For the record, it's English. I was born in Tilbury, Essex, made temporarily 
American citizen?"
The House I Live In is a fascinating new documentary from director Eugene Jarecki with information that is both startling and unexpected.
The film explores
Director Jarecki effectively exposes the vicious cycle of drugs, drug usage, the criminal justice system, the dealers, the users and how all families are torn apart. It’s the kind of documentary that begins in a way that you might initially be mistaken into thinking that you’ve seen and heard all of this before, and then suddenly you find yourself sitting up and taking notice as if someone had suddenly slapped you around the face and woken you up out of a sleepy stupor. Drug abuse, the film shows us, should be a matter of public health and yet it has undoubtedly become an opportunity for law enforcement to profit from an ever expanding justice system.
We see how drug abusers leave prison with the thought that they now have a fresh start in life. They’ve served their time, they’ve paid their dues, now they need to reacquaint themselves with society, but it can’t and doesn’t happen that way. For the rest of their lives they have to check that box on the form that asks ‘Have you ever committed a felony?’ and it blocks all doors. The cycle then continues. As David Simon, creator of the HBO series The Wire, states,” It’s a self perpetuating circle from which they can’t escape.”
“We got judges getting high,” explains an interviewee, “We got cops sniffing coke.” Drug usage, we learn, is blatantly bi-racial, but narcotics enforcers overwhelmingly chase black communities, a community that makes up for roughly 13% of our overall community yet they represent 56% of those incarcerated for drug crimes.
Perhaps the most startling statement of all that comes out of the film is that the war on drugs has never been about drugs. It was and still is a dangerous precedent of racial control. Back to the turn of the century, laws were created to target any racial group that was seen as a threat to the established economic order. By example, the film shows us how opium, a legal drug used and abused by all members of society, became associated with Chinese workers. The Chinese laborers on the west coast worked hard and became part of the nation’s success story, but success took jobs that other Americans wanted. Politicians knew they couldn’t throw a race of people in jail just because they were Chinese, but by changing the laws and making a popular drug illegal, they could throw the Chinese in jail because of their association with opium.
The film continues with how cocaine, another perfectly legal subject, became associated with black workers, and the pattern repeated. Same with hemp; a legitimate crop from colonial times and an appreciated product, but in the 1930’s is became associated with Mexicans working hard and working long hours, and becoming incredibly productive, so laws were created that enabled authorities to arrest Mexicans because of their association with marijuana.
The House I Live In presents this information in a clear and concise manner, using interviews with police, judges, lawyers and victims of this perpetuating cycle that ensnares certain members of our society and never allows them to escape. It’s thought-provoking in a way you might not expect and a triumph of solid movie-making. It’s also the best and most affecting documentary I’ve seen all year.
MPAA Rating: Unrated Length: 110 minutes Overall Rating: 9 (out of 10)
Earlier this week I had the chance to talk to director Eugene Jarecki about his documentary. To hear the full interview click on the following icon.
