The Corner of Cross and Damon

April 8, 2008 by Marc Lamont Hill

We Are the Crack Generation
By Matthew Birkhold

Born in September of 1979, I am at the tail end of the last generation of American’s who remembers a world without crack. To some, crack will seem like a strange way to classify the era I in which I was raised. To others, it will make all too much sense.

For me, and millions like me, crack’s impact on America is a defining characteristic of the world we’ve grown up in. Since crack, prison and the murder of black men by other black men have been central to our world. Today, one in every nine African Americans are in prison. Most of these people are nonviolent and are locked up because sentencing guidelines mandate that people arrested with five grams of crack receive the same sentence as those who posses 500 grams of powder cocaine.

Thirteen years ago, Tek, from the rap group Smif N Wesson (Cocoa Bovaz) rapped, “I’m from the streets where the average man can become a killer.” We are members of the first generation for whom this statement is true and makes sense. When crack cocaine was introduced to the world, hundreds of average men became killers. Since crack, the death of black men before the age of 25 by homicide has become a taken for granted norm. Amazingly, people born after 1984 know nothing else. Their world is younger than crack and therefore have no knowledge of a world where the above catastrophes don’t exist. To them, these realities are normal.

M. Dot, who runs the blog Model Minority (http://www.modelminority.blogspot.com), has recently discussed the impact of crack on her family. She says, in the crack era, “once caring fathers became crack zombies. My own dad transformed in front of our very eyes. Pre-Crack, he was a man who on Thursday broiled steaks, baked potatoes, and dropped live lobsters in boiling hot water (much to my curiosity and horror) for our weekly pre-Cosby Show meal. Post-Crack, he turned into someone who disappeared on pay day Friday’s taking the rent money, the light money, the money from the safe at his job and pretty much anything else that wasn’t nailed down to feed his jones.” Her brother sold crack. M. Dot’s story is not unique.

In the US we’ve all grown accustomed to talking about the travesty of eight years with George Bush in the white house, the climate crisis, terrorism, a housing crisis, job losses and increasing debt. What we’re not accustomed to discussing is how crack completely changed our country in just twenty years. I’m convinced that the introduction of crack to the United States is the most significant event of my lifetime. Its legacy has shaped me in profound ways as well as the lives of my peers. Because of crack, a few people I know have gotten rich, a lot of have been to prison, some have grown addicted, some have been killed, some have parents who left them, some have parents who were killed, some have become successful in business or academics, others have become political activists and lawyers. Whatever they’re doing and wherever they are, their paths can indirectly and directly be traced back to the impact of crack on them and their communities.

Those of us born between 1964 and 1984 have been called all kinds of things. We’ve been called the hip hop generation; we make up generations X, Y and the millennial generation. None of these terms work for me. I can kind of get with the “hip hop generation” because it at least says something about a phenomenon that has shaped us. Looking back over the last thirty years however, nothing has shaped us more than crack. We are the crack generation.

Matt Birkhold is a Brooklyn based independent scholar, writer, and educator. His writing appears weekly at NewsOne.com and is the founder of the Political Education Outreach Collective. He can be reached birkhold (at) gmail (dot) com.

Categories: MLH
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24 Comments

1. Garrett wrote:

“climate crisis . . .” Sorry, not buying it. The earth’s temp has gone up in a decade.

Crack is whack. Don’t do it.

April 8, 2008 @ 11:37 am

2. Garrett wrote:

“climate crisis . . .” Sorry, not buying it. The earth’s temp has gone up in a decade.

Crack is whack. Don’t do it.

April 8, 2008 @ 11:37 am

3. Garrett wrote:

“climate crisis . . .” Sorry, not buying it. The earth’s temp hasn’t gone up in a decade.

Crack is whack. Don’t do it.

April 8, 2008 @ 11:37 am

4. Garrett wrote:

Sorry for all the posts, I dropped my crack pipe.

April 8, 2008 @ 11:38 am

5. james wrote:

well written piece, but i thought the dissolution of the soviet union was the defining moment of my generation.

April 8, 2008 @ 11:57 am

6. JustSaying wrote:

I was born in the (early) 70’s and grew up in South Jamaica Queens, so I too saw first hand how crack destroyed minds, futures and total families. With a jacked up educational system and the debilitating social and economic affects of “Reaganomics” on the poor neighborhoods, many young men took to selling crack to help their single moms put food on the tables or some simply just to get there little piece of the American dream…

Although crack was revolutionary as a drug due to it’s overwhelming accessibility and profitability I still don’t think that it was the defining moment of our generation. I believe it was a domino in a string of dominoes that have affected and defined the state of black american life since the end of Jim Crowe and the civil rights era. Some other moments (or dominoes) in history that lead to the crack era include, the Vietnam war and the lack of respect, jobs and resources waiting on the vets who came home with alcohol and drug dependancies; heroine (cause before we had crackheads we already had the bass heads); de-segregation which, with all of it’s merits also served to drain all of the wealth and resources out of the black communities; 8 years of Ronald Reagan and “Reaganomics”; just to name a few.

Finally, crack cannot define the generation because its effects were mainly felt in the African-American communities. Not to say there weren’t or aren’t plenty of white crack heads and dealers, but it still hasn’t directly affected the white communities as it has the black. Unless you consider how it forced many whites out of the cities and into the suburbs in order to further contain the problems within the black communities.

April 8, 2008 @ 12:39 pm

7. moniqu wrote:

My father turned into someone I didn’t recognize because of crack cocaine, and died as a result of his addiction in 1998. Crack changed the landscape of Black America. Oddly enough, not many people discuss it. Thanks for this very well written article.

April 8, 2008 @ 12:43 pm

8. wouldn't you love to know? wrote:

damn Matt, i fucks with you for this one …

out of all the names, i think you’ve hit the nail on the head, when you call us the “crack generation”…i’m an “84″ baby, from the years 1984 to 1988 i lived in queens NY, and kingston JA…the summer of “88″ was when i arrived in Philadelphia…and my life has been changed ever since…

living in philly has truly sculpted my life like no other…i mean, imagine as a child playing on your block or in your school yard and having to step over hundreds of little crack viles…i mean, this was between “88″ and the early 90’s, when crack flooded the streets heavy….imagine…walking to the store with your buddy, and there are crack viles sprinkled all over the sidewalk and streets, like someone threw confetti…imagine…this was the norm….my childhood has some of the most fondest memories, but it also has some of the most scariest too…

thankfully, crack has never hit my immediate family….but growing up in philadelphia, where i’ve befriended so many, to the point where i have soooo many add on “cousins”…it feels like it still hits your family…you feel me?…it was hard as hell coming up, watching some of my closest friends, family members with the monkey on their backs…and you see, at the time when crack first hit…no one knew the aftermath…so coming up, we were just watching it unfold right before our eyes…

to see regular, normal people transform into zombies, is some shit you only thought you’d see in the movies…but yes, when crack hit the map…from the reverend to the whore, everyone was being warped…one by one…crack is one fucked up drug too…i mean, that shit fucks your whole everything up…it’s like, it attacks your brain and turn you into some other shit…one day you go to church, and you see your pastor…the next month, you see his ass eating out a dumpster…that shit was crazy…the things people did for it…nothing mattered, it’s like, crack stole souls…it was and still is a scary epidemic…i remember as a child, walking to the store with my mother, and seeing a crackhead walk out of the alley…my mother turned to me, and said “you see that? you see how she’s living? that’s crack. if you ever want to look like that, and live like that, use crack.”…that walk changed my life forever…anytime i saw a crackhead, i thought of my mother’s words…

now what’s really crazy to me…is the fact that we have young crackheads now….i’m saying like 16 year olds and shit…i figured, once people saw what the drug did to people, then it would eventually die down…but oh was i wrong!…i would never forget, when i saw this girl i knew growing up, walking down the street looking like a straight up crackhead…she was only 18 at the time…it came out later, that she was in fact using…that shit, fucked my head all the way up…all the way…i couldn’t believe it…i thought to myself, damn didn’t you see what it did to your auntie???…wouldn’t that be motivation not to use???…but i guess not, because since then, i’ve seen so many of my peers fall victim…so i agree Matt, we are the CRACK GENERATION.

great read.

April 8, 2008 @ 1:15 pm

9. Eve's Bayou wrote:

This discussion is so sad but true. I don’t think anyone knew just how hard this epidemic would hit our communities. Luckily my parents moved us to the suburbs of Atlanta to protect us from what they saw as an “attack” on black people. But we were just ten minutes away from the destruction. My dad used to take me and my sisters to Stewart Ave, a popular prostitution track, to see first hand the effects that crack had on women.Those images still haunt me to this day. I’m a “81″ baby so I’ve watched loving uncles turn into full out crackheads. My younger cousins or nieces and nephews don’t understand that these people were not always fiends. They didn’t see the transformation so they don’t trully comprehend the actual tragedy. Sad.

April 8, 2008 @ 2:30 pm

10. PP wrote:

I have to agree that we are the crack generation

April 8, 2008 @ 3:42 pm

11. decoteau wrote:

Might be some typos in hear – did this with the quickness – but here it goes:

The notion that we are the “crack generation” is absurd. To define ourselves in such a way is nihilistic, not to mention essentialist. I don’t wish to diminish the “negative” impact the crack epidemic and its aftermath has on inner-city Black and Latino communities (primarily); however, by no means does it provide a comprehensive way to understand who we are, what our generation is and has the potential to be.

The label to me does not allow for agency or recognize that communities have endured the crack epidemic and its aftermath despite adversity, systematic discrimination, benign neglect, racist and classist federal polies, and on and on. What we call ourselves is important in suggesting what we can do. Seriously, what the f*ck can we expect from a “crack generation?” What should and can others expect? Nothing.

Framing our generation and people (ie. urban, Black and Brown, in the popular imagination at least) in such a way only provides an impetus for continued use of targeting, minimum sentencing policies, and justifies the continued oppression, neglect, and counter-productive policies (that frame drug use as a criminal rather that public health issue) to combat our generation of people rather than the problems of people.

Our generation of people (which you call the crack generation) has come of age amidst an aggressive conservative back-lash/response to progressive Civil Rights and Black Power Eras. This back-lash reframed economic issues such as reaganomics, deindustrialization, and the subsequent rise of the illicit drug economy as our own fault. Calling ourselves the “crack generation” essentially accomplishes the same thing and continues in the conservative tradition of framing particular groups of people’s problems as their own individual failings.

This label to me rings neo-conservatism and differs little from “welfare queens” and the many other innaccurate names that have been given to us. These identifiers have been used as rhetoric in a larger discourse to justify and make neccessary the maintenence of our unfortunate conditions, while absolving the rest of society from the responsiblity to even have a concern.

We really must be careful of coining such innacurate terms b/c imagine Fox News co-opting this self proclamation and attributing its genius to a an articulate guy named Matt Birkhold who writes for Marc Lamont Hill’s blog. People who already feel and believe we ain’t shit could have a field day if we neatly package there racist/classist ideas for them.

After all, why should anyone be concerned about a “crack generation?” How concerned are we about ourselves if we’re willing to give ourselves such the title “crack generation?” Finally, where are we going with this title? I mean, we’re already “niggas.” Must we be the “crack generation” too?

We must be on crack.

April 8, 2008 @ 4:27 pm

12. DCI74 wrote:

This is a really interesting article Matt but I can’t ride with you on this one. Granted those of us with birthdays that fall in that date range have collectively been called a lot of things by a lot of people but there are just far too many other factors that impacted our generation beyond the introduction of crack. I have at times even rejected the ‘hip hop generation’ label as well because depending on the context it reflects limitations on how we individually define ourselves and have been defined by others from a societal perspective. In no way am I denying the influence of crack and hip hop but I won’t allow myself to be categorized simply because I happened to be born in 1974, and watched the emergence of crack and hip hop. But I do get where you’re going with this.

April 8, 2008 @ 5:00 pm

13. matt wrote:

What up D,
Thanks for reading and your thoughtful response.

As you probably know, I agree with all of the empirical things you’ve said to support your position. I disagree however with how you’ve framed the term generation. Generation X, Y, or millennial does not describe any sort of agency and my use of crack generation is in the same vein. Your criticism however leads me to think about what your interpretation of the term means for the larger use of the term.

The term, Crack Generation, is an attempt to frame how major the impact of crack was on America. Due to crack, we have become a nation (all of us) of people who now think its normal for black men to kill each other and for black men and women to be forcibly removed from their communities thereby disrupting the very notion of community for black people.

Black folk were pathologized by white folks before crack. I think its important to see how the impact of crack made the image of Reagan’s ‘welfare queen’ all the more palatable to white people and to black conservatives (as well as some black democratic socialists like WIlliam Julius WIlson) who regularly pathologize post-crack black life, even when they have good intentions. In this regard it is extremely important how central the role of crack was to the American imagination from the late 80 onward because of how crack shaped the way blackness was percieved in the popular imagination.

However, your definition of generation is something I’m going to think about. Do you take issue with the concept of generation X or with the hip hop generation? Hip hop’s image is none too positive and probably almost as pathologically portrayed as crack. Neither really makes me think of agency though I could see an argument made for hip hop that includes agency.

I think your question about how concerned we are about ourselves if we call ourselves the crack generation is important. I wonder how important understanding just how devastating crack was to us as a nation of people is to developing ideas about agency and in particular, organized struggle. Most of teh theories we have for organized struggle have no way to explain a population of people who measure our humanity more by what kind os shoes we wear and/or what kind of car we drive than by any human attributes. Crack, and the violence associated with it (along with the expansion of credit), made all of us less human and more desensitized to the various ills you’ve discussed in your comments above. Do you think something like the post-industrial generation, or credit generation might be more fitting? What you think. Thanks for the dialogue.

April 8, 2008 @ 5:00 pm

14. matt wrote:

Hey DC174,
Thanks for reading. I’m not mad at you and really appreciate your honest comments. The crack generation is not an attempt to minimize any other factors but more of an attempt to focus on a factor discussed so little. Thanks for your criticisms though. They’re real helpful.

April 8, 2008 @ 5:04 pm

15. MrDeeTroit wrote:

I’m with you DC. I’m in no way a card carrying member of the “crack generation”. I do however completely relate to the article. Very well written, and stirring. Brought back lots of memories, as I too saw crack completely destroy a life.

April 8, 2008 @ 6:04 pm

16. matt wrote:

Mr Deetroit, Dc, and Deciteau,
I wanted to just take a second to thank you for your criticisms of the term while also seeing the point of the piece. Your criticisms of the term have given me much to think about. Thanks.

April 8, 2008 @ 6:08 pm

17. wouldn't you love to know? wrote:

decoteau,

i understand fully where you are coming from…i label myself as a human being first and foremost…but why i can relate to the term “crack generation” is simple…that was the generation, i was born into, and have experienced…i don’t know, i guess it’s all in how you were affected by the era…i’ve witnessed the epidemic through a child’s lens…to see so much crazy ish happening around me, at such a young age was truly eye opening…i mean, i saw first hand what the drug does to a person…that shit was all around me, on every corner…thank god, for great parents, that kept me focused…

but, it was still a grim reality, and it still is…i’ve lost soooo many friends to that bullshit…either using, in jail, or dead…crack is significant, and has truly shaped the 80’s and early 90’s…and that is something we can’t shy away from…though the term “crack generation” may not be appealing to most, and a bit difficult to digest…it’s still a reality, whether we like it or not…we’re not always going to like how everything sound and taste…but the truth is the truth, no matter how much you slice it…this is just an ugly truth we have to face…

like i’ve said, i can understand your distaste in the term…but, i think matt was just trying to catorgorize our generation under something significant…and there isn’t anything more significant to our generation, than crack…

ps. fuck fox…them fake ass dudes

April 8, 2008 @ 10:41 pm

18. james wrote:

wouldn’t you love to know? one truth does not add up to the truth.

April 9, 2008 @ 9:25 am

19. Ann wrote:

I was deeply disturbed by this commentary yesterday but chose not to respond. I am glad a lot of you did step up and say what I was feeling- Decoteau, DC174, MrDeeTroit…

April 9, 2008 @ 9:46 am

20. wouldn't you love to know? wrote:

james,

i feel you…and you are right…but i must ask…should we ignore the millions that were affected by this?…like i’ve said before, i’ve never had a problem with drugs in MY family…not ONE of my family members used…not one…but yet still, that was the era, i grew up in and was affected by…i’ve had friends, neighbors, and associates that have used…just because, some of us never used the drug ourselves…does not mean, it wasn’t and still is an epidemic…and that we can’t we ignore…that’s the problem that i have with some….the fact that, because some of us didn’t indulge in something…we think we can just forget about the millions that did…well, i don’t roll like that, i speak of problems as a whole…and crack has had some sort of affect om my generation as a whole…period…have i ever used drugs?…fuck no…will i ever?…hell to the no…but on the strenght of my homies, who have had mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunties, and uncles…who have abused and lost their lives to this monster..i’ll forever have their backs and be a voice for the unheard…because it’s millions just like them and me, who have been affected in some way by this…so you’re right james, ONE truth doesn’t add to the truth…only the truth everybody feels comfortable with…

April 9, 2008 @ 11:49 am

21. wouldn't you love to know? wrote:

please excuse all my f**kin’ typos…i suck

April 9, 2008 @ 11:51 am

22. james wrote:

wouldn’t you love to know, just because i’m not defining or labeling my generation in one way or another doesn’t mean i’m ignoring–or even ignorant of–the issues. and, in fact, as you well know, many people who were convicted of crack possession are now having their sentences reevaluated; so i would say that thinking people, in general, are not ignoring the effects of this devastating drug. i don’t know that everybody feels comfortable with one truth. i’d say, judging from the proliferation of blogs and other media, that people are fairly comfortable with the presence multiple truths.

April 9, 2008 @ 12:26 pm

23. Brooklyn101 wrote:

No. I’m not claiming the ‘crack generation’ as my identifier.

I can, however, identify with the label of hip hop generation because during the lifetime of the 70’s babies, that particular phenomenon that began as music of the urban youth transformed into a force that influences the American culture in a somewhat balanced way, as opposed to the term ‘crack generation’ that only embraces/showcases a negative and does not encapsulate the life experience of everyone in our age group.

Why does it seem that we are so willing to accept a negative label because there is some truth to it?

April 10, 2008 @ 11:59 pm

24. Nubian King wrote:

I’d like to add that “crack” has had a direct and indirect impact on us more than we think. Even for those who never used crack, the increased number of people that have been put behind bars (Regan “Say No To Drugs” police build up) and schooled in prison culture and thus returned to society greatly “infected” our culture.

April 11, 2008 @ 11:54 am

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