On this edition of Your Call, award-winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson discusses his new Netflix documentary, Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy. Nelson looks back on how the crack epidemic of the early 1980s decimated Black and Brown communities.
The epidemic fueled racial and economic inequality, hyper-aggressive policing, mass incarceration, and government corruption at the highest levels. Nelson says we need to expose the truth about the past in order to change policies.
Guest:
Stanley Nelson, Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker and founder of Firelight Media. Stanley is a MacArthur “Genius” Fellow and recipient of the National Medal in the Humanities. Some of his films include Freedom Riders, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution and The Murder of Emmett Till
Web Resources:
Netflix: Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy
The Guardian, Beatrice Loayza: 'The war on drugs funded policing': behind a Netflix documentary about crack
Bloom&Oil, Zack Ruskin: Netflix’s “Crack” Reveals America’s War on Drugs Was Really a War on People