As President Reagan dismissively said in 1987, “In the sixties we waged a war on poverty, and poverty won.”78 Instead, since 1971, the one-trillion-dollar government investment was now being funneled into policing and prisons.79 That depth of expenditure required a nation in a perpetual state of fear. The media was key. “While the murder rate in the United States fell by 20% from 1990-1998, the numbers of stories about murder (excluding O.J. Simpson) on the network news increased by 600 percent.” The message was clear: “Be afraid, be very afraid!”80 That fear focused on African Americans and
...more
