The rise and fall of crack in New York City can be explained through the idea of group position. The American Dream is a tool used to keep the wealthy in power and reinforce the “abstract image of the subordinate group” which took the form of welfare queens and ghetto bangers in the imaginations of the white majority (Blume 6). These designated subordinate races are then seen as undeserving of institutional support fought for in the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s. This intensified issues within these communities of color which were then imprisoned in mass due to the “get tough on crime” approach of the dominant racial group in order to “redefine the subordinate racial group” as criminal (Contreras 75)(Blumer 5). This …show more content…
phenomena is still seen today in cities across the United States. The dominant racial group during the Reagan era used their goal of reducing social programs in order to undo the Civil Rights Movement and “it meant destroying individuals, families, neighborhoods, and communities” (Contreras 50) : Conservative policy allowed drugs and used them as an excuse to destroy communities of color using incarceration. This allowed for the dominant racial group to impose their racial prejudice based on the abstract image of the dark criminal. The dark criminal only exists as a symptom of how society has defined people as color in order to strip them of their rights as citizens. A citizen has the right to advocate and defy the dominant racial group, but the criminal does not. The redefinition of the subordinate group leads to the abuse and neglect of those subordinate racial groups as is seen through the crack era and today. Crack was not the cause, but the symptom of how the dominant racial group viewed the subordinate.Pablo, Gus, and Melissa are following their American Dream.
They are not going against society’s whims but following them exactly to their own demise. In the American Dream “the quintessential American pursued wealth”, but the American Dream only works in favor of the dominant racial group (Contreras 52). Pursuit of wealth as a virtue is inherently destructive as the basis of a society as communities of color will destroy themselves on that virtue alone. The dominant racial group in the United States wants the American Dream to stay alive. The American Dream serves the dual purpose of affirming their own status and subdues the subordinate racial group whose exploitation is the way the dominant racial group garners wealth. Communities of color such as the Black or Latinx community in the United States are struggling against the wealthy White intent to exploit …show more content…
them. In the present lack of education and mass incarceration have wreaked havoc on rural and urban communities alike as the new drug epidemic caused by pharmaceutical companies are destroying lower class families.
Going into small towns is seen as dangerous, because of the prevalence of heroin. This is part of the American Dream as people who are poorer have no institutional support and grasp desperately at increasing their wealth. Communities of color who were left in the cities during the White flight of the 50s are being forced out of their urban homes into as cities become more desirable for the wealthy White owning class. This is seen in Austin, Texas and in Seattle, Washington where communities of color are being displaced by the lack of affordable
housing. Racial prejudice in the form of the constant effort of the dominant racial group in the United States to assert their group position is the cause of the rise and fall of crack. Pablo, Gus, and Melissa are all falling into the ploy that seeks to criminalize and then enslave them. Pablo and Gus are marked as felons and are pacified by the time they become fallen stars. They are old and past their age for challenging the forces that pushed them into the drug trade. They are broken and placed by society to work whatever job society will give them which are “jobs that paid much less than those available to non-offenders” making them a permanent caste whose rights are easy to take away and who have no right to social mobility.