In 1986—the same year that Chanel discovered her mother’s crack pipe—Congress approved a new law making punishment for crack possession (common among the poor) one hundred times more harsh than for powder cocaine (common among the wealthy). Even first-time crack offenders landed mandatory minimum sentences of five to ten years, contributing to the explosion of America’s prison population—a disproportionately Black and Latino group that came to include Chanel’s two brothers, an uncle, and four cousins. Within a decade, this population would surpass a million. The United States had claimed the
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