759 Speaker 1: high school to work in the sweatshops and the factories 661 00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:50,080 Speaker 1: that were disappearing at the time, and their job, literally 662 00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:54,200 Speaker 1: one of their first jobs was to carry out the 663 00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:58,959 Speaker 1: sewing machines that were being taken away to be sent 664 00:38:59,040 --> 00:39:01,040 Speaker 1: to some other part of the world where a factory 665 00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:03,120 Speaker 1: was going to go up, or or we're being taken 666 00:39:03,160 --> 00:39:06,200 Speaker 1: for scrap metal. So that the reader could really see 667 00:39:06,239 --> 00:39:10,160 Speaker 1: those structural forces and see them getting expelled from the 668 00:39:10,239 --> 00:39:13,839 Speaker 1: labor force into the into the drug economy. I mean, 669 00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:18,440 Speaker 1: the one thing that I couldn't see ethan was mass incarceration. 670 00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:20,960 Speaker 1: And that's really interesting because this, like you say, is 671 00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:23,719 Speaker 1: the moment when you look at the curve. This is 672 00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:28,000 Speaker 1: when that you know, bell of the curve is zooming, zooming, 673 00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:31,760 Speaker 1: zooming up. And it goes from I think fifty thousand 674 00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:35,480 Speaker 1: people locked up on drug charges in to five hundred 675 00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:38,360 Speaker 1: thousand people locked up just twenty years later, and the 676 00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:41,960 Speaker 1: overall prison population. What kind of a country could do that. 677 00:39:42,040 --> 00:39:45,880 Speaker 1: It's like the stupidest thing a country could do. It's extraordinary. 678 00:39:46,040 --> 00:39:48,759 Speaker 1: But you just to go back to that thing about Philadelphia. 679 00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:51,080 Speaker 1: So you come to Philadelphia twenty years after he's tar 680 00:39:51,120 --> 00:39:54,440 Speaker 1: alam and and in terms of of the scene, I mean, 681 00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:57,560 Speaker 1: these are once again young Puerto Rican men by and large. 682 00:39:57,680 --> 00:40:00,279 Speaker 1: Two things surprise you. As one was that Moose to 683 00:40:00,320 --> 00:40:02,480 Speaker 1: the people you're hanging out with this East Harlem who 684 00:40:02,480 --> 00:40:05,799 Speaker 1: are zealing crack land up never go into prison. And 685 00:40:05,840 --> 00:40:08,399 Speaker 1: another thing that surprises you is that after you leave, 686 00:40:08,480 --> 00:40:11,280 Speaker 1: at least half of them land up getting legal jobs 687 00:40:11,280 --> 00:40:14,920 Speaker 1: for sustained periods of time. Right. But I wonder, so 688 00:40:14,960 --> 00:40:17,279 Speaker 1: now you were in Philadelphia twenty years later with a 689 00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:20,719 Speaker 1: generation of young men. What are the fundamental similarities and 690 00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:24,160 Speaker 1: differences between which you see there among the cohort you're 691 00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:26,319 Speaker 1: you're spending time with and the group that you've spent 692 00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:28,480 Speaker 1: with time Within New York in the eighties, the police 693 00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:32,879 Speaker 1: got more efficient and the system got more brutal. You 694 00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:36,879 Speaker 1: see it very clearly, even just in the families of 695 00:40:36,920 --> 00:40:40,759 Speaker 1: the sellers from East Harlem. Is that the first generation, 696 00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:43,400 Speaker 1: the guys I made friends with Primo and Caesar and 697 00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:47,040 Speaker 1: so forth, they would go in for short, very very 698 00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:51,319 Speaker 1: short stints in jail. Their kids got locked up for 699 00:40:51,360 --> 00:40:54,600 Speaker 1: a long time. What the US did was it started 700 00:40:54,680 --> 00:40:57,120 Speaker 1: revving up the sentences when you look at how the 701 00:40:57,200 --> 00:41:02,120 Speaker 1: sentencing laws operated. The judges started in forcing it, you know, 702 00:41:02,800 --> 00:41:06,439 Speaker 1: using the non discretionary laws to to to sentence even 703 00:41:06,560 --> 00:41:10,399 Speaker 1: more draconian sentences, you know, and throwing less things out 704 00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:13,920 Speaker 1: of court for the lack of evidence, because the judges 705 00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:16,560 Speaker 1: still have quite a bit of leeway even with the 706 00:41:16,760 --> 00:41:19,400 Speaker 1: rules and so forth. And American judges are for the 707 00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:23,160 Speaker 1: most part reactionary, progressive thinking you're leading out the prosecutors 708 00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:25,960 Speaker 1: in all this, the police get more efficient, yeah, well yeah, 709 00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:28,680 Speaker 1: they're even worse. But judges should know better, right, because 710 00:41:28,680 --> 00:41:31,560 Speaker 1: we trust the judges, we know the prosecutors against us. 711 00:41:31,960 --> 00:41:34,560 Speaker 1: Every now and then you get a judge who's a 712 00:41:34,560 --> 00:41:38,600 Speaker 1: decent human being, or momentarily they're decent human being, but 713 00:41:39,080 --> 00:41:41,880 Speaker 1: often they're just they just want to throw away the 714 00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:44,440 Speaker 1: key and punish. Well. It seems like when you were 715 00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:47,160 Speaker 1: talking about East Harlem gang you had numerous references to 716 00:41:47,239 --> 00:41:50,360 Speaker 1: a liberal judge who let somebody offer whatever. But in 717 00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:52,279 Speaker 1: the in the Philadelphia group, as far as I can 718 00:41:52,320 --> 00:41:54,320 Speaker 1: tell you, you don't see that as well. Philadelphia is 719 00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:58,120 Speaker 1: more is more conservative, uh than New York, and it's 720 00:41:58,160 --> 00:42:02,400 Speaker 1: a more tough, working class city with all of the 721 00:42:02,440 --> 00:42:06,719 Speaker 1: contradictions of that. So it's more ordinary America. There's no 722 00:42:07,360 --> 00:42:12,240 Speaker 1: there's no tougher rust belt, arguably than well Detroit maybe, 723 00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:16,040 Speaker 1: but barely than Philadelphia. Philadelphia, of all the large cities 724 00:42:16,080 --> 00:42:19,360 Speaker 1: in the United States, has the highest murder rates often 725 00:42:19,480 --> 00:42:22,239 Speaker 1: not not every single year, but it's always in the 726 00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:26,080 Speaker 1: very top tier of the largest cities murder rates. One 727 00:42:26,160 --> 00:42:31,920 Speaker 1: can really see what gets called the carcerol management of 728 00:42:32,080 --> 00:42:35,960 Speaker 1: inner city poverty, and carcero means both jail and prison, 729 00:42:36,200 --> 00:42:40,319 Speaker 1: all those kind and even the release with an electronic 730 00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:43,800 Speaker 1: device around your ankle that then follows you for another five, 731 00:42:43,880 --> 00:42:47,920 Speaker 1: ten years and so forth. So it's that huge expansion 732 00:42:48,160 --> 00:42:51,759 Speaker 1: of the criminal side of the of the criminal justice 733 00:42:52,239 --> 00:42:56,920 Speaker 1: process that waste its energy and money on the punishment side, 734 00:42:57,239 --> 00:43:04,400 Speaker 1: completely neglects the preventative side, and completely neglects the rehabilitation 735 00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:07,640 Speaker 1: and and and and reintegration side, which you know, other 736 00:43:07,680 --> 00:43:12,279 Speaker 1: countries aren't that way. Other wealthy countries don't mistreat their 737 00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:14,839 Speaker 1: poor the way the US does. It is not a 738 00:43:14,880 --> 00:43:17,880 Speaker 1: normal thing. Americans are clueless about this. It seems like 739 00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:19,799 Speaker 1: part of what's going on in Philadelphia is that people 740 00:43:19,840 --> 00:43:22,040 Speaker 1: are much more likely to get arrested and to get 741 00:43:22,080 --> 00:43:24,120 Speaker 1: a sent away for many years. So that sort of 742 00:43:24,160 --> 00:43:27,080 Speaker 1: disrupts things in the drug marks in Philadelphia. Yeah, there's 743 00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:31,440 Speaker 1: better technology to monitor them, right, There's all that stuff 744 00:43:31,719 --> 00:43:34,799 Speaker 1: is the use of of horrific violence and of and 745 00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:38,080 Speaker 1: of guns. Are are drug dealers even more quick to 746 00:43:38,120 --> 00:43:40,200 Speaker 1: do that in Philadelphia in the period you were there 747 00:43:40,239 --> 00:43:42,400 Speaker 1: in the last ten fifteen years than with two and 748 00:43:42,480 --> 00:43:45,320 Speaker 1: these tarlem in the late eighties early nineties. That's a 749 00:43:45,360 --> 00:43:50,360 Speaker 1: good question. I can't tell you absolutely statistically, but ethnographically, 750 00:43:50,520 --> 00:43:56,080 Speaker 1: it didn't feel that different except that I guess what 751 00:43:56,239 --> 00:44:00,880 Speaker 1: it is now is that the guns were cheap, so 752 00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:04,759 Speaker 1: there were so there's so many hot guns, guns that 753 00:44:04,800 --> 00:44:07,480 Speaker 1: have been used for a crime or murder or shooting 754 00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:11,719 Speaker 1: that get dumped in the inner city. They don't dare 755 00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:14,120 Speaker 1: hold onto it anymore because if they get caught on 756 00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:16,439 Speaker 1: another crime, they'll they'll be able to trace it back 757 00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:19,360 Speaker 1: to that gun. So they just sell it to someone 758 00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:22,760 Speaker 1: who sells guns. So the guns are actually at cheaper 759 00:44:22,800 --> 00:44:26,319 Speaker 1: than the production cost on inner city streets. And that's 760 00:44:26,360 --> 00:44:29,400 Speaker 1: a real, real, real tragedy. And it's just a recipe 761 00:44:29,440 --> 00:44:32,759 Speaker 1: for disaster. You give a teenager a gun, put a 762 00:44:32,760 --> 00:44:36,319 Speaker 1: lot of drugs and alcohol in them, and give them 763 00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:40,239 Speaker 1: some crazy money that's easy to make fast. Well, what 764 00:44:40,320 --> 00:44:42,120 Speaker 1: do you think is going to happen? But what are 765 00:44:42,120 --> 00:44:44,920 Speaker 1: the surprising things? Right? I mean, you admit surprising almost 766 00:44:44,960 --> 00:44:47,160 Speaker 1: every surprise if you look at a place like New 767 00:44:47,239 --> 00:44:50,000 Speaker 1: York and the same things happens in many other cities. 768 00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:55,600 Speaker 1: Is that homicides which peak at around over two thousand 769 00:44:55,719 --> 00:44:58,440 Speaker 1: a year in New York right just at the period 770 00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:01,520 Speaker 1: that you're sort of winding up your in the early nineties, right. 771 00:45:02,040 --> 00:45:05,040 Speaker 1: I mean, now we see homicides jumping dramatically in New 772 00:45:05,120 --> 00:45:08,160 Speaker 1: York in the last couple of years, but even so, 773 00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:11,000 Speaker 1: the number of homicides is less than a quarter what 774 00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:14,160 Speaker 1: it was back then. I think it went from homicides 775 00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:16,880 Speaker 1: in the early ninety and New York has gentrified. New 776 00:45:16,960 --> 00:45:19,239 Speaker 1: York City has gentrified. You know what is New York. 777 00:45:19,280 --> 00:45:23,759 Speaker 1: It's a global, cosmopolitan city of pure finance, capital and 778 00:45:23,840 --> 00:45:26,839 Speaker 1: just play land of the rich. It's not what it 779 00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:28,919 Speaker 1: was when we were growing up in it. You used 780 00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:32,800 Speaker 1: to phrase the moral economy of violence that crack dealers 781 00:45:32,800 --> 00:45:35,280 Speaker 1: who are better and employing the moral economy of violence, 782 00:45:35,320 --> 00:45:37,160 Speaker 1: I think, you know, turn out to be more successful. 783 00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:40,200 Speaker 1: And then you also put into a broader context of 784 00:45:40,239 --> 00:45:43,080 Speaker 1: the culture of terra and the ways in which the 785 00:45:43,160 --> 00:45:46,120 Speaker 1: violence committed by a relatively small part of the community, 786 00:45:46,239 --> 00:45:49,080 Speaker 1: typically by the crack dealers who you were getting to know, 787 00:45:49,680 --> 00:45:54,279 Speaker 1: has this humongous effect on the communities in which they're living, 788 00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:57,080 Speaker 1: the immediate communities. And I wonder if you could has 789 00:45:57,120 --> 00:46:00,440 Speaker 1: the moral economy of violence changed any fundamental away When 790 00:46:00,440 --> 00:46:03,480 Speaker 1: you compare East Harlem in the nineties to Philadelphia, when 791 00:46:03,480 --> 00:46:05,719 Speaker 1: you think more broadly about what's going on, or is 792 00:46:05,719 --> 00:46:08,600 Speaker 1: it still the same basic variable that operates whether you're 793 00:46:08,640 --> 00:46:11,040 Speaker 1: talking about drug dealing their cities or whether you're talking 794 00:46:11,040 --> 00:46:14,680 Speaker 1: about surviving, you know, in an incarcerated setting. Yeah, well, 795 00:46:14,680 --> 00:46:17,720 Speaker 1: thanks for asking about the moral economy of violence, because 796 00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:22,640 Speaker 1: it reminds me to shout out to my team, my colleagues, 797 00:46:22,800 --> 00:46:26,000 Speaker 1: who did more of the field work even than I did. 798 00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:29,320 Speaker 1: So we did it as a team of four people, 799 00:46:29,840 --> 00:46:34,000 Speaker 1: and two of the people, George Karen Dinos, was basically, 800 00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:37,799 Speaker 1: you know, a super super young undergraduate who lived full 801 00:46:37,800 --> 00:46:42,640 Speaker 1: time in the neighborhood. And Fernando Montero was basically the 802 00:46:42,680 --> 00:46:45,920 Speaker 1: same age as him, but had gone He was, you know, 803 00:46:46,040 --> 00:46:48,960 Speaker 1: such a genius that he'd gone through college too fast, 804 00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:52,720 Speaker 1: so he was taking some time off. And they lived 805 00:46:52,800 --> 00:46:57,080 Speaker 1: full time in the neighborhood. And they never never, hardly 806 00:46:57,120 --> 00:46:59,920 Speaker 1: ever even left the neighborhood. I paid for the apart 807 00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:02,359 Speaker 1: it's that they lived in, you know, and I had 808 00:47:02,360 --> 00:47:04,480 Speaker 1: a bed in their in their apartment, so I would 809 00:47:04,560 --> 00:47:06,960 Speaker 1: stay over and hang out a lot with them. And 810 00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:11,080 Speaker 1: then my wife, who's also an anthropologist, Lorie Hart, we 811 00:47:11,200 --> 00:47:15,120 Speaker 1: developed that concept of the moral economy of violence to 812 00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:20,280 Speaker 1: try to um understand what gets called the culture of terror, 813 00:47:20,320 --> 00:47:25,680 Speaker 1: because when you say culture of something, you no longer 814 00:47:25,760 --> 00:47:29,160 Speaker 1: have to explain it. For some reason, the word culture 815 00:47:29,239 --> 00:47:34,279 Speaker 1: becomes a mysterious black box that just everyone takes for 816 00:47:34,320 --> 00:47:38,120 Speaker 1: granted as the way things are, and has nothing to 817 00:47:38,160 --> 00:47:41,719 Speaker 1: do with structural forces, has nothing to do with complex 818 00:47:41,840 --> 00:47:44,879 Speaker 1: dynamics that need to be set in historical context. Yes, 819 00:47:44,920 --> 00:47:49,320 Speaker 1: so that the actual theoretical term that the moral economy 820 00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:53,480 Speaker 1: theory of violence that that we developed comes from. Is 821 00:47:53,560 --> 00:47:57,839 Speaker 1: this wonderful British historian E. P. Thompson he coined it 822 00:47:57,920 --> 00:48:02,120 Speaker 1: actually to refer to the bread riots at the beginning 823 00:48:02,200 --> 00:48:06,040 Speaker 1: of way back even before, when all of a sudden 824 00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:10,560 Speaker 1: people started making money off of bread, which used to 825 00:48:10,640 --> 00:48:14,080 Speaker 1: be seen as a human right to have access to 826 00:48:14,280 --> 00:48:16,640 Speaker 1: by the small farmers who were producing it back then. 827 00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:19,040 Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden capitalism comes around and 828 00:48:19,040 --> 00:48:21,520 Speaker 1: you can make money off of bread. The prices go up, 829 00:48:21,719 --> 00:48:24,680 Speaker 1: people starve when there's a bad harvest. So he would 830 00:48:24,680 --> 00:48:29,400 Speaker 1: call those moral economy riots and moral economy of violence 831 00:48:29,480 --> 00:48:32,719 Speaker 1: around the price of bread and around the development of 832 00:48:32,800 --> 00:48:36,760 Speaker 1: capitalism as a market profit making. So they were trying 833 00:48:36,800 --> 00:48:41,880 Speaker 1: to discipline the local shopkeepers into being decent people with 834 00:48:41,920 --> 00:48:45,239 Speaker 1: a sense of ethics towards their community. We wanted to 835 00:48:45,280 --> 00:48:48,920 Speaker 1: apply that to the drug dealers. The neighborhood did have 836 00:48:49,280 --> 00:48:53,640 Speaker 1: some power over the drug dealers. They could snitch on them, 837 00:48:53,680 --> 00:48:57,000 Speaker 1: they could inform on the police on them, and they did. 838 00:48:57,560 --> 00:49:00,719 Speaker 1: And so the drug dealers, no matter how up they were, 839 00:49:00,800 --> 00:49:06,719 Speaker 1: were terrified of offending the local population too much so 840 00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:10,240 Speaker 1: that people would get too outraged and would no longer 841 00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:14,680 Speaker 1: tolerate them, or the intimidation of those big shots. They're 842 00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:17,920 Speaker 1: they're actually called beauty is in the neighborhood. That's a 843 00:49:17,960 --> 00:49:21,680 Speaker 1: Spanglish for big shot. And it's also a play on 844 00:49:21,760 --> 00:49:25,000 Speaker 1: words because it's a it's also a term for phallus, 845 00:49:24,920 --> 00:49:27,800 Speaker 1: a slang term for phallus, you know, it's classic Puerto 846 00:49:27,880 --> 00:49:33,120 Speaker 1: Rican beautiful, poetic slang, and that means the head drug dealer. 847 00:49:33,440 --> 00:49:37,040 Speaker 1: And so those guys had to try to at least 848 00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:40,440 Speaker 1: pretend to care about the neighborhood. You know, they would 849 00:49:40,600 --> 00:49:44,520 Speaker 1: flamboyantly pay for the heating bill for one of the 850 00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:48,279 Speaker 1: well liked elderly women who was freezing in her house 851 00:49:48,280 --> 00:49:51,319 Speaker 1: in the winter. Here's a great example. They would regularly 852 00:49:51,440 --> 00:49:55,000 Speaker 1: buy little plastic swimming pools for the kids on the block, 853 00:49:55,120 --> 00:49:58,480 Speaker 1: you know, in the scorching hot Philadelphia's summers, to be 854 00:49:58,600 --> 00:50:01,600 Speaker 1: able to swim, fill up with a with a hose 855 00:50:01,840 --> 00:50:05,200 Speaker 1: from one's from from the fire hydrant. So we were 856 00:50:05,239 --> 00:50:10,520 Speaker 1: proposing that if one understands violence as being part of 857 00:50:10,560 --> 00:50:16,440 Speaker 1: what gets seen by its perpetrators as a moral economy, 858 00:50:16,520 --> 00:50:21,399 Speaker 1: So the person shooting you actually often thinks that they 859 00:50:21,400 --> 00:50:24,400 Speaker 1: are enforcing and this is a weird thing, that they 860 00:50:24,400 --> 00:50:28,040 Speaker 1: are enforcing morality by shooting you, That you deserve to 861 00:50:28,120 --> 00:50:32,160 Speaker 1: be shot because you violated something they considered an ethical rule, 862 00:50:32,520 --> 00:50:34,840 Speaker 1: and that when you look at it from the perspective 863 00:50:34,840 --> 00:50:37,560 Speaker 1: of the guy shooting you started selling on his territory, 864 00:50:37,680 --> 00:50:39,640 Speaker 1: of course you were going to get shot. Why wouldn't 865 00:50:39,680 --> 00:50:43,319 Speaker 1: you be shot. You shouldn't just violate someone's territory. When 866 00:50:43,360 --> 00:50:46,840 Speaker 1: you can go to a judge and get the judge 867 00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:50,480 Speaker 1: to say no, you have to close down your copycat 868 00:50:50,680 --> 00:50:54,400 Speaker 1: sales of that person's software whatever it is, you know 869 00:50:54,440 --> 00:50:56,600 Speaker 1: you don't have to shoot the person. But when you 870 00:50:56,719 --> 00:51:00,000 Speaker 1: don't have a criminal justice system, and that's the problem 871 00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:03,680 Speaker 1: with drugs being illegal, is that they become more violent 872 00:51:03,760 --> 00:51:08,719 Speaker 1: because there's no way to regulate disputes and and that 873 00:51:08,719 --> 00:51:11,400 Speaker 1: that's the recipe for disaster. And that's why the US 874 00:51:11,760 --> 00:51:16,680 Speaker 1: pathetically has the highest rates of murder of any comparable 875 00:51:16,719 --> 00:51:21,359 Speaker 1: wealthy finance industry cultures. And the culture of ka I mean, so, yeah, 876 00:51:21,400 --> 00:51:23,799 Speaker 1: the culture of terror. So the culture of terror is 877 00:51:23,920 --> 00:51:28,600 Speaker 1: something that you actually see. But when you use that term, 878 00:51:29,400 --> 00:51:33,399 Speaker 1: people then start using it the way they would use 879 00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:38,160 Speaker 1: sort of ethnic discrimination and or racism. It becomes oh, 880 00:51:38,160 --> 00:51:41,560 Speaker 1: that's because someone is trapped in the culture of terror. No, 881 00:51:41,719 --> 00:51:46,720 Speaker 1: they're trapped in the perverse American political system. The state 882 00:51:46,800 --> 00:51:50,520 Speaker 1: is not doing its fair job. It regulates the disputes 883 00:51:50,560 --> 00:51:53,840 Speaker 1: of rich people and doesn't regulate the disputes of poor people. 884 00:51:53,920 --> 00:51:57,120 Speaker 1: That's not fair. So instead of calling that a culture 885 00:51:57,120 --> 00:52:01,839 Speaker 1: of terror, call it an unfair, unjust criminal justice system, 886 00:52:01,880 --> 00:52:04,680 Speaker 1: and then you can start making sense of it. So 887 00:52:05,280 --> 00:52:08,680 Speaker 1: that the first thing we wanted to also do is 888 00:52:08,800 --> 00:52:13,240 Speaker 1: show that perpetrators could be reached out to, perpetrators could 889 00:52:13,280 --> 00:52:18,160 Speaker 1: be weaned away from violence, perpetrators can be punished in 890 00:52:18,280 --> 00:52:22,000 Speaker 1: certain ways that makes sense to them. They recognize when 891 00:52:22,000 --> 00:52:25,640 Speaker 1: they do something bad and when they deserve punishment. Sometimes 892 00:52:25,680 --> 00:52:29,319 Speaker 1: at least and so so that is what we were 893 00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:32,560 Speaker 1: trying to open up in detail. And the tragedy of 894 00:52:32,600 --> 00:52:38,080 Speaker 1: it is that you see the most charismatic, charming little 895 00:52:38,200 --> 00:52:42,960 Speaker 1: kids getting seduced into the moral economy of violence, because 896 00:52:43,400 --> 00:52:47,480 Speaker 1: that's that's what's cool as an adolescent or as a 897 00:52:47,560 --> 00:52:51,680 Speaker 1: pre adolescent, as an elementary school kid, because the guy 898 00:52:51,800 --> 00:52:54,400 Speaker 1: or the girl who fights well is all of a 899 00:52:54,400 --> 00:52:57,879 Speaker 1: sudden popular because you want her protecting you, you don't 900 00:52:57,920 --> 00:53:00,600 Speaker 1: want her fighting you, so you want to be her friend, 901 00:53:01,040 --> 00:53:04,600 Speaker 1: and so you start fighting on behalf of her so 902 00:53:04,719 --> 00:53:08,319 Speaker 1: she can or he can start mobilizing other people to 903 00:53:08,400 --> 00:53:11,080 Speaker 1: fight for them. And we started seeing that as a 904 00:53:11,120 --> 00:53:14,120 Speaker 1: conscious thing. In Philadelphia, they actually have a word for it. 905 00:53:14,400 --> 00:53:17,040 Speaker 1: Philadelphia is a wonderful city because it's got such a 906 00:53:17,200 --> 00:53:19,719 Speaker 1: it's such a working class city that has a beautiful, 907 00:53:19,760 --> 00:53:23,520 Speaker 1: beautiful slang, you know, a rich poetic slang. And the 908 00:53:23,640 --> 00:53:26,719 Speaker 1: term they use in Philadelphia is writer and it's a verb. 909 00:53:26,800 --> 00:53:28,359 Speaker 1: It can be a verb, it can be now, and 910 00:53:28,360 --> 00:53:31,560 Speaker 1: it can be I'm a writer means I'm someone who 911 00:53:31,680 --> 00:53:34,560 Speaker 1: will fight for the people that they are faithful to 912 00:53:35,239 --> 00:53:37,600 Speaker 1: and you can count on me to be a writer 913 00:53:37,800 --> 00:53:40,960 Speaker 1: for you, or we're going out writing so you can 914 00:53:41,239 --> 00:53:44,359 Speaker 1: round up your your faithful and go out and wreck 915 00:53:44,719 --> 00:53:47,960 Speaker 1: moral violence on someone else. And the only way to 916 00:53:48,040 --> 00:53:50,960 Speaker 1: do it is to do it by actively fighting. So 917 00:53:51,040 --> 00:53:54,799 Speaker 1: it promotes perversity. And the person who first first saw 918 00:53:54,800 --> 00:53:58,840 Speaker 1: it was George Karandino says his as his undergraduate thesis, 919 00:53:58,840 --> 00:54:02,040 Speaker 1: he wrote a wonderful undergrad adgate thesis at University of Pennsylvania. 920 00:54:02,480 --> 00:54:06,000 Speaker 1: That was what we were trying to explain in a 921 00:54:06,040 --> 00:54:10,360 Speaker 1: way that would be accessible. Basically, it's accessible to academics. 922 00:54:10,400 --> 00:54:13,400 Speaker 1: I don't know how how, but it also makes sense 923 00:54:13,440 --> 00:54:16,279 Speaker 1: when you when you try to explain it to someone. 924 00:54:16,360 --> 00:54:19,960 Speaker 1: And so as an applied thing for policy, let's figure 925 00:54:20,000 --> 00:54:25,000 Speaker 1: out how one can intervene in the moral economy to 926 00:54:25,160 --> 00:54:29,520 Speaker 1: stop it from having to resort to violence and instead 927 00:54:29,719 --> 00:54:33,520 Speaker 1: mobilize it for cleaning up the street, for mobilizing people 928 00:54:33,600 --> 00:54:36,279 Speaker 1: to do good things for your community, because you would 929 00:54:36,360 --> 00:54:41,799 Speaker 1: also see sometimes these same charismatic people leading cleanups, you know, 930 00:54:41,960 --> 00:54:44,840 Speaker 1: of the block and do and starting all of a 931 00:54:44,920 --> 00:54:47,520 Speaker 1: sudden a school lunch program for the kids on the 932 00:54:47,600 --> 00:54:51,320 Speaker 1: I mean yeah, school after school program because they didn't 933 00:54:51,360 --> 00:54:54,760 Speaker 1: have access to daycare for their kids after school either, 934 00:54:55,200 --> 00:54:57,719 Speaker 1: so they would wouldever figure out ways of doing it, 935 00:54:57,719 --> 00:54:59,799 Speaker 1: and their kids wanted to play with other kids, so 936 00:55:00,040 --> 00:55:02,880 Speaker 1: you could see positive things. They were integrated into the 937 00:55:02,920 --> 00:55:07,080 Speaker 1: neighborhood and and and there that that it's not hard 938 00:55:07,239 --> 00:55:10,000 Speaker 1: even to figure that out. If you just have to 939 00:55:10,000 --> 00:55:13,200 Speaker 1: have a society that wants to take care of its 940 00:55:13,239 --> 00:55:16,200 Speaker 1: of its people, it's even stupider. You have to have 941 00:55:16,239 --> 00:55:19,000 Speaker 1: a society that's smart enough to realize that they're gonna 942 00:55:19,080 --> 00:55:22,839 Speaker 1: go out and get mugged or shot unless they do 943 00:55:23,000 --> 00:55:26,640 Speaker 1: something about social inequality in their in their in their 944 00:55:26,680 --> 00:55:30,600 Speaker 1: country and stop promoting the need for a culture of 945 00:55:30,760 --> 00:55:34,840 Speaker 1: terror quote unquote, and stop making the moral economy of 946 00:55:34,960 --> 00:55:38,120 Speaker 1: violence be violent. Yeah. But Philip, let me just push 947 00:55:38,120 --> 00:55:40,879 Speaker 1: you on this a bit, because you also describe sort 948 00:55:40,880 --> 00:55:43,759 Speaker 1: of the most heartbreaking element of when you're living in 949 00:55:43,840 --> 00:55:46,840 Speaker 1: East Tarlem is what you see happening with the children 950 00:55:46,880 --> 00:55:49,839 Speaker 1: of the crack dealers and the children of the crackheads, right, 951 00:55:50,080 --> 00:55:51,800 Speaker 1: And you talked about when you first moved there in 952 00:55:51,880 --> 00:55:54,600 Speaker 1: eight five. These six seven, eight year olds, nine year 953 00:55:54,640 --> 00:55:56,360 Speaker 1: olds who are befriending you, and as you said at 954 00:55:56,400 --> 00:55:59,120 Speaker 1: the beginning of our discussion, you know, they're just fascinating 955 00:55:59,160 --> 00:56:00,880 Speaker 1: to meet you and all of sort of stuff, and 956 00:56:00,920 --> 00:56:03,080 Speaker 1: by the time they're ending analysts and some of them 957 00:56:03,080 --> 00:56:05,640 Speaker 1: are landing up being in very landing up in sex 958 00:56:05,680 --> 00:56:09,560 Speaker 1: worker getting addicted themselves. And you also describe that the 959 00:56:09,640 --> 00:56:13,759 Speaker 1: tradition of of some of the coraculs priding themselves like 960 00:56:14,000 --> 00:56:16,760 Speaker 1: their fathers and grandfathers did back in the Old Country 961 00:56:16,760 --> 00:56:19,320 Speaker 1: in terms of how many kids they have. But whereas 962 00:56:19,360 --> 00:56:21,759 Speaker 1: there was a functional value of having lots of kids 963 00:56:21,800 --> 00:56:24,879 Speaker 1: when you're living in a rural Puerto Rico, here they're 964 00:56:24,880 --> 00:56:27,800 Speaker 1: having multiple kids by all sorts of women and almost 965 00:56:27,800 --> 00:56:31,120 Speaker 1: priding themselves on not taking care of them. In many cases, 966 00:56:31,320 --> 00:56:35,080 Speaker 1: there's a positive story to this ethan as well. Certain 967 00:56:35,160 --> 00:56:38,920 Speaker 1: guys become, I forget what the term is, baby pops, 968 00:56:39,320 --> 00:56:42,520 Speaker 1: who are like a mom's pops. So, for example, Primo 969 00:56:42,880 --> 00:56:47,920 Speaker 1: bless his heart, he he actually really cared about his sons, 970 00:56:48,360 --> 00:56:51,240 Speaker 1: and so he had started out by doing the hyper 971 00:56:51,239 --> 00:56:55,160 Speaker 1: masculine thing, having multiple girlfriends, having kids with different people 972 00:56:55,200 --> 00:56:57,839 Speaker 1: and so forth, and then all of a sudden he 973 00:56:57,880 --> 00:57:00,560 Speaker 1: woke up and started taking care of them, and his 974 00:57:00,719 --> 00:57:04,879 Speaker 1: kids actually came out beautifully. They didn't go into they 975 00:57:04,880 --> 00:57:07,320 Speaker 1: didn't go into drug dealing, and one of them started 976 00:57:07,360 --> 00:57:10,920 Speaker 1: a website, and and and you know, Philip, I wonder 977 00:57:11,040 --> 00:57:13,200 Speaker 1: because if I remember about Primo, one of the things 978 00:57:13,239 --> 00:57:16,080 Speaker 1: about him was that he had grown up with three sisters, 979 00:57:16,120 --> 00:57:18,600 Speaker 1: all of them turned out more or less okay, where 980 00:57:18,680 --> 00:57:21,840 Speaker 1: Caesar had had his sister brutally murder and his mother 981 00:57:21,920 --> 00:57:24,360 Speaker 1: had killed somebody or something gone to prison. And so 982 00:57:24,720 --> 00:57:27,000 Speaker 1: there may have been something about having grown up in 983 00:57:27,080 --> 00:57:29,880 Speaker 1: a kind of more stable, semi stable family at least 984 00:57:30,120 --> 00:57:33,520 Speaker 1: maybe inspired a greater sense of printal responsibility. But you 985 00:57:33,600 --> 00:57:37,120 Speaker 1: also talk about the difference between the daytime and the nighttime, 986 00:57:37,200 --> 00:57:39,240 Speaker 1: and at the daytime is still a time when kids 987 00:57:39,240 --> 00:57:41,160 Speaker 1: can play in the streets and all this, but that 988 00:57:41,280 --> 00:57:44,320 Speaker 1: the nighttime is owned by the small minority of the 989 00:57:44,360 --> 00:57:48,760 Speaker 1: community who exercised the moral economy of violence, where this 990 00:57:48,880 --> 00:57:51,200 Speaker 1: stuff where people can live in an element of terra 991 00:57:51,520 --> 00:57:53,560 Speaker 1: and a fear of walking around in their streets and 992 00:57:53,600 --> 00:57:57,360 Speaker 1: all of this. So I sometimes wonder how people in 993 00:57:57,400 --> 00:58:00,240 Speaker 1: the community, most of the people living in East Haarlem, 994 00:58:00,320 --> 00:58:03,520 Speaker 1: if they were to read your book In Search of 995 00:58:03,600 --> 00:58:05,920 Speaker 1: Respect or the or the stuff you're writing about Philadelphia, 996 00:58:06,000 --> 00:58:09,040 Speaker 1: you know, they would obviously recognize it. But I wonder 997 00:58:09,400 --> 00:58:13,160 Speaker 1: would they share much of your perspective, And if not, 998 00:58:13,360 --> 00:58:15,520 Speaker 1: is it just that they have bought into the kind 999 00:58:15,520 --> 00:58:19,920 Speaker 1: of dominant frame that's imposed by mainstream society about how 1000 00:58:19,960 --> 00:58:22,680 Speaker 1: we interpret this and and blame the victim and blame 1001 00:58:22,760 --> 00:58:25,640 Speaker 1: the people without looking at the brother structural forces. You know, 1002 00:58:25,680 --> 00:58:29,040 Speaker 1: I get lots of comments from people over the years, 1003 00:58:29,040 --> 00:58:31,680 Speaker 1: because the book has been out since I forget when 1004 00:58:31,680 --> 00:58:37,160 Speaker 1: it came out, forget five or something, and so I've 1005 00:58:37,240 --> 00:58:41,160 Speaker 1: got I get lots of comments, and people actually usually 1006 00:58:41,240 --> 00:58:43,440 Speaker 1: thank me for writing the book and then tell me 1007 00:58:43,520 --> 00:58:47,800 Speaker 1: their particular story and and often it's a story of success, 1008 00:58:47,840 --> 00:58:50,920 Speaker 1: because that's who writes you to some extent. But people 1009 00:58:50,960 --> 00:58:54,920 Speaker 1: write me from jail also that and they they're very moving, 1010 00:58:55,400 --> 00:58:58,480 Speaker 1: either emails or letters when they're coming from jail, their 1011 00:58:58,560 --> 00:59:02,680 Speaker 1: handwritten letters. It's very moving. So there is a lot 1012 00:59:02,760 --> 00:59:06,560 Speaker 1: of people who recognize themselves. There's a there's a pattern 1013 00:59:07,040 --> 00:59:11,680 Speaker 1: of kids saying thank you for helping me forgive my 1014 00:59:12,120 --> 00:59:16,600 Speaker 1: crummy father. And that's the most moving for me, because 1015 00:59:16,640 --> 00:59:20,280 Speaker 1: you don't, like, you know, having to live in anger 1016 00:59:20,680 --> 00:59:23,800 Speaker 1: and resentment at your father. So when you can achieve 1017 00:59:24,520 --> 00:59:28,320 Speaker 1: a level of of of forgiveness for the father who 1018 00:59:28,360 --> 00:59:32,200 Speaker 1: abandoned you, or brutalized your mother or brutalized you, or 1019 00:59:32,320 --> 00:59:35,600 Speaker 1: or or just disappeared from your life and neglected you. 1020 00:59:36,080 --> 00:59:39,440 Speaker 1: It's helpful and and when you can humanize it and 1021 00:59:39,520 --> 00:59:42,320 Speaker 1: understand it as part of a larger force, it can 1022 00:59:42,360 --> 00:59:46,520 Speaker 1: be helpful. So I I appreciate that. But but yeah, 1023 00:59:46,560 --> 00:59:49,800 Speaker 1: I mean, obviously there's gonna be people that just want 1024 00:59:50,200 --> 00:59:52,400 Speaker 1: they just want to just so story. They just want 1025 00:59:52,440 --> 00:59:55,120 Speaker 1: everything to be rosy and beautiful, and that's not the 1026 00:59:55,160 --> 01:00:00,320 Speaker 1: way life is. Poverty is painful. Poverty doesn't necessarily make 1027 01:00:00,360 --> 01:00:04,120 Speaker 1: you stronger. It often makes you tougher, but it can also, 1028 01:00:04,360 --> 01:00:07,840 Speaker 1: you know, also make make you traumatized. So that those 1029 01:00:07,880 --> 01:00:10,760 Speaker 1: are the realities. Humans are fragile people, whether they're rich 1030 01:00:10,880 --> 01:00:14,160 Speaker 1: or poor. That's our nature is to be fragile. We 1031 01:00:14,200 --> 01:00:17,840 Speaker 1: need to coddle each other. Sorry to sound like such 1032 01:00:17,840 --> 01:00:21,280 Speaker 1: a liberal, but that would be Caesar would make fun 1033 01:00:21,320 --> 01:00:24,160 Speaker 1: of me for that. Yeah, we maybe wonder if you're 1034 01:00:24,160 --> 01:00:26,760 Speaker 1: ever tempted to go and do a research project down 1035 01:00:26,760 --> 01:00:30,479 Speaker 1: in Puerto Rico. Oh absolutely, I've done. I've done feel 1036 01:00:30,520 --> 01:00:33,480 Speaker 1: work there. I love Puerto Rico. It's a beautiful place 1037 01:00:34,000 --> 01:00:37,080 Speaker 1: and it's it's just amazing. Yeah. Well, but when you 1038 01:00:37,080 --> 01:00:38,919 Speaker 1: think also about you look at the ways in which 1039 01:00:38,920 --> 01:00:40,960 Speaker 1: we look at what's going on a Central American now, 1040 01:00:41,000 --> 01:00:44,600 Speaker 1: which leads the world and levels of violence and homicide, 1041 01:00:44,960 --> 01:00:47,080 Speaker 1: and where it seems to be connected in all sorts 1042 01:00:47,080 --> 01:00:50,480 Speaker 1: of ways, not just to socio economic and political conditions 1043 01:00:50,520 --> 01:00:54,520 Speaker 1: down there, but also to basically Central American migrants to 1044 01:00:54,560 --> 01:00:57,959 Speaker 1: the US being sent back or going back to those 1045 01:00:58,000 --> 01:01:01,280 Speaker 1: countries and bringing a kind of true cultural street life 1046 01:01:01,280 --> 01:01:03,920 Speaker 1: back there. And I wondered, Puerto Rico, it must there 1047 01:01:03,960 --> 01:01:06,840 Speaker 1: must be elements of something similar going there. Right, it's 1048 01:01:06,880 --> 01:01:10,000 Speaker 1: worse than the Puerto Rico is a colony, right, it's 1049 01:01:10,040 --> 01:01:13,680 Speaker 1: a formal colony. It's not that's not a that's not 1050 01:01:14,160 --> 01:01:17,920 Speaker 1: whatever euphemism or metaphorical term, or whatever the term would be. 1051 01:01:18,240 --> 01:01:21,919 Speaker 1: It's legally economy. It doesn't have the right to make 1052 01:01:21,960 --> 01:01:25,040 Speaker 1: its own policies. It gets supervised by the US. It 1053 01:01:25,080 --> 01:01:27,680 Speaker 1: doesn't have the right to have an armed force, you know, 1054 01:01:27,720 --> 01:01:30,120 Speaker 1: it doesn't have the right to pass law and for 1055 01:01:30,400 --> 01:01:34,479 Speaker 1: gun control laws, and that's really an outrage. Puerto Rico 1056 01:01:34,600 --> 01:01:39,040 Speaker 1: passed strong gun control laws and the US federal government 1057 01:01:39,440 --> 01:01:44,720 Speaker 1: forced them to obey US federal gun rules because they 1058 01:01:44,720 --> 01:01:48,680 Speaker 1: get driven by federal law and as a result, Puerto 1059 01:01:48,760 --> 01:01:53,080 Speaker 1: Rico and this is truly the tragedy and cruelty of 1060 01:01:53,080 --> 01:01:57,360 Speaker 1: of of colonialism. Puerto Rico has the highest level in 1061 01:01:57,440 --> 01:02:03,360 Speaker 1: the world of fire arm caused violence. And firearm caused 1062 01:02:03,480 --> 01:02:07,720 Speaker 1: violence is the most tragic one because that's the most 1063 01:02:07,760 --> 01:02:12,560 Speaker 1: spontaneous one. That's the one that was easiest to prevent. Right. 1064 01:02:12,680 --> 01:02:16,480 Speaker 1: It's because you know, you get suicide firearm with when 1065 01:02:16,480 --> 01:02:18,280 Speaker 1: there's a lot of guns around, the first thing that 1066 01:02:18,320 --> 01:02:20,800 Speaker 1: goes up as suicide you get depressed. Graham, you've got 1067 01:02:20,880 --> 01:02:23,120 Speaker 1: to you've got a gun hanging there, you grab it 1068 01:02:23,160 --> 01:02:25,960 Speaker 1: impulsively and blow your brains out. You you have an 1069 01:02:26,080 --> 01:02:29,000 Speaker 1: argument with your spouse, you know, boom, boom, boom. Without 1070 01:02:29,040 --> 01:02:31,880 Speaker 1: before you know what you've done, you shoot them. Right, 1071 01:02:31,960 --> 01:02:36,480 Speaker 1: that's the tragedy of be having guns forced on you. 1072 01:02:36,520 --> 01:02:39,760 Speaker 1: And that's why there needs to be gun control and 1073 01:02:39,760 --> 01:02:42,960 Speaker 1: and because there it's an industrial way to kill. And 1074 01:02:43,000 --> 01:02:47,080 Speaker 1: Puerto Rico had that imposed, has it actively imposed on 1075 01:02:47,160 --> 01:02:50,920 Speaker 1: itself now and it doesn't want to have so many guns, 1076 01:02:51,240 --> 01:02:54,000 Speaker 1: but the US federal government forces it to have so 1077 01:02:54,040 --> 01:02:57,400 Speaker 1: many guns because it's a colony of the US government. 1078 01:02:57,760 --> 01:03:00,640 Speaker 1: Uh huh uh Well, Lusen, I wanted as our readers 1079 01:03:00,680 --> 01:03:02,479 Speaker 1: to take a look at your books and even buy 1080 01:03:02,480 --> 01:03:05,160 Speaker 1: them in search your respect and righteous dopines are still 1081 01:03:05,160 --> 01:03:09,080 Speaker 1: in print. Okay, thank you very very much. Okay. Thanks. 1082 01:03:10,800 --> 01:03:14,600 Speaker 1: If you're enjoying Psychoactive, please tell your friends about it, 1083 01:03:14,840 --> 01:03:17,040 Speaker 1: or you can write us a review at Apple Podcasts 1084 01:03:17,160 --> 01:03:19,920 Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. We love to hear 1085 01:03:19,960 --> 01:03:23,000 Speaker 1: from our listeners. If you'd like to share your own stories, 1086 01:03:23,080 --> 01:03:26,200 Speaker 1: comments and ideas, then leave us a message at one 1087 01:03:26,440 --> 01:03:31,919 Speaker 1: eight three three seven seven nine sixty that's eight three 1088 01:03:32,040 --> 01:03:36,480 Speaker 1: three psycho zero, or you can email us at Psychoactive 1089 01:03:36,560 --> 01:03:39,680 Speaker 1: at protozoa dot com or find me on Twitter at 1090 01:03:39,760 --> 01:03:43,360 Speaker 1: Ethan Naedalman. You can also find contact information in our 1091 01:03:43,400 --> 01:03:47,120 Speaker 1: show notes. Psychoactive is a production of I Heart Radio 1092 01:03:47,400 --> 01:03:51,560 Speaker 1: and Protozoa Pictures. It's hosted by me Ethan Nadelman. It's 1093 01:03:51,600 --> 01:03:55,520 Speaker 1: produced by noha'm osband and Josh Stain. The executive producers 1094 01:03:55,640 --> 01:03:59,720 Speaker 1: are Dylan Golden, Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geeseus and Darren Aronofsky. 1095 01:03:59,840 --> 01:04:02,960 Speaker 1: From Protosoma Pictures, Alex Williams and Matt Frederick from My 1096 01:04:03,000 --> 01:04:06,920 Speaker 1: Heart Radio and me Ethan Edelman. Our music is by 1097 01:04:06,960 --> 01:04:10,760 Speaker 1: Ari Blucien and especial thanks to a Bio s F 1098 01:04:11,200 --> 01:04:25,040 Speaker 1: Bianca Grimshaw and Robert BB. Next week, tune in for 1099 01:04:25,160 --> 01:04:28,200 Speaker 1: part two of my interview with Philippe Bougoi. When we 1100 01:04:28,280 --> 01:04:32,520 Speaker 1: moved from East Harlem to San Francisco, I wanted to 1101 01:04:32,680 --> 01:04:38,360 Speaker 1: find out useful things on how diseases were being transmitted 1102 01:04:38,400 --> 01:04:42,760 Speaker 1: in a practical way. And also, you know, anthropology doesn't 1103 01:04:42,880 --> 01:04:47,560 Speaker 1: tend often to force itself to try to be humbly useful. 1104 01:04:47,600 --> 01:04:50,880 Speaker 1: I wanted to be humbly useful, useful to the people 1105 01:04:50,920 --> 01:04:54,160 Speaker 1: I was studying, so that there would be more information 1106 01:04:54,480 --> 01:04:58,080 Speaker 1: on what could be done to reduce you know, how 1107 01:04:58,160 --> 01:05:02,680 Speaker 1: obviously devastating um their their use of heroin was on them, 1108 01:05:02,680 --> 01:05:04,840 Speaker 1: and the way they were being policed, and the way 1109 01:05:04,920 --> 01:05:09,240 Speaker 1: that services were mismanaging them and mistreating them even when 1110 01:05:09,240 --> 01:05:12,800 Speaker 1: it wanted to help them. Subscribe to Cycleactive now see it, 1111 01:05:12,800 --> 01:05:13,320 Speaker 1: don't miss it.