D2 posted:Prashad posted:A black guy sells drugs to his fellow blacks and he is a hero signing autographs for the public. They made a movie about him called American Gangster. What is not told is the effect that those drugs had and still have in black communities in New York.
I lived in a bit hollis when he was at the height of his "fame". The movie is entertainment. You should have seen the documentary that used footage of the period and no one was celebrating his OG status as a social "good". Every story of the drug trade narrates the destruction of communities. As a student I also worked in the heart of U street at the height of its fame as a drug haven. I saw it's effect first hand. Only in your mind are anyone insisting it was good for the people there. I had a girlfriend at the head of W street. She and her identical twin sister lived there with their grand mother. All they prayed for was to get out but they could not at the time. She is a physician now and I know she has no good memories of living in the middle of a drug zone.
That man Frank Lucas is very popular now. People are paying for his autograph. It is not only in my mind.