In 1920, just over a hundred years ago, the United States instituted the 18th Amendment, a national law prohibiting the production, transport, and/or sale of intoxicating liquors—booze. Across the country men and women could no longer buy or even make wine, beer, or spirits of any kind. Historic breweries and distilleries were shuttered overnight.
And then people decided the law was stupid and they wanted a drink. Other people, decided that was an excellent idea and they would take the risk to a) smuggle in foreign alcohol or b) make booze. Others decided to sell illicit inebriants in backrooms, basements, and parlors. Turning a buck in the process was a bonus.
Net effect: La Cosa Nostra, or the Sicilian mob when from neighborhood street gangs with nickel-and-dime rackets to multi-million-dollar syndicates just as quickly.
Truth is stranger—and crueler than fiction
If all you know about Prohibition and the war on illicit booze is the mythology promulgated by movies like Brian De Palma's The Untouchables you only know the barest scratch on the much broader surface of America's war on booze. And like the so-called war on drugs, there is a deeper history on the hypocrisy at the root of our judicial system. Hint: a lot is based in race/ethnicity.
For 13 years men and women were arrested, thrown in jail, and their lives ruined. Many were deported never to again have a chance at the bright promise of this country. But only certain men and women.
Baseball great Ty Cobb spoke of being served the finest whiskey while a guest at the White House…during Prohibition. Joseph Kennedy purportedly built his first fortune trading in smuggled Scotch and laundered his money through the nascent movie industry, (making his second fortune) and the stock market (third fortune) before he was appointed Chairman of the SEC.
"When I sell whiskey they call it bootlegging. When it's served from a silver tray in a mansion on Lakeshore Drive it's called hospitality." -Al Capone
Guess which one—Cobb, Kennedy, or Capone—is the big bad.
While the rich enjoyed their cocktails, saloons, social clubs, and gin joints were raided. Working men and women trying to feed their families went to prison or were gunned down in the street. Sure, powerful gangsters were sent to prison (Al Capone) and killed (Arnold Rothstein).
But the rich people—the people who paid Rothstein and Kennedy and Capone—only saw the police when they got a speeding ticket or hired them to rough up labor activists. When Prohibition ended in 1933 the wealthy restocked their liquor cabinets. Movies, radio programs, and stage acts celebrated resumption of the party, but an entire swath of people lived the remainder of their lives with criminal convictions limiting the work they could get, where they could live, and what kind of lives they could have.
Fast forward several decades to the excesses of the 1980s—and common-sense response responses
As women and ethnic minorities became police commanders and mayors they decided to do police and public-safety stuff...like police commanders and mayors are supposed to. At the time prostitution and associated drug use repesented a substantial plank in a raging public health crisis.
In Houston, South Main, Airline Drive, and Telephone Road were the "hot spots." Prostitutes plied their trade at all hours, often as school children walked around them. Home owners swept up used needles and condomes from their curbs and allyways. Business owners faced retaliation from pimps for reporting prostitutes to police.
Establishment, (white-male) commanders/administrators had been arresting prostitutes for decades. Occasionally, they cracked down on pimps and even busted open businesses fronting for prostitution...yet prostitution continued. Begging the question of why some were busted while others were ignored.
You can’t stop crime ignoring economic, gender, and racial biases
New mayors and police chiefs, new commanders and administrators—from outside of the old-boy network—undertook to clean up the streets. All it required was bucking hundreds of years of look-the-other-way policing and some politically-risky tactics. Which was always supposed to be the point of the police.
They decided to clearn up ALL the streets
They began by arresting the johns. And, as old-establishment commanders and administrators feared, there were cops and politicians and other "somebodies" rounded up in those stings. Many pled down to misdemeanors, paid a fine, and walked away quietly. Others lost careers and marriages. But quickly enough, the word got out and the johns began to shy away.
Then the new commanders/admins went after the hourly-rental motel owners, the weekly-rental apartments, and massage parlors. This was new for Houston. No one messes with businesses, not the white-owned, (or white-connected) businesses, anyway.
Those changes took longer. There were court cases. There were appeals. But over several years, the sleeze pits cleaned up, sold-out, or were shutdown as public nuisances. When the venues went, when the johns went, so did the street-walkers.
I tied this up in a neat blow but the truth is that there were multi-point approaches. In addition to law and code enforcement, there was community outreach and social-assistance programs to give the people, (often forced into prostitution) a means to get off the street. Drug courts were established to redirect addicts from jail (which often fed them right back to the street) into treatment. In addition to rehab there was job and life-skills training.
These days Airline, Telephone, and South Main are completely different than the 80s and 90s. As noted in the link above, there is still prostitution in Houston to be sure. What is gone is the tight organization wholesale trading in girls and boys.
These days "illegal immigration" is the big-bad threat—but not the employers
So, now we have Abbott and DeSantis. Two ambitious men with plans to end "illegal" immigration—by further victimizing powerless people. But they won't go after the real the real cause of "illegal" immigration.
Because the people coming to the states—contrary to what the rabid bigots will tell you—are not here to suck off the system or rob or steal. They come for jobs. They come for a measure of security and a chance to make a better life.
Exploitation—a Texas tradition
In the 1950s, during the earliest days of immigration control, Texas fought for a carve-out to protect farms and ranches. With that carve-out farmers and ranchers were insured wholesale access to cheap, vulnerable labor. If Abbott and DeSantis were serious about ending "illegal" immigration, they would go after the businesses that exploit the people. But then restaurants—fast food, fine dining, buffet joints—would be out of business. Agriculture, construction, manufacturing, hell, the entire chamber of commerce would be ruined.
Abbott and Desantis aren’t the only bad guys here. They’re simply the most vocal while capitalizing on the heartbreak. We are part of this cycle. We complain about migrants taking “our jobs” but during COVID farms around the country tried to hire local people, American citizens, to harvest crops. Few, if any, responded.
It's hard work. The pay is minimum-wage or less. Farm-and-ranch labor is notoriously dangerous and underregulated. The bottom line is simple: Americans will not do that work for those wages.
Americans are starting to re-think what work they will do and the wages they expect for their efforts
Prior to COVID, waitstaff and other service-industry workers struggled to survive. No one can afford an apartment anywhere in the nation on minimum wage. Forget paying the rent and buying groceries/paying for transportation. Since COVID, service personnel have been slow to return to the workplace. Many have sought education or new training for new jobs. All agree that the money is not equal to the exploitation.
"Behind every great fortune, a crime." -Honore de Balzac
To date, 21 states have decriminalized the recreational use of marijuana. Boomers can hop on their Harley's and tool down to any of the thousands of dispenseries popping up all over the country to get their leaf, edible, or oil.
States have seen the tax revenue plug budget gaps. Staunch opponents like John Boehner are now making MILLIONS from legal weed. Growers and dispensery owners alike are become wealthy. The overwhelming majority are white.
Meanwhile there are (approximately) 40,000 people in prison for possession, smuggling, or selling marijuana. Many more are out but cannot get the job or the house or even the apartment due to convictions. The overwhelming majority are black and brown and poor.
This is why I write crime
Law and order is really more about power and access. Both are the trappings of wealth and privilege. Seldom is it really about "serve and protect".
Ultimately we are the hinge upon which right and wrong, good and evil, rotate. We are the difference between equal justice under law or historic hypocrisy.
Do you have to write directly about injustice? No, of course not. I do urge you against ignoring your power to tell the truth when you tell your story. Remember your privilege when you watch/listen/read the news. Mostly, remember your opportunity to change the narrative by writing honestly.
The photo at the top, "Weeds" promotional poster is the property of Showtime Network. The "Untouchables" movie poster is the property of Paramount PIctures. Both are used here for instructional/educational purposes as covered by the Fair Use Doctrine.
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