Jamelle, John and special guest Adam Serwer of The Atlantic watch one of the great crime movies of the 1990s — Bill Duke’s “Deep Cover” — and talk about post-Cold War anxiety over the drug trade, Black “tough on crime” politics, and the war on drugs.

Connor Lynch produced this episode. Artwork by Rachel Eck.

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John Ganz

Jamelle Bouie

Links from the episode!

New York Times front-page for April 15, 1992

James Forman’s book on the Black politics of the early 1990s, “Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America.”

“THE 1992 CAMPAIGN: Candidates' Records; Four Years of Bush’s Drug War: New Funds but an Old Strategy”