821,808. That was the rise of the prison population just between 1970 and 1990. Just between 1980 and 1985 the prison population rose 245, 200 inmates--513,900 in 1980 to 759,100 in 1985.  The large surge of violent crime --murder, robbery, etc.-- beginning in the 1970s and increasing in the 1980s, riled up the attention of politicians and the media with great turmoil like a sudden and unexpected thunderstorm. In order to calm discontent over law, in 1971 politicians such as Richard Nixon took this issue of violent crime and coined the term “War on drugs/crime” to fight America’s #1 public enemy: organized crime. Following Nixon, Ronald Reagan combined economic inequality, drug abuse, and hypersegregation, and used the vulnerability of poor black communities to carry out his “War on Drugs”. Quite ironically, although violent crime did increase, drug crime itself was declining, a fact which brings into question Reagan’s intent. “Southern strategy” is the only specific term in America’s History that justifies specific action taken against “civil rights” to maintain white southern support, vaguely alluding to the War on Drugs which had the same intent. The textbook remarkably understates and minimizes the struggle of the black community during Reagan’s War on Drugs by omitting this domestic war on drug crime entirely, dedicating less than four scattered sentences mentioning crime in general. The textbook paints Ronald Reagan in a rather idealistic light, referring to him as a “master of the politics of symbolism” while ignoring the negative impact his political actions elicited, especially on the black community; its refusal to hold the Reagan administration responsible for the mass imprisonment of people of color, especially men of color, in order to maintain southern support is unfair. This misleads naive modern American history students to blindly trust textbook information and the “good intent” of presidential policies without question, thus, their ability to connect those racist politics to modern issues such as mass incarceration dwindles .

The textbook demeans the struggle of the African American community under Reagan administration through the lack of adequate and accurate explanation of the “Southern strategy”. Reagan, just like Nixon, was anti-civil rights in order to appeal to southern voters since their many votes were so crucial for the election of 1981. Many of these southern voters had gone Republican because of the civil rights movement and the conservative Democrats wanted southern support back, so they did all they could. Reagan’s own advisor explains the true meaning behind this so-called “Southern strategy” that sounds completely harmless and far from prejudiced in the textbook. Reagan’s own adviser Lee Atwater unveils the racist foundation of the idea of “Southern Strategy”: “You start out in 1954 by saying, “N*****.” By 1968 you can’t say “n*****”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.…”. Although this quote makes it seem completely economical, it’s more than that, it was more than just cutting taxes, people of color suffered at the expense of this. Since October 14, 1982 when Reagan declared an eight-step plan to eradicate crime from America, with new prisons, and harsh reform on bails and sentencing, black people would begin to fill up these new prison systems at a massive rate: “Since the official beginning of the War on Drugs in 1982, the number of people incarcerated for drug offenses in the U.S. skyrocketed from 40,900 in 1980 to 450,345 in 2016”. As a result of this drug war, more black men especially would fill up these jail facilities, after all, 1 in 3 black men are now more likely to be imprisoned because of these drug crime reforms in the 80s. But yet there is barely any mention in the textbook about the racist implications behind the “Southern Strategy” that would lead to Reagan’s drug crime reform strategies, like the 8-step plan, during his actual presidency. All it mentions is the fact that he lead his campaign on “states’ rights” despite the opposition, but once again there is no explanation for how this affected people of color. In order to better explain the southern strategy truthfully it is important to note that one way Reagan kept the support of southerners against civil rights was by focusing on an issue such as drug crime where black communities faced constant struggle, and made it a federal attack. What better way to ensure these voters that their support is valued than by tearing down black families and communities using the prison system. It is important to mention the southern strategy in connection to the need of federal initiatives against drug crime because it points out the clear intent: weaken the black community through legal slavery, and keep the white southern support.

The textbook does an injustice to students through its complete omission of Reagan’s anti-drug agenda because it ignores the struggle of the people of color who suffered. It only lionized Reagan’s economic impact and did not give the full scope of the damage his administration caused. The textbook only says that Reagan attracted “middle-class suburbanites...who endorsed the conservative agenda of combating crime and limiting social welfare spending” but once again fails to mention exactly how Reagan Republicans went about combating crime. Reagan started this combat on crime through an eight-step plan. It was a “ national strategy to expose, prosecute, and ultimately cripple organized crime in America” with new task forces, extreme investigations, extreme training for law enforcement, and criminal justice reform that “will bring us very close to removing a stain from American history”. Reagan’s war on crime wasn’t a small and insignificant part of the conservative agenda that served to do nothing more than attract white southerners. Reagan’s eight-step plan that involved higher investments in new jail facilities and stricter bail and sentencing laws would slice through African American communities incarcerating hundreds of them over things such as drug possession: “in 1988, more than 750,000 people were arrested on drug-related charges, mainly possession” and about 40% of those arrests made in the 1980s were people of color. If the textbook were to include Reagan’s War on Drugs, and who it affected, it would give a bigger and more accurate scope of the extent of Reagan’s justice reform policies. Instead of presenting both positive and negative aspects of Reagan’s administration, the textbook mainly praises it. It ultimately depicted him as a hero: he was a “master of the politics of symbolism” and  “champion[ed]... and [reassured] the country”. They simply spit facts about Reagan’s southern strategy without any explanation of its true intent: southern support at the expense of the black community.

 Through the textbook’s lack of coverage on Reagan’s agenda to wipe out crime it also loses its chance to show and explain how and why people of color were being targeted. When one analyzes who exactly was most affected by these arrests, the evidence points toward people of color; statistically, “victim survey data from the Department of Justice indicates that blacks are disproportionately involved in crime (on the order of 6:1 violent crime and 4:1 property crime) and thus it follows that blacks are more likely to be caught up in the ‘drug arrests’”. The FBI figures may simply indicate that blacks---being more likely to be involved in crime and drug use--- are also more likely to be caught up in the “police net” designed to catch criminal addicts and sellers. Reagan’s agenda to “combat crime” ---as the textbook vaguely puts it--- through a 1.7 billion dollar investment in prison and jail facilities allowed for the arrests of many black men, specifically, to pile up. Through 12 new task forces and jail facilities, poor inner-city communities of color were being targeted through the abundant presence of law enforcement in communities, police brutality, and abundant arrests. With only “19% of drug dealers [being] African American...they made up 64% of the arrests for it...so because of the drug war and the way it’s enforced, a black man was far more likely to be jailed in the Land of the Free than most notorious white supremacists’ society in the world”. Because some black communities were in a position where industrial jobs were not open to them because of the color of their skin, poverty ruled black homes, and crime grows easiest in poverty. Since they were poor, it was easier to target people who couldn't defend themselves against the law, and besides, criminal statistics were not in favor of the black community. So for the textbook to omit strategy against crime is to also shun the struggle of the African American communities that were targeted by it as if it never existed.

A prime example of how Reagan’s approach to crime-- through high investment in law enforcement and prison facilities-- specifically targeted black folks was through a new rise of drugs: crack cocaine. In his speech on October 14, 1982, Reagan openly called drug crime “an American epidemic” and expressed his passionate need to eradicate the power of the mob in America and rid crime from America. This was quite ironic since crime rates had indeed increased but drug crime itself was actually declining, yet he insisted. Reagan took his issues with crime to a federal level in order to reach an ultimate goal: maintain southern support. Ronald and Nancy Reagan on September 14, 1986 broadcasted from the White House a public announcement against smokable cocaine known as crack, an “uncontrollable fire” he announced, he mentions how spending for drug law enforcement will have more than tripled from its 1981 levels in order to control this epidemic. With the disproportionate involvement of black people in violent crime, the newly funded law enforcement had an easy target. With the rise of the new crack cocaine epidemic it was seen that crack was most popularly associated with poor black communities because of how addictive, destructive, yet inexpensive and affordable it was. Crack was most often associated with black people, but in actuality, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) shows that people reporting cocaine use in 1991 were 75% white; 15% black, and 10% Hispanic, but yet 79% of 5,669 sentenced track offenders were black. With Reagan’s  mandatory sentencing law passed by Congress in 1986 there was a distinction between powder cocaine and crack. According to a New York Times  newspaper from October 28, 1995, “these laws, which Congress voted to maintain in the bill, are harsher than those for crimes involving powdered cocaine, and many lawyers and legislators say they have a disproportionate impact on poor black men”. Reagan’s Anti-drug Abuse Act of 1986 allocated more funds into more prisons, drug education, and intensified mandatory minimum sentencing. These new sentencing laws meant that sentences for possession of crack and powder cocaine were different, despite the 5 year minimum sentence for 28 grams of cocaine, many black men were facing 20 years in prison for simple possession of the same amount. As Laura Murphy, director of the Washington, D.C. chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, says, "How can you go to an inner-city family and tell them their son is given 20 years, while someone in the suburbs who's using powdered cocaine in greater quantities can get off with 90 days' probation?” For poor black communities where crack was easily accessed since it was so cheap and affordable, black men were filling up the prison systems for drug possession. Quite ironically, “Crack is the only drug that carries a mandatory prison term for possession, whether or not the intent is to distribute” and crack happened to be the drug that destroyed the health of many inner-city black communities. For a drug that is so detrimental to poor black communities that faced unemployment, drug addiction, and poverty, it seems as if Reagan is rather throwing all these poor black people in prison and not providing them with the funds and mental assistance they need. In the end, “more than 80% of federal prisons serving crack caine sentences were black” and Reagan’s Anti-Drug Abuse act was the catalyst. Author Johann Hari believed that for Reagan “it was more comforting to believe that a white powder was the cause of black anger, and that getting rid of the white powder would render black Americans docile and on their knees once again”. With the rise of the black community after the civil rights movement more people of color were inspired to fight actively against continual injustice, these movements could’ve been interpreted as “black anger”. When an underdog rises, those at the top do everything to keep it down, and to Hari, Reagan’s poison was his Anti-Drug Act. The racist nature of Reagan’s Anti-drug act, mandatory minimum sentencing, and involvement in the crack cocaine epidemic is utterly overlooked in the textbook as if it never existed.

Reagan’s War on Drugs- through its increase in the arrest of black people, destruction of black homes and communities, and rigid crime reform- proved that history, even as of recently, is not always in favor of black folks in America. Many black activists such as lawyers Bryan Stevenson and Michelle Alexander talk about and fight against what many believe is the new “Jim Crow”: mass incarceration. Crime rates have always fluctuated in America but imprisonment rates have continually grown, especially imprisonment for drug offenses which takes up two-thirds of the increase in federal inmate population. Many in fact say that the origin of this continual imprisonment increase started with the Reagan administration and his War on Drugs which included longer and stricter sentences, harsher law enforcement, and new prison facilities. When he declared the War on Drugs in 1982 crime rates had indeed increased but drug crime itself, however, was actually declining, yet Reagan insisted on the combat against drug crime. This idea of racial politics is absolutely hidden from the America’s History; the thought that this combat against drug crime was actually a way of securing southern support at the expense of people of color is unheard of. It removes the students’ right to question the intentions of Presidential policies and form an opinion on how beneficial the Anti-Drug Act and 8-step plan to destroy crime actually were, and who these policies were actually benefiting; presenting mostly successful recounts and positive commentary on a US president and his policies weakens the students’ ability to question. The heroification present in many textbooks that gives US presidents this hero-complex where only the best versions of themselves is taught is quite misleading. The textbook rather promotes avoiding uncomfortable discussions such as racial politics in the Reagan era through its omission of vital information. The uncomfortable conversations about important issues such as the mass incarceration of black men in America, police brutality, drug abuse, even the Black Lives Matter movement all connect in some way to the War on Drugs and the increase of black criminalization; without even mentioning any of the policies that promote this increase of black criminalization, these conversations can never even happen. Black criminalization is not anything recent, but with the help of social media to expose it, people are becoming more aware of its presence in modern times, but they forget that it has always been around. Many films recounting the 80s and 90s such as “Paid in Full” and “Menace II Society”, although dramaticized, portray the violent effect of drugs and imprisonment on the black community; even rappers like Jay-Z cry out on the effects of Reagan’s policies on the black community: “Blame Reagan for making me into a monster /Blame Oliver North and Iran-Contra / I ran contraband that they sponsored…”. Now, there are more African Americans under correctional control today—in prison or jail, on probation or parole—than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began; as of 2004, there were more disenfranchised black men due to felonies than in 1870 when the 15th amendment was ratified; now, African Americans comprise 80 to 90 percent of all drug offenders sent to prison. Students cannot face these appalling statistics when they do not comprehend the history behind what black communities face today. Difficult conversations about the intersection of race and politics cannot happen when there is no acknowledgment of it in recent years. Mass incarceration is an issue that plagues the lives of people of color in America, America’s prison systems have been corrupted beyond repair. Young black boys and girls have lost their innocence and childhood fighting against a prison system that is not in their favor yet make profit off of them. Thousands of black men have lost their right to vote, and how can young generations help the conditions of the criminal system if they are mislead. Reagan’s War on Drugs has much to do with mass incarceration and the corruption of the prison system against people of color. If students are taught to simply consider the political and economic successes and believe in the perfection of his/her country’s government, without considering the groups of people affected, more students will fall under blissful ignorance and disregard his/her will to encourage change.