Activity 5

"Cocaine Kids"

In Cocaine Kids, the author Terry Williams provides an ethnographic research perspective on the urban drug culture of the 1980s. He does so by submersing himself in the culture, which he is studying. He does so by befriending and observing a group of drug dealers and their everyday life for an extended period of time. By doing so, Williams is able to offer the readers insight into the lives of these cocaine dealers on a personal level as well as describing the drug culture of that time from a first hand experience.
Three aspects of the drug culture really stuck out to me as I read Williams' ethnography on the cocaine trade. The first thing that caught my eye was how these cocaine dealers looked down on the use of freebase. This is also something we discussed in class, defining freebase as a combination of a solvent and ammonia in order to remove any hydrochloride and create a base. I thought it was interesting as I read Cocaine Kids that the drug dealers would look down on the use of particular forms of the same drug they produce and sell. In this case, freebase was looked down upon and Max (the leader of the crew) even tested one of his guys out before making him part of the crew by offering him partying with girls and freebasing to see if he would accept the offer.
Another concept within the drug culture, which I had never even heard of until reading this book, was the idea of after-hour clubs. I had no idea these clubs even existed until reading this book. This is definitely a concept of the drug culture that intrigued me; that there was an actually club where drug users/dealers would go to chill out and use these products and exchange these drugs completely under the radar of law enforcement.
Lastly, while reading this book I noticed the concept of how the wives/fiances/girlfriends of these drug dealers are expected to remain at home, caring for the children and staying loyal and committed to their men, while these guys are out on the streets dealing drugs and partying with other women constantly. This notion of ill treatment of women described in the book as an accepted part of the drug culture was saddening to me. This is evident to me when the author speaks one on one with Suzanne, Max's fiance. Terry Williams' noted in the book, "Suzanne protests the double standard that permits Latin males to absolute sexual freedom", yet as I read this I can't help but wonder why women like Suzanne whose significant others are drug dealers and not loyal decide to stick around with that lifestyle.
Terry Williams describes the drug culture and the different forms of cocaine such as crack and freebase throughout his ethnography, which we as a class have discussed. Williams also notes how much how the cocaine being sold on the streets is "cut" with different solvents such as baking powder in order to maximize the drug dealers profit and increase the quantity of the product. This is something we have also talked about in class; mostly all drugs sold are "cut" with other products and pretty much never pure!

That's all I got for now!

Tootles~~