This blog post is about one line of text but I swear it’s cool
Mumbo Jumbo is full of little details that can be easily overlooked. Accidentally jumping even one line could result in missing a huge point, or at least an important nuance. As I was reading the novel, one of those tiny-but-important phrases stood out to me, and I spent a lot of time thinking about it, even after I had finished the reading. The particular part that caught my attention was on page 154, towards the bottom, which says “Suppose we take musicians out of circulation, arrest them on trumped-up drug charges and give them unusually long and severe prison sentences”. I really liked this sentence because of how many layers of ideas were being conveyed to the reader, some of which I didn’t even pick up on the first time I read it. Basically, this sentence has a dual meaning: one is the more “literal” (if being literal is even possible in this book): in the 1910-20s, there were increased drug regulations specifically targeting black people. The other meaning is more geared towards the audience of the book, people in the early 70s, and it also refers to increased drug regulations of that time. I did some research on both periods, and found out a few interesting things.
Basically, up until the mid 1910s, there was a pretty rampant cocaine culture that was causing a stir among a lot of people. Many called for prohibition of cocaine, or at least stricter regulation, and a lot of it was racially motivated. I found an article written for the NY Times in 1914 here, fair warning, don’t read it unless you want to get angry about racism in the 1910s, it’s pretty infuriating. The gist of it is, basically, violence in the South is because of cocaine-crazed black people, and the government needs to restrict cocaine because of that violence. The title is “Negro Cocaine ‘Fiends’ are a Southern Menace”, which I feel is clear enough. In general, this line of thought was the prevailing attitude of the time, and the measure taken by the government ended up being the Harrison Act. This was a law creating a very high tax on cocaine and requiring a complicated prescription to use it, which ended up effectively banning it. The punishments for illegal cocaine were harsh in general, and in the usually racist court system, black people ended up getting disproportionately screwed over. Tying it back to Mumbo Jumbo, this would be the context and meaning for the “literal” interpretation of that sentence: in the universe of the book, the Wallflower Order orchestrated a bunch of drug reforms that ended up busting a lot of jazz clubs and imprisoning musicians to try to stop jes grew.
But in addition to that, there is the 1970s context. This book was published in 1972, meaning Reed was writing and reacting to mostly 1970 and 71. Here is some context for that time period. Basically after the hippie age of the 60s, where hallucinogen and opioid use was common, especially in popular culture, there was a degree of public concern and backlash. Here is a pretty good timeline of the backlash in general. In 1970, the Controlled Substances Act was passed, making the use, trade, and possession of most drugs illegal. In addition, in 1971, Nixon declares the infamous war on drugs. As in the 20s, black people were disproportionately targeted in drug raids and generally given longer sentences than white people. Knowing this, I think Reed is pretty clearly critiquing the contemporary drug policies of the 70s, along with those in the 20s.
I also thought this was applicable to us now, in 2018. A pretty blatant example of racial discrimination with drug law enforcement is the difference in sentences for crack vs powder cocaine. Right now in the US, having 18 grams of powder cocaine would result in the same sentence as having one gram of crack (recently lowered from an even worse 100:1 ratio in 2010). Crack is disproportionately used by low-income, black Americans, compared to the generally higher-income, white Americans who use powder. Current drug laws are just a contemporary manifestation of past racial biases to cocaine use. The sentence in Mumbo Jumbo struck me as incredibly telling in general because it can show three eras that struggle in the same way. The jazz age, the disco/funk age, and now the rap age, all being oppressed by unfair court systems and police discrimination. All three periods had the stereotype that black people were violent because they used drugs, and the stereotype that black people do a lot of drugs in general. This all made me think of earlier discussions of jes grew and it’s persistence in our culture. Jes grew did persist in this culture, but unfortunately so did racist discrimination and stereotypes. With all of the good parts of jes grew came more sinister backlash and consequences.
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Wow this post delivered what it promised. I really admire the depth of your research and thank you for sharing it. There are a lot of interesting parallels between the 20s and the 70s in terms of racial conflict, as seen in the book, but I had not thought about the dynamics of racially discriminatory drug incarceration as one of those parallels. It sadly goes to show that history does repeat itself.
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