Quote Expliantions

Denisha Canady

Jim Crow

Professor Young

March 30^th,2017

Quotes

1)      “A doctor called Michael V. Ball got in touch with Harry to counter this view, saying he had used hemp exact as a medical student and it only made him sleepy.” (Hari, 16)

Mr. Anslinger made absurd comments about how marijuana can cause people to harm others, which is not true.  This doctor spoke up to prove Anslinger wrong, but unfortunately, it was not very effective.

2)      “His job was to bust his own people, but Anslinger was insistent that no black man in his Bureau could ever become a white man boss.  Jimmy was allowed through the door at the Bureau, but never up the stairs. (Hari, 22)

Jimmy Fletcher, a black man, worked for Anslinger as a agent.  He used Fletcher to bust Billie Holiday.  Although Fletcher was a good agent who took his job seriously, Anslinger would never allow him to overpower him.  Anslinger believed since Fletcher was a black man, he should stay in his place,

3)      “It’s tough enough coming off when you’ve got somebody who loves you and trusts you and believes in you” she wrote.  “I didn’t have anybody”” 23

Billie Holiday lived a harsh life.  Her mother was a prostitute, her father died, she was raped at a young age, forced into prostitution, and the list goes on and on. The only way she could coupe with the pain was to do drugs.  One could say that drugs was a substitution for a family because it comforted her, just like a family would. It was so difficult for her too stop taking drugs because without it, she would truly feel alone.

4)      “One day, Harry Anslinger was told that there were also white women, just as famous as Billie, who had drug problems- but he responded to them rather differently.” (Hari, 26)

Harry Anslinger was a well-known racist.

5)      “The main reason given for banning drugs- the reason obsessing the men who launched the war- was that the blacks, Mexicans, and Chinese were using these chemicals, forgetting their place, and menacing white people.” (Hari, 26)

White men felt as if their white supremacy was being tested. Instead of realizing that minorities were getting tired of being treated as they were worth less than their fellow white and rebelling against them, they set the blame on drugs because it was a popular thing that everyone was doing.  But, instead of harassing everyone using drugs, they targeted minorities in order to control them and keep them in their place.

6)      “Harry told the public that “the increase [in drug addiction] is practically 100 percent among Negro people,” which he stressed was terrifying because already “the Negro population… accounts for 10 percent of the total population, but 60 percent of the addicts.”  (Hari, 26)

In my opinion, I feel like some parts of this statement was true.  Considering that lots of black people experienced the same type of life like Billie Holiday, I would understand why the percent would be so high.  But, I also feel like he said this statement because he wanted the public to believe that all black people were drug addicts, thus criminalizing them.

7)      Many white Americans did not want to accept that black Americans might be rebelling because they had lives like Billie Holiday’s- locked into Pigtowns and banned from developing their talents. (Hari, 27)

It was easier for the white Americans to think that black Americans were rebelling against them for harsh, irrational reasons because it would justify how black Americans were being treated.  If they chose to acknowledge the truth about why black people were rebelling, white people would be forced to live with the guilt of treating innocent people as trash.

8)      “Imagine if the government chased sick people with diabetes, put a tax on insulin and drove it into the black market, told doctors they couldn’t treat them, then sent them to jail.  If we did that, everyone would know we were crazy.  Yet we do practically the same thing every day in the week to sick people hooked on drugs.” (Hari, 31)

Billie Holiday makes a valid statement about how addicts are viewed differently than other sickly people simply because they are addicted to a drug that harmful.  She makes the comparison of people with diabetes and addicts because these two are both hooked on a drug, but one is considered as a drug addict and one isn’t.  People have no sympathy to “addicts” because they chose to do drugs, but a person who uses prescribed drugs for their health would never be treated in the same manner.