african-americans during your jim crow era. you re automatically fove, unemployment, housing, access to benefits really gated to a permanent second-class status much like your parents or grandparents may have been during the jim crow era. host: you go back to the regan era. you go back to the reagan era as far as the war on drugs is concern. take us back there and how did that play into your thinking as far as developing the themes for your book? most people assume that ronald reagan announced the drug war in response to the emergence of crack cocaine in inner city communities. and that s just false. actually, president reagan declared the drug war in 1982 a few years of about crack hit the street in inner city communities and became a sensation in the media. the reagan administration seized on the drug war with glee as an opportunity to build public support for its new war. and actually, hired of staff, whose job it was to publicize crack in inner city communities, stories