Stanley Nelson,
welcome to The Daily Social Distancing Show.
Thank you for having me.
As one of America's most prolific documentary filmmakers,
you've received multiple awards,
everything from Emmys
to awards from President Barack Obama himself.
You've always been adept at telling the story
of the African American experience,
and it feels like all stories would be incomplete
without the story of the crack epidemic
and the lies that surrounded
that time during American history.
As a filmmaker who's told every kind of story,
why did you feel like this was a story that you needed to tell
and everybody needed to see?
Well, I-I thought that-that the crack era
was something that we really hadn't looked back on
and hadn't, you know, looked back on
through the lens of time
and through the distance of time.
You know, there was a lot of overblown reporting
at the time, a lot of hyperbole,
uh, a lot of misconceptions, and I thought it was time
that-that we looked at it in a new light.
Now, just one of the many things
that makes this documentary special
is that you are a native of Harlem.
You lived in Harlem
during the height of the crack epidemic,
and you lived in Harlem
during the height of the war on drugs.
Yeah, I mean, the crack era was crazy,
you know, for-for anybody that doesn't, uh, remember it.
You know, it was nuts. You know, from the middle '80s
to about the middle '90s, it was crazy.
You know, there were crack dealers everywhere.
I remember coming home from a party at 3:00 at night
and-and driving past a block in Harlem,
and it looked like broad daylight.
I mean, literally, there were 100 people
on-on this one block.
So, it was everywhere.
You know, people were driving around in cars
saying, you know, "Crack, got that crack?"
You know, everywhere. Um, you know,
you didn't have to be Sherlock Holmes to-to find it.
You know, to-to...
For law enforcement to-to see
that it was going on and that-that it was everywhere.
You know, people had, uh, had locks on their cars.
People, you know, had to protect their car radios.
I remember people also had steering wheels
that you could remove.
Like, you could remove your steering wheel
and take it with you so, you know, that...
It'd make your car almost impossible to steal.
Um, so, it was just... it was just crazy.
You talk to some of the most interesting people
in this documentary.
You interview subjects that-that range
from the journalists who were covering it,
the police who were involved on both sides of it,
and we'll talk about that a little bit more.
But you also talked to the drug dealers themselves.
You talked to the people
who were pushing this on the streets.
First question, how did you convince them to do this?
And secondly, why did you think it was important
to have them be part of the-the telling of the story?
I thought that-that the-the lies
that were told about crack, you know, in part,
were the lies that were told about the dealers,
the lies that were told about the users.
Um, you know, we interviewed one dealer, Samson Styles,
who was very helpful in finding people to interview
and actually became a consulting producer.
But, you know, he was working at McDonald's.
You know, he was working at McDonald's for minimum wage.
He had a-a high school sweetheart
who was pregnant with a baby on the way,
and somebody offered him crack to sell.
You know, and all of a sudden, as he says,
in 20 minutes, he was sold out,
and he had hundreds of dollars in his pocket.
And, so, you know, he started selling crack.
So, I-I think that it was important
to-to cast the dealers in a new light.
You know, this-this wasn't a guy
who woke up one day and said,
"You know, I want to devastate my community.
I want to be some evil guy."
This was a kid. He was a high school kid
who was working at McDonald's.
This documentary opens people's eyes
not just to how the police were dealing with the crack epidemic
but how many of the police were involved
in the distribution of drugs, the selling of drugs,
the maintaining of the drug networks.
Talk me through that. I mean, that-that's a stary...
a scary narrative to-to go down.
How do you make sure that,
you know, you're getting correct information?
How do you make sure that you're talking to the people
who don't just have a grudge against the police
and, in fact, are giving you information
that is pertinent to the story you're telling?
Yeah. Well, one is that the film has no narrator,
so-so, you know, the people that we had talking
are the people who lived it.
You know, we hear cops from clips back then
talk about, you know, busting drug dealers
and taking their-their drugs.
That-that, you know, that-that police...
As you arrest somebody on the corner,
basically, you can take their drugs and their money
and let them go, or you can take them to jail.
Uh, you know, the police themselves give that story.
One of the crack dealers tells a great story
how the police, you know, gave him back all his crack
when they busted him and said, "You know, hey,
tell your boss that we did-did you a favor."
And he goes to his boss, and his boss says,
"Yeah, well, we're paying them off.
You know, that's why."
So, you know, i-it's from people's own words.
I think one of the things
that-that's really best said in the film
is that, you know, there was so much money
and it was so crazy, you know, in the crack era
that the whole community was corrupted.
-Hmm. -Everybody was-was somehow corrupted,
you know, by this thing.
One of the...
I will say one of the most powerful indictments
in this documentary, for me, is looking at the media.
Looking at how the media covered this epidemic,
looking at how the media framed what was happening,
looking at how the media
vilified Black people as a community.
They-they didn't seem to do any journalism
even though it was the news.
They just seemed to parrot
the propaganda that was coming out
from the United States government at the time.
When you look back on that media--
and we see this in the documentary--
what do you think they were responsible for?
Or how much of the war on drugs that went wrong
do you think the media was responsible for?
The media was definitely part of it.
You know, they would latch on to, you know, crack babies
and-and have headlines about 100,000 crack babies
are gonna, you know, invade the schools in New York City
but also all over the country.
It changed the whole education system.
Uh, you know, the crack mamas, you know, crack hos.
You know, that-that was a thing
that we heard over and over again,
and it was never an analysis of what was going on.
You know, we talk to a woman, a crack user in the film,
and she talks about being arrested five times
for possession.
Not for dealing, not for committing any crime
-but for having crack in her pocket. -Right.
And never once is she offered treatment.
What's really painful, as well, in this documentary
is you-you watch the story of how Black women
bore the brunt oftentimes of this narrative.
You know, as you said, the crack mamas
and the crack babies, and Black women were labeled
as unable to raise their children
and-and not good mothers,
and they were painted with a broad brush.
It's interesting that now, as we see the opioid epidemic,
those same terms and those same ideas
haven't been, um, repeated.
Do you think that's because the media has learned
from its previous mistakes?
I think it's because, you know, the opioid crisis
is seen as a white problem, you know?
That it's seen as a health problem.
Um, you know, the people aren't vilified there.
You know, they have a health problem.
And I don't think the media has looked back on the crack era
and said, "Oh, oh, we made a mistake."
I don't think that that's been done, no.
As the creator of the film,
what do you hope people walk away with?
What is... what is the one thing,
if there is one story, that you'd hope people remember
after watching this film?
Yeah, and I don't mean to sound like this,
but I don't think there's one story.
I think that, really, the story is, you know,
how we got to where we are and what the little steps were
that-that bring us up to the present, you know?
And I think it's never a bad thing
to think about how we got here.
You know? Especially now, I mean, you know,
what's happening in this country.
You know, how did we get here?
You know, in the film we talk about the war on drugs
and the militarization off the police,
and all of a sudden you see the police with tanks and...
and, uh, and-and, you know, automatic weapons
and body armor, and all of that came from the war on drugs,
which largely came from the war on crack.
Well, I'll tell you this--
few stories are all-encompassing like this.
I encourage everybody to watch it.
I wish people would watch it in schools.
I think once again you've done an amazing job.
Thank you so much for taking the time,
and thank you for being here with us today.
Thank you so much.