Gerald "Prince" Miller from the Supreme Team will be released from prison on September 11th

re'up

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Always hated that line from Nas. Drugs created crack babies and parents who put drugs over taking care of the home.

not why I posted the line but not against a kind of high minded convo about the drug came, in the 80's

would say that it 100% did both things at the same time
 

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not why I posted the line but not against a kind of high minded convo about the drug came, in the 80's

would say that it 100% did both things at the same time

Those Dominican coke dealers on the Hill in Harlem weren't tricking down anything to the community in the 80s and 90s. They bought store fronts all over Broadway but that was their shyt. Any profits they saw went to them not us. Poverty still existed and people were on welfare, food stamps and going to free lunches and food pantries from churches. People were still getting evicted from their homes from lack of rent. Homeless shelters were a thing. The Jamaicans who sold weed down the Hill were struggling with the rest of us and would look at you funny if you asked for credit on a 5 dollar bag of weed. Drug dealers ate for a while but then would go to prison. How could drugs keep the hood from starving when the ones on drugs sacrificed food to get high? I Always hated that fake story that used to be told in the early 2000s as if dope dealers were really helping their communities financially like that.
 

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Those Dominican coke dealers on the Hill in Harlem weren't tricking down anything to the community in the 80s and 90s. They bought store fronts all over Broadway but that was their shyt. Any profits they saw went to them not us. Poverty still existed and people were on welfare, food stamps and going to free lunches and food pantries from churches. People were still getting evicted from their homes from lack of rent. Homeless shelters were a thing. The Jamaicans who sold weed down the Hill were struggling with the rest of us and would look at you funny if you asked for credit on a 5 dollar bag of weed. Drug dealers ate for a while but then would go to prison. How could drugs keep the hood from starving when the ones on drugs sacrificed food to get high? I Always hated that fake story that used to be told in the early 2000s as if dope dealers were really helping their communities financially like that.

Going to speak more generally, but the people who worked for the major traffickers, they made money. Their families did better. Their businesses whether fronts or not employed people. The money they spent in the community, on whatever it was, that contributed to businesses bottom line. Whenever there is an influx of money/assets in a community, there are benefits.

You can parse it down by race or category, or levels, or say it came with too high of a cost, which are fair arguments, but it's basic economics in some ways, that crazy capital surplus benefited people in that area, directly, or indirectly.

Like in places like Sinaloa, someone like Ovidido Guzman was beloved by parts of the community he lived in, the reason? He built a lot of ranches and houses and businesses, and who worked on them? Members of the community. Did it lift them out of poverty? No. But did it allow them a living? Yes. No one else was going to do anything. Not the government. Not the legit business owners. I would make a similar argument for places like Harlem in the 80's.
 

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I would make a similar argument for places like Harlem in the 80's.

You can make that argument and be wrong because I was right there in Harlem in the 80's. My actual experience trumps your theory.

Sinaloa in not an NYC hood. The people who worked for the major traffickers you speak of made money but didn't live in the same hood that Nas was speaking on. Their families didn't live in the hood either. Those Dominican families getting money wired back to them were in DR not the hood the drugs were being pumped into. Their businesses whether fronts or not employed their own people not people in the community. There were plenty of legit Black owned businesses down the hill in Harlem and it was that way since before crack. Matter fact, the way I remember it, once crack came to Harlem that's when you started to see a lot of FBA businesses disappear and more Chinese restaurants and arab spots and Indian run 99 cent stores and Kennedy Fried Chickens run by African muslims popping up and those people hire their own not us.
 

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You can make that argument and be wrong because I was right there in Harlem in the 80's. My actual experience trumps your theory.

Sinaloa in not an NYC hood. The people who worked for the major traffickers you speak of made money but didn't live in the same hood that Nas was speaking on. Their families didn't live in the hood either. Those Dominican families getting money wired back to them were in DR not the hood the drugs were being pumped into. Their businesses whether fronts or not employed their own people not people in the community. There were plenty of legit Black owned businesses down the hill in Harlem and it was that way since before crack. Matter fact, the way I remember it, once crack came to Harlem that's when you started to see a lot of FBA businesses disappear and more Chinese restaurants and arab spots and Indian run 99 cent stores and Kennedy Fried Chickens run by African muslims popping up and those people hire their own not us.

Appreciate the info and the convo. Don't want to make it an argument, as such, wasn't there, but do have a pretty foundational understanding of a lot of these times and places, but that's not to say I am right.

but, to say there were no upper middle level traffickers, or mid level, who made money and still lived in Harlem, to me is not a solid argument. That's who made the distribution of so many kilos possible. The crack spots on a retail level. Or who made their money in a different hood, or state or city, but lived in Harlem or wherever.

for sure crack decimated parts of the whole NYC. Turned tenement buildings into drug dens and murder spots. Destroyed generations. but the money went SOMEWHERE. it wasn't all spent at clubs in midtown.
 
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