War On Black People Or Drugs

In my Forbidden books class, we learned about censorship on books and how they were censored. Censorship on books is "a form of censorship that occurs when private individuals, government officials, or organizations remove books from libraries, school reading lists, or bookstore shelves because they object to their content, ideas, or themes." from Middle Tennessee State. People want to censor books because they think it will affect the younger generation to rebel against the traditional ways.   We also learned about Socrates and ancient Greece, their style of learning and Socrates' questioning life. Socrates was a philosopher who rebelled the idea of greek gods. He is important to western civilization because he shows us students to question things your parents and teachers believe about reality and society. That is where he made the Socratic dialogue. A Socratic dialogue is a communication that perceives two people where one person answers questions and the other questions their answers that they asked. The question my partner asked is “ is the war on drugs a war on black people” which means that is the war on drugs a tactic to throw black males in jail. Here is the script of dialogue of two people with opposite opinions about the war on crime

Transcript;
Rashaad: As I was saying, the war on drugs was Nixon trying to throw black men into jail.


Indigo:Um excuse me, I believe that the 1970s-80s War on Drugs was not a war on Black people.  You must be crazy.

Rashaad: You don’t think the  War on Drugs was an attack on black people?

Indigo: I believe that it’s a war on drugs because there was a problem with drugs, and it needed to be controlled.

Rashaad: Sure, there was a drug epidemic at the time but why would Nixon apply heavy sentences for drug possession within minority communities?

Indigo: Because they had the most drug dealers and dirtiest drugs, crack cocaine. It’s like they want to be caught! between 1980- 1985 the mass incarceration jumped by 300,000 inmates! Because of drugs being dealt in minority communities.

Rashaad: But at the same time, they had powdered cocaine and they didn’t treat it the same regardless of lethality.  In years past, someone convicted of possessing one gram of crack would receive a sentence 100 times longer than someone possessing one gram of powder cocaine. Minorities tended to have weed, but whites had powdered cocaine. Why bother setting the minority of black crack addicts as the stereotype for all black people if there were many more cases of possession of weed?

Indigo: Because cocaine was more valuable and crack can cause a lot more b damage than its powdered cousin. The people said that powdered cocaine is a luxury, but on the flip-side crack cocaine is a “quick fix”

Rashaad: Why do you think that black people need a quick fix?

Indigo: I mean they are lazy enough to not work hard on finding their true happiness.

Rashaad: At the same time, there were many younger children that dreamed of true happiness getting out of the ghetto. But because of racism and men being unjustly put in jail because of the drugs, what can the next generation find true happiness with that information?

Indigo: They can look at the media and believe that everything is alright. But it is true that some kids don’t have the motivation to do that because of their families’ past

Rashaad: But their families past inhibited by the injustices put upon them that were accelerated by the war on drugs.

Indigo: Fine! The war on drugs was a war to stop drugs, but they also used that tactic to throw black males into jail