Chasing The Scream - Johann Hari

Hussien Nasser
AFAM 2001
Professor Young
3 April 2017

Chapter 1 - The Black Hand 

1. He pledged to eradicate all drugs everywhere - and within thirty years, he succeeded in turning this crumbling department, with these disheartened men, into the headquarters for a global war that would last for a hundred years and counting. (pg. 11).

• Harry Anslinger creation of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics created a worldwide notice in terms of drugs. The agency consisted of corrupt and crooked individuals who wanted drugs out of the United States forever. Collectively they began to grow the agency and action was needed to wipe out marijuana and drugs that were still legal within the United States.   

2. Anslinger believed that if he had gotten the president's plea through only a little earlier, "a decent peace might have been written, forestalling any chance for a future Hitler gaining power, or a Second World War erupting. (pg. 13)

• Harry Anslinger believed that during the First World War as diplomatic agent, the future of civilization was in his hands at one point in time. He was sent on a mission to deliver a message to the German dictator from President Wilson that stated "Don't do It". He regretted and felt that he needed to now find a way to recover from his actions in Europe. 

3. He believed the most-feared groups in the United states - Mexican immigrants and African Americans - were taking the drug much more than white people, and he presented the House Committee on Appropriations with a nightmarish vision of where this could lead. (pg. 15)

• African Americans and Mexicans were being targeted and accused of consuming more drugs that white people. The thought that drugs were making African Americans and Mexicans step out of their racial boundary was problematic in the United States which is why Anslinger found the need to present this idea to the House of Appropriations. His goal was to get the a department in the government to not only get on his side, but support his idea and begin to believe set idea. 

4. The most frightening effect of marijuana, Harry warned, was on blacks. It made them forget the appropriate racial barriers - and unleashed their lust for women. (pg. 17)

• Harry Anslinger mentioned that blacks was being effected because it caused them o forget that racial barriers existed. He believed that because drugs was causing blacks to feel comfortable and laid back, it was not the appropriate move for society. When a black agent working for Anslinger complained about being called a nigger, he was fired. Anslinger felt that he was superior especially with the position he was in and found it necessary to fire William Davis, a black individual. 

5. "You have to be poor and black to know how many times you can get knocked in the head for trying to do something as simple as that". (pg. 20)

• Billie Holiday felt that in order to sneak into a store that did not allow black people, you must be poor and black. Being poor and black are the two factors that causes an individual to experience such lifestyle during the 1900s. Billie stopped saying "yes sir" and ma'am unless she felt it was necessary. The mistreatment towards African Americans was highly disliked by Holiday. She was referred to as Lady Day and her song that she written, a black women expressing grief and fury at the mass murders of her brothers bodies hanging from tress in the South.   

Chapter 2 - Sunshine and Weaklings

1. He (Henry Smith Williams) said that addicts were weaklings who should never have been brought into the world and wrote that the "idea that every human life has genuine value ...and therefore to be treasured, is an absurd banality. The world would be far better off if forty percent of its inhabitants had never been borned." (pg. 34).

• Williams believed that drugs led to the destruction of people and that nobody should take drugs because it affects the human body. As human we need to value and appreciate our life. We should not take are life to be unreal and as a joke. Addicts are becoming weak and ineffective to society which is why Williams mentions the world being "better off". There is no need to be in this world if you are not going to make an impact or a change that will benefit the world. 

2. Most of the people the bureau had picked on up to now - addicts and African Americans - were in no position to fight back. (pg. 35)

• African American doctors were being set up by the government and was in no position to fight back as stated above. The government will send a "stool pigeon" to trick doctors across the United States. They would con doctors into prescribing them a treatment that they did not need. once the drug was prescribed, the police would burst into the room and arrests these doctors, primarily African American doctors. 

3. An official government study found that before drug prohibition properly kicked in, three quarters of self-described addicts (not just users - addicts) had steady and respectable jobs. Some 22 percent of addicts were wealthy, while only 6 percent were poor. (pg. 36)

• Before drugs entered society, people were still functioning and living their everyday life while on drugs. People had jobs and were wealthy. Drugs was not affecting the livelihood of individuals even will the small percentage of poor people. Before people were being arrested for drugs and alcohol, everyone was going about their day unworried. With the implementation of more drugs however, there was a slight increase in the percent of poor people because of the cost of drugs.

4. The Williams brothers had watched as Anslinger's department created two crime waves. First, it created an army of gangsters to smuggle drugs into the country and sell them to addicts. In other words Anslinger claimed to be fighting the Mafia, he was in fact transferring a massive and highly profitable industry. Second, by driving up the cost of drugs by more of a thousand percent, the new policies meant addicts were forced to commit crime to get their next fix. (pg. 36)

• The first and second wave are both interrelated because addicts can not use drugs without money. Whatever the cost of drugs are, addicts will pay which is why increasing the cost created an unordinary lifestyle for addicts. they would begin to beg, steal, borrow and sometimes never return back, or forge just to get a hold on drugs. Men for example would find a way  to sell while women would become prostitutes. Both waves implemented by the Williams brothers caused individuals to be in a very unstable state and position in society. What was alarming however is the thought that Anslinger and his association with the Mafia. He was essentially assisting the mafia which is the center of the problem in terms of drugs in the United states, causing races such as Mexicans and African-Americans to be targeted.    

5. "The United States government, as represented by anti-drug officials", Henry explained, had just become "the greatest and most potent maker of criminals in any recent century." And every time Harry Anslinger created new drug criminals, he created new reasons for his department to be saved - and to grow. (pg. 37)

• Every time Harry felt that his agency was dwindling down, he always found a new thought or idea that he felt the government would also believe. With the thought of America being the "greatest" gives an idea of acknowledgement and being the best of something. Arresting criminals and such for the use of drugs and having the number of be the highest amongst all other countries throughout the world. Anytime he targeted a new area of the drug world, his agency expand and grew off of the backbone of another individual or group. 

Summer of Trials (Chp. 8) and A River of Anger (Chp. 9) by Douglas Blackmon

Hussien Nasser
AFAM 2100
Professor Young
19 March 2017

Chapter 8 - A Summer of Trials, 1903

1. "The country throughout this district wherever (peonage) exists is pretty thoroughly aroused, Finch wrote. "The fact that a Secret Service is engaged on these cases is well known and many have the impression that a number of agents are scouring the country . . ." (pg. 218)

• In some locations that debt slavery or debt servitude existed, government officials began to fill the streets in order assist capturing of blacks essentially so they can become peons. Anyone who seem suspicious and working as a detective for the government in this matter was unsafe. Bringing an inside intel (agents) made everyone to be in their guard and watch out because blacks specifically would not be able to distinguish between a white civilian and one who would be working as an agent.      

2. "It is by no means confined to a few isolated communities. I have also been again and again informed by these persons that this peonage system is crueler and inhuman than the slavery of antebellum days, since then the master conserved the life and health of the slaves for business reasons just as he did that of his horse or mule."  (pg. 218)

• During this time, African Americans were being treated worse than the antebellum period. A cloud of hate towards blacks aroused.  They would be considered as debt after being arrested and serve involuntary services. Not only was they being arrested for unimaginable charges to be put into this position, but they would be sold as different names and even beaten to the extent of death. It was a time when wicked act and full-blown hatred was exemplified towards blacks and operated by whites. They were considered a product as mentioned instead of humans, resulting in the inhuman system that blacks were put in.

3. "But a growing chorus of politicians, journalists, and southern commentators - the same voices that originally applauded the investigation as proof that southerners could be relied on to clean up slavery - hailed Pace's admission that the continuing slavery was limited to a pocket of miscreants in one country." (pg. 220)

• This quote is significant because not only was the country lied to by these higher position individuals, but slavery continued in a way that people would be arrested if they broke the law. Trumped-up legal charges were used to have peonage exist, slavery by another name. The debt however would take more years than expected or would never go away at all, leaving individuals in "slavery" continuously. 

4. "Unlawfully and knowingly holding a person forcibly and against his will and requiring such person to labor for the holder to work out a debt claimed by the holder to be due him . . .does not constitute holding such person to a condition of peonage under the laws of the United States". (pg. 226)

• The quote above is what was written to justify that involuntary servitude was not peonage making it not illegal and a correct action to continue with. The wording alone amazes me, stating that "holding a person forcibly and against his will and requiring such person to labor for the holder to work out a debt". People working to pay off debt or a crime that they never committed is beyond mistreatment to another race.

5. "You have violated not only the laws of your country but that great law of honor and justice, which bids the powerful and strong not to oppress the down-trodden." (pg.224)

• Blacks during the summer of 1903 were being treated terribly by those who were in power. Police and government officials was the main individuals who acted out in this manner. They would act out in a way that they would never act out upon or treat any white person to the same degree.

Chapter 9 -A River of Anger

1. "They were net foulers and "nigger lovers", cried supports of the accused. Heflin and his allies said any man who did not deft them deserve all the contempt of the white South." (pg.233)

• People who were supporting blacks in the South at the time was getting their backs turned against them from higher officials. In the chapter, Judge Jones and Reese who helped black workers was sacrificing the obligations white southerners had at hand.  With blacks gaining some stand with the help of Jones and Reese, they were referred to as "nigger lovers' and "nest foulers". Just because they were doing their job and following the laws that has been put into place by the government, they were being accused because they did not act out discrimination and inequality.

2. "Across the nation, the spring and summer of 1903 marked a venomous turn in relations between blacks and whites. A pall was descending on black America, like nothing experienced since the darkest hours of antebellum slavery." (pg. 234)

• During this time, African Americans were being treated worse than the antebellum period. A cloud of hate towards blacks aroused. As opposed to the treatment through the Industrial slavery and abolitionist fight to end slavery, the summer of 1903 was a time when blacks were being put back into slavery basically. They would be considered as debt after being arrested and serve involuntary services. Not only was they being arrested for unimaginable charges to be put into this position, but they would be sold as different names and even beaten to the extent of death. The spring and summer of 1903 was a time when wicked act and full-blown hatred was exemplified towards blacks and operated by whites. 

3. Infuriated by the setbacks suffered by blacks in all regions of the country, W.E.B. DuBois, the rising young sociologist - wrote that the South is simply an armed camp for intimidating black folk." (pg. 245)

• W.E.B Dubois is mentioning that throughout history and since the birth of the United states and thirteen colonies, the South has "always" been an armed camp where blacks are being taken advantage off. From the beginning of slavery, to Industrial Slavery, Antebellum Slavery, and many more historic moments are all times when blacks were being intimidated, criminalized, discriminated, and negatively treated from a broad spectrum.

4. "The South has nothing to be ashamed of anymore. The myth that the war had been fought over regional patriotism rather than slavery became rooted in American identity. Even slavery itself came to be remembered not as one of the basal crimes of American society, but as a nearly benign anachronism." (pg. 241)

• In the South, racism has always existed resulting in the idea of racism to remain with the people who govern and control the south. In the quote, in mentions how the war was fought over regional patriotism rather than slavery. The reality of slavery has always been undermined and under discussed which is why people deliberately act racist in the South. The belief has always existed causing it to be the least issue which is not the case.

5. "No society (United States) in human history had attempted to instantly transform a vast and entrenched slave class into immediate full and equal citizenship. The cost of educating freed slaves and their children came to seem unbearably enormous, even to the purported friends." (pg. 235)

• The United States has made many attempts throughout history to create equal and full citizenship for the slave class. As the government has done with laws and amendments throughout history, it was created for one reason but end up doing the opposite. For example, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendment was created to abolish slavery, create equality, and give the right to vote to all citizens. At that particular time, slavery did not end up getting abolish nor was blacks given the right to vote and full equality without a fight or an arrest. The main point here is that the United States has attempt to transform many obligations at hand throughout history and none has been successful being the reason why slavery still exist.

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

Hussien Nasser
AFAM 2100
Professor Young
23 February 2017

1. According to Alexander, what is the reason for racial caste systems?

    The reason for the racial caste system is when white individuals feel superior while blacks individuals feel inferior. Since this mindset and idea has been enforced into people due to slavery, people begin to believe and accept this idea, whether or not it is true. The racial caste system has also created a ranking system within minority groups, distinguishing African Americans, Latinos, and other Hispanic minority groups. Nonetheless, it has basically dehumanized African Americans. It has made African Americans to feel as nothing in society and always being overwhelmed not knowing if they will survive in this society and system that African Americans have been forced into. 

2. Discuss racial bribe.

    Racial bribe is when superior people use other racial classes such as poor whites and Native Americans as a strategic way to get to African Americans and dehumanize them. For example, in Chapter 1 of The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, she mentions how the planter class extended special privileges to poor whites in an effort to drive a wedge between them an black slaves. White settlers were allowed greater access to the Native Americans lands. White servants were then allowed to police slaves through patrols, militias, and barriers that was created so free labor would not be in competition with slave labor. racial bribe is a method used so whites can take advantage of not only African Americans but other settlements, creating conflict and other factors that would cause whites to intervene and take control. 

3. Since the nation’s founding, African Americans repeatedly have been controlled through institutions such as slavery and Jim Crow, which appear to die, but then are reborn in new form, tailored to the needs and constraints of the time…Following the collapse of each system of control, there has been a period of confusion—transition—in which those who are most committed to racial hierarch search for new means to achieve their goals within the rules of the game as currently defined.  It is during this period of uncertainty that the backlash intensifies and a new form of racialized social control begins to take hold.

  

   The above statement sums up the idea that every time slavery is abolished, it is transformed and reborned in a different way. For example, The New Jim Crow Era, Black Codes, Law and order, War on Drugs, and mass incarceration was a way slavery was reborned and reborned to still exist. All of which continued segregation and discrimination towards African Americans. In The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander she mentions the term backlash and the strategy used by whites to take away the progress of African Americans/ When blacks are succeeding or on the path to living a comfortable life, whites find a way to limit their progress.

     

4.  What is the Southern Manifesto and who drafted it?

      The Southern Manifesto, drafted by Sam Ervin Jr., a racist polemic, was a vow to fight to maintain Jim Crow by all legal means. With the support of 101 out of  128 members of Congress, the expectation was definitely a negative one. Almost fifty new Jim Crow laws were passed, the Ku Klux Klan become more powerful and ruthless, and many bombing of black home and churches. There was a rage of terror and hatred towards African Americans and with only the NAACP in existence to fight for colored people, it was difficult for change to occur.

5.   What limits did Clinton impose on those receiving TANF?

     President Clinton implemented many limits on those who were receiving TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families). One limit was referred to as "One Strike and You're Out Initiative". People who commit a crime and are peddled with drugs show be included in this category. People found with drugs would receive a lifetime ban on their eligibility for welfare, food stamps, and can no longer receive public housing An African Americans life basically taken away from a simple possession of marijuana charge. All of these laws put into place like the War on Drugs are targeted to get African Americans into prison and to serve as slaves, a continuation of blacks being dehumanized. 

Civil War

Hussien Nasser

AFAM 2100 – The New Jim Crow

Professor Young

9 February 2017

Civil War

The class discussion on Civil War came together and made what I have been taught about the Civil War more detailed and broader. In high school, middle school, and elementary School, the Civil War was taught on a general level and not on a broader aspect like class discussion. I was taught that the

Civil War simply started due to tariffs, a tax or duty to be paid on a particular class of imports or exports. South Carolina leaving the Union followed by other states joining together and creating the Confederate States of America was also another cause that I learned about the Civil War. This led to the Civil War resulting in over 600,000 deaths and many being wounded. Slavery was also a reason to the separation of states. It was taught however on a brief spectrum. In high schools and elementary schools, teachers are taught in my opinion to keep the real truth away from students. Not the real truth necessarily but information that will open up our eyes and make us to think in-depth about the

reasons we learned the Civil War or other wars actually occurred.

After class discussion, the Civil War was caused from slavery and the transition from agricultural system to an industrial system. Slaves would work in cotton and large mining fields. After the creation of the cotton gin, it made the production of cotton easier and more efficient. It helped the South economy resulting in the demand for more slaves. The government then placed tariffs on raw and manufactured goods causing the South to pay a high amount of taxes and importing goods to the North. After slavery, the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution was the next spark to the Civil War. States were given full access to creating their own laws as well as each stated having the same number of senators; however, the number of representatives was based on population. This affected the South in a negative way because the North would be given more power in the house of Congress. The next cause was the abolitionist movement and northern abolitionist fighting to abolish slavery. For example, William Lloyd Garrison and his newspaper The Liberated became popular as he wrote continuously to justify slavery and the need for it to be abolished. The last spark that caused the Civil War was the creation of the Republican Party by Abraham Lincoln and his predecessors. The Republican Party wanted to stop the expansion of slavery which caused the South to become furious. All of these were the causes toward the Civil War as discussed in class. It made it come together with what I have been taught in high school and elementary school and that it was caused from the separation of stated and the creation of the Confederate States of America.    

An interesting question that I have is “How does a President who does not support social and political equality amongst everyone become President of the United States of America?” This is also an important fact that I was not taught prior to class discussion. It fascinates me learning how much power whites had during this period. White individuals could literally fool, trick, or just walk themselves into power. I also wonder to myself, “How did whites feel when mistreating blacks?” Did the thought of what if this was my son, brother, or sister ever come in mind. It amuses me because I personally would at least get a spark of sympathy or some sort. 

The Process and System by which Slavery Increased

Hussien Nasser
AFAM 2100
Professor Young
6 February 2017

The process and system by which slavery increased was unique and well created by whites.  The process was controlled primarily by the government and corporations, creating a system that keeps blacks in slavery legally.   The process was referred to as “convict leasing”.  Slaves would be charged with trumped up charges such as vagrancy or cussing in front of a white person; the most minuet action would put any black person in jail. After being arrested and fined, these slaves were not financially met to pay these fines therefore they were given a plea bargain. These slaves would feel afraid and intimidated so they would confess to erroneous charges that they did not commit resulting in them going to jail. As mentioned earlier, convict leasing was primarily controlled by corporations and the government. Both the government and corporations worked together to provide a system for corporations to either buy or lease prisoners. Wares’ Shelby Iron Works was an industrial company in Alabama that contracted with the Confederate government to produce iron for war. “Slaves were the salvation of the operation to continue supplying thousands of tons of iron”. Shelby Iron Works, also the largest owner of slaves in Alabama, acquired prisoners who were slaves from the government making it beneficial for the white man. African Americans skills and abilities are being used while the white man is growing and making his life better. As the white man was getting richer, the black man was getting poorer. This was the mentality during the Industrial Slave Period. Before the system and process of convict leasing was implemented, Richard Mather states that “African slavery is normal, natural, and holy”. This statement goes to show that African Americans are naturally supposed to be in a system that suppressed and oppressed them from growing and living a life similar to that of the whites.