Anti-racialism and the war on drugs: the Cracolândia territory constitution and the racial dynamics in the marginalization of the black people

Abstract

Social discourse turns the black population into a target of the war on drugs. Data indicates that most of the people who frequent the Cracolândia territory are black. In order to reflect on the narratives that make up the territory, especially with regard to racial dynamics, a systematic integrative literature review was carried out in the PubMed, BVS, Scopus, Embase, Web of Science and the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations databases, using the keywords “cracolândia”/“crackland” as the inclusion criteria. Studies were included: if they focused on Cracolândia and the black population; were published from 2005 onwards, in Portuguese or English; and were available via open access. The results, exported to the Rayyan platform, yielded six articles, which were organized into three thematic categories: “War on drugs and the criminalization of black people”, addressing how repressive policies reinforce the marginalization of the black population, perpetuating stigmas and exclusion; “Double social devaluation: race and use”, highlighting the double stigmatization stemming from racism and drug use among black people; and “Policies on drugs and black people in Cracolândia”, highlighting how these policies, by not considering racism, impact this population, perpetuating inequalities. The results reveal a scarcity of studies dealing with race relations and their implications.