Wed, Feb 28
|Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum
The Suburban Crisis: White America and the War on Drugs
Matthew Lassiter, professor of history at the University of Michigan will provide an overview of American drug control politics and policy from the 1950s to the 1980s, with particular focus on Southern California.
Time & Location
Feb 28, 2024, 5:30 PM – 8:00 PM
Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum, 385 E 8th St, Claremont, CA 91711, USA
About the event
Drug warriors have long positioned white middle-class youth as sympathetic victims of illegal drug markets who need rehabilitation instead of prison whenever they break the law. The futile mission to deter drug use by white suburban youth shaped the nation’s first mandatory-minimum narcotics laws in the 1950s, a massive spike in white marijuana arrests during the 1960s and 1970s, and the combination of “just say no” moralizing and militarized urban crackdowns in the 1980s. Politicians, the media, and grassroots suburban activists crusaded to protect white families from perceived threats while criminalizing and incarcerating urban minorities, leaving a troubling legacy of racial injustice that continues to inform the war on drugs today.