I'm Canadian and one of my friends ventured out to Boston and saw how racially and economically divided the place was. Like it was too apparent which neighborhoods were black and which were white...which is shocking for us since this is a side of America we never saw before
I remember learning about American history in HS very well, used to study the classics like Kill a Mockingbird, Mississippi Burning, etc. I remember them because the depiction of abuse against blacks were particularly cruel and rage inducing.
Then you read article like this and realize the apartheid never really died, it just became far more covert and systematic.
"You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."
The biggest shock to me is the security apparatus that have worked in the background to literally exterminate the black population. Iran-Contra affair have demonized and destroyed the seemingly up and coming African American demographic with a dangerously addictive drug.
Finally, we have today. Things haven't changed, African Americans are really at the mercy of "White" America as it slowly rears its ugly head with Trump in charge.
All in all, I am observing "Neo-Apartheid", except now it's not about drugs to go after and disrupt, it's through economic exclusion, forcing people on the fringes to finally turn to criminal activities and nailing them to private prisons. Studies have shown if you incarcerate a family member, it spreads almost like an infection.
This all sounds ominous and negative but I do feel there is a very strong liberal voice for justice, and articles like this that uncover inconvenient truths seem on the rise, perhaps giving hope....but the cynic in me says the economic gap is just too wide...the communal infrastructure is broken in the ghettos that spiral into drug economies. You will see a few rising stars as "model minority"...like giving out fucking gold stars in kindergarten
I don't know I'm sickened by the systematic level in which the pigment in your skin should determine your level of economic participation, often reinforced through stereotypes that arose out of previous generations.