[Trailer] A Netflix documentary looks at the history of crack in the USA

With Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy, Stanley Nelson continues to explore the history of black people in the United States by examining how the government and local American policies profited from the crack epidemic of the 1980s.

How did the scourge of crack come about and how did this drug ravage the most discriminated communities in the United States, fueling police violence, racism and government corruption? The Netflix documentary Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy attempts to answer these questions precisely by tracing the history of a war (led by the Reagan administration in particular), local anti-drug policies and the mass imprisonment of a financially desperate and addicted population. In short, the story of crack in the United States is the story of a national scandal.

This documentary pendant of the series The Wire allows us to understand one of the facets of systemic racism: how an epidemic affecting mainly the poorest and the most marginalized (victims of both disease and social injustice) can be politically recovered and develop a whole racist imagination .

>> To read also: “Soul”, a joyful search for happiness according to Pixar

A committed filmmaker

As recalled Indiewire, the director Stanley Nelson received in 2013 a medal from the hands of Barack Obama (“the National Humanities Medal”), but also the prestigious “Genius Prize” (the MacArthur Scholarship) in 2002 for his synthesis work of “history and culture through portraits specifically conveying the Afro-American experience”. Since the 1980s, he has signed around twenty documentaries including Freedom Riders (2010) and The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (2015).

The filmmaker specifies his intentions in a Netflix press release: “I experienced the crack era in New York City. I remember the long rows of cars waiting for drug dealers; people standing in building lobbies smoking crack cocaine; streets dotted with light bulbs. Crack transformed the city and the whole country, devastating everything in its wake – and especially within the black and latinx communities. I wanted to make this film because I felt strongly that the consequences of crack were not sufficiently analyzed. Crack has fueled racial and economic inequalities, but also police hyper-aggression, mass incarceration, and elevated corruption to the highest levels of government. “

From Wall Street parties sprinkled with cocaine to the disasters caused by crack cocaine, it’s a dark part of American history that Netflix proposes to discover from January 11, 2021.

>> To read also: Misogyny filth and betrayal: behind the scenes of “Basic Instinct”

–

–

–