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White Privilege in the Age of The War on Drugs
Completed in 2016 as part of Mexicanos al Grito de Guerra, "We Didn't Cross the Border, The Border Crossed Us" at The Mission Cultural Center in San Francisco, this piece was an exploration of the criminalization & regulation of Coca vs Tobacco via the War on Drugs.
This side of the wall focuses on how the war on drugs has been disproportionally focused on Black & Brown communites
The guns featured are the most popular guns made in the USA used by cartels in Mexico.
White coming of age, the impunitive use of drugs & alcohol. Additionally a tremendous amount of white wealth has been acquired through lenient regulation of tobacco & alcohol despite the dangers they impose on society.
For decades, as part of the War on Drugs, The US has funded the destruction of farmland by indiscriminately spraying herbicide on land where they suspect people are growing Coca. The poison kills everything, the food farmers grow for their families, everything. Additionally it makes land unsafe to replant.
The people featured are parents & loved ones of people killed by the police & violence associated with The War on Drugs.
Aranceli Rodriguez lost her 16 yr old son Jose Antonio Rodrigues when he was shot by a border control agent who shot blindly through the fence. Jeralynn Blueford's son Alan was murdered by Oakland PD just weeks before his HS graduation.
Despite cops arriving in riot gear with guns, so often the narrative becomes that protestors are violent, that "throwing rocks" is justification for killing innocent unarmed people.
Ronald Reagan can be attributed to the initial boom in over policing & hyper-incarceration of poor Black & Brown people. Meanwhile, white youth commit crimes largely ignored.
Assess to impunity, generational wealth & back room deals
To this day, it is legal for children to work in tobacco fields in the American South. While lying to the public of the dangers of tobacco, white tobacco farmers have amassed tremendous wealth before & during The War on Drugs.