Donovan X. Ramsey

When Crack Was King

Lindsay

I suppose we made it a slur because we feared what it represented, a rock bottom to which any of us could sink. That's what children do when they're in search of power over things that frighten us. We reduce them to words, bite-size things that can be spat out at a moment's notice.

School felt like an extension of the streets. There, it was teachers, mostly white, who did the profiling. They labeled my classmates emotionally disturbed or hyperactive, diagnosed them with learning disabilities and dismissed them accordingly. For us, Black boys mostly, it was a gradual process that sped up as we got bigger and more spirited. We didn't realize we were inside the belly of the beast that ate insubordinate Black boys whole, one that labeled us so that it could consume us, and that used our reaction to justify itself to itself. My peers and I couldn't name it, but we recognized the disdain of teachers and educators and bristled at it. We avoided the police who profiled us as drug dealers and gang bangers, as super predators. We resisted the low expectations of teachers who regarded us as possible crack babies incapable of learning.

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