The breakdown of the War on Drugs Disproportionate Effect on Women of Color
AFCT Coalition: Anti-Blackness, State Violence, and Black Lives Matter
Our Purpose:
Through our work and research, we have created a project that brings more awareness about the relationships between mass incarceration, anti-blackness, the long term impact of intergenerational trauma, and the Drug War in the US. Our solidarity work is conveyed in our research by supporting the work, advocacy, and knowledge of organizers, academics, and folks impacted by and invested in these issues. Our responsibility in this project is conveyed through educating people who are not directly impacted by this issue (and therefore have the privilege of remaining ignorant) and/or helping to give clarity to people about the various connections between these issues which are so often erased by the state and white supremacy. As a collective, we must learn about these issues because it is how we can work on solutions to them. It’s important to learn from people who have been studying and analyzing Anti-Blackness in order to understand what has and hasn’t worked, and to respect the labor and hardships which have obviously come before us in working to address these issues.
Our Research Questions:
- What organizations or nonprofits are doing rehabilitative-focused work for directly-impacted black people who have been incarcerated for drug use?
- What are alternative solutions to prison? Where is the beginning for prison abolition?
- In what ways were drugs pushed into Black communities when the War on Drugs began? Have these trends continued to the modern day?
- Who/what bodies of structure were involved in perpetuating the War on Drugs? Who (modern day) are now continuing to perpetuate the effects of the War on Drugs?
- How has the history of the war on drugs and over-criminalization affected the generational psychologically from parents to children in Black communities?
