I think the answer is less complicated than you might think.
It’s because they were black.
The government really hated black people at the time should be the legit answer and sometimes I think the Republicans still do.
Exactly. Don’t give the racist that much credit. It wasn’t a well thought out plan. It was simply “fuck them ngrs”
It’s not all that deep. Unfortunately. I wish it was a grand plan. It’s not. It’s just “fuck em”
Everyone keeps saying that but how come not poor whites in the mountains or the huge asain in the west at the time? To me I would give some to the white mountain people, majority to asains and some to blacks. Did they just throw a dart at a dart board and it landed on blacks or was it we fucked over the blacks time after time so lets fuck them over again?
Anti-black racism has been a cornerstone of America since Jamestown
Why would anyone care about poor whites in the mountains? Let them survive in their hovels and shovel coal. They had no organization or other power to affect anyone
Because when you villify one group, the others will join you to fight against them.
If the poor whites and the poor blacks and the poor immigrants ever realized that they’re all on the same team, there wouldn’t be anyone to fight for the rich.
All of this was built on slave labor
The war on drugs was a dog whistle continuation of the Jim Crow era. Because it was now illegal to discriminate against black people simply for being black, new methods of oppression needed to be instituted. When Nixon announced the war on drugs, drug use was going down and was approaching it’s lowest point in decades. His hope was that by finding ways to continue to police black people, he’d win support of Southern Democrats who were largely at the time, pro labor but mad about the civil rights movement.
This strategy worked, and it was continued and expanded under Reagan. When Nancy Reagan pleaded with Americans to ‘just say no’ drug use was at about 3% nationwide.
American police were always a tool of oppression of black communities. They grew out of post civil war racist brotherhoods like the KKK. On multiple occasions, entire chapters of KKK members were deputized.
The narco trafficking the CIA did was a natural progression of this, and was used as an excuse to further militarize the police.
“Because they were black” is a simple answer. And it’s correct. But you could add “and black people are who we oppress in this country.”
As a few others have mentioned here… it’s because they were black.
I’ve personally witnessed a racist try to explain to an South Asian friend of mine that he was “OK” because there’s black people and everyone else. I was flabbergasted because this wasn’t some nazi skinhead or something, but instead was an older white gentleman.
All racism is bad. But there’s racism, and then there’s racism in the USA towards black people, which unless you’ve witnessed it, it’s hard to understand how it is a whole other level of racism.
It’s no joke, I met a racist who hated black people, as himself was black. Racism is so strange and something that far as I can tell no one is born this way but taught. The fact that it is 2026 and we still haven’t broken away from it shows just how prevalent it is. Also the fact that if we met aliens within a few minutes someone would have a racist term for them also shows how human racism is. Makes one wonder if we have a evolutionary trait for it? Because all humans regardless of color have people within their race who are racist. It’s not just a white man thing.
The idea that the existence of crack was a government plot is an old and debunked conspiracy theory.
Not that our government isn’t that racist, just that it’s not that competent or forward thinking.
The real racism was the response to crack. The drug became synonymous with black Americans the same way AIDS became synonymous with gay men: because they were the early and obvious victims. Unlike AIDS, crack is actually much less dangerous than people think. Opioids are way worse.
But even the idea that crack was a “black” problem is a myth. My cracker-ass friend group experimented with free-basing cocaine (which is turning cocaine into crystal inside the smoking vessel, a practice far older than “cooking” crack, but produces the same drug and effect)
It’s like Conservatives are godless monsters or something.
Or in Asian neighbor hoods all over the west coast?
Most East-Asians don’t do drugs btw…
Especially 1st gens and the 1.5/2nd gens that grew up under 1st gen parents
(future generations that get more “Americanized” might be more willing to use illegal drugs)
There’a a huge cultural stigma as a remnant of the Opium Wars… “Drugs=Bad” was heavily drilled into my upbringing… and I was told alcohol and gambling were bad too… and I kinda agreed with it and just accepted theae statements as facts
Like white dudes literally tried the “introduce drugs to your people” thing before… we’re kinda culturually immunized to it, we see what y’all doing, we aint doing it
Dude I swear you follow me around and offer all this knowledge. I mean no way or sarcasm by that rarely do you find a person you would like to grab a beer with. Buddy you are one of those people. I almost want to test you by submitting so obscure you couldn’t answer. But I won’t do it but keep it up with others and maybe get a free bag bottle tab or whatever your vice is. Much love mate very much love.
Looking through the answers so far, I think the only thing not covered is why not the po white folk or other groups.
The simple answer really is that they aren’t black, because when it comes right down to it, any excuse they found to target black people would have excluded other groups except by accident.
But, that misses out on the other factor. The Appalachians aren’t a hotbed of protest and opposition. Folks up in the hills are too poor, too spread out, and too disconnected from external policies on a national level. There’s simply no need to destabilize those communities because they’re not a problem to the people making laws and decisions.
Same with the asian populations you asked about.
Black folks in cities have an advantage that rural people of any color don’t. Numbers in concentration. Even a minority can be a disruption to oppressors when there’s enough in one place. So keeping that population off balance becomes a priority for oppressors. That it’s black people in the U.S. is largely a matter of detail because the same principle would apply everywhere, with any given minority population being a target where that population group is a potential difficult to enforcing power. Like the rohingya or uyghur peoples as recent examples that were in the news.
Now, being real, black people across the world have been oppressed and abused for hundreds of years. So pretty much anywhere they exist, they get shit on in some way.
America never got over giving their “property” freedom.
Appalachians already voted Republican
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Inherent racism and population density. It feels a bit redundant to say it now that i see it written but that’s just the truth of it i guess
