Donna Murch’s “Crack in Los Angeles: Crisis, Militarization, and Black Response to the Late Twentieth-Century War on Drugs” article focused on how the American government tried to combat the “war on drugs” – a phrase created by President Nixon – and the “crack epidemic,” an issue fueled by the media, in Los Angeles through policies made by the government, such as the Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention (STEP) Act in 1988 and Operation Hammer in the same year. The government also received funding from the California National Guard so that a tank could be used. In response to these policies, self-help approaches were offered by Christian churches. Kali Nicole Gross’ “African American Women, Mass Incarceration, and the Politics of Protection”
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One effort to do so was through Operation Hammer. “On April 9, 1988, the police set up an impromptu holding facility in the parking lot of the Los Angeles Coliseum and proceeded to arrest over 1,400 people—including more African American youth than in any other single incident since the Watts rebellion twenty-three years earlier” (168). Operation Hammer was the most horrific to me because policemen were anticipating illegal activity, rather than trying to prevent it or on the lookout. “[T]he LAPD proclaimed 1988 the ‘year of the gang enforcement’” and Chief Gates stated: “‘This is war. … [W]e’re going to come and get [the cowards]’,” but these are citizens that the police department are going after – not terrorists (168). In today’s age, weed has become the new cocaine and more African Americans are arrested for possessing weed. Even though some states have legalized weed, those imprisoned have not been released. It’s absurd that African Americans, even today, are still at fault for drugs that are not exclusively used by …show more content…
Gross, in her article, argues how black women were unfairly incarcerated and treated in prison. “[W]hite judges and juries more often trusted the testimony of white employers and other white authority figures over the word of black women. … In places such as Philadelphia in the late nineteenth century, black women served longer prison sentences: 14.1 months on average, while white women served 8.5 for comparable offenses” (28, 29). In addition, black women “typically served their sentences at custodial institutions” while their white counterparts would serve their time in “institutions built with a cottage design and staffed by white patrons aiming to restore white womanhood” (30). This quote alone was shocking that institutions for black women, and black people in general, were basically like dirty cages, but those for white women were like country club, rehabilitation centers – why that was fair or legal is beyond me. While I understand that prisoners have lost their right to luxurious amenities, that does not mean that they are only allowed to live in areas and use items that are
One effort to do so was through Operation Hammer. “On April 9, 1988, the police set up an impromptu holding facility in the parking lot of the Los Angeles Coliseum and proceeded to arrest over 1,400 people—including more African American youth than in any other single incident since the Watts rebellion twenty-three years earlier” (168). Operation Hammer was the most horrific to me because policemen were anticipating illegal activity, rather than trying to prevent it or on the lookout. “[T]he LAPD proclaimed 1988 the ‘year of the gang enforcement’” and Chief Gates stated: “‘This is war. … [W]e’re going to come and get [the cowards]’,” but these are citizens that the police department are going after – not terrorists (168). In today’s age, weed has become the new cocaine and more African Americans are arrested for possessing weed. Even though some states have legalized weed, those imprisoned have not been released. It’s absurd that African Americans, even today, are still at fault for drugs that are not exclusively used by …show more content…
Gross, in her article, argues how black women were unfairly incarcerated and treated in prison. “[W]hite judges and juries more often trusted the testimony of white employers and other white authority figures over the word of black women. … In places such as Philadelphia in the late nineteenth century, black women served longer prison sentences: 14.1 months on average, while white women served 8.5 for comparable offenses” (28, 29). In addition, black women “typically served their sentences at custodial institutions” while their white counterparts would serve their time in “institutions built with a cottage design and staffed by white patrons aiming to restore white womanhood” (30). This quote alone was shocking that institutions for black women, and black people in general, were basically like dirty cages, but those for white women were like country club, rehabilitation centers – why that was fair or legal is beyond me. While I understand that prisoners have lost their right to luxurious amenities, that does not mean that they are only allowed to live in areas and use items that are