The movie Dope follows a high school student named Malcolm Adekambi in a low-income area near Inglewood, California. Malcolm and his two friends find themselves in possession of a large amount of Ecstasy after a drug dealer slips it into Malcolms backpack in an attempt to hide it. After a chase around the town, Malcolm realizes that a Harvard representative and alumnus set him up and that in order to get into the school of his dreams, he must sell all the contraband. Using a black market site, Malcolm and his friends manage to sell all the drugs and threaten to send the money directly to the Harvard representatives acco
unt, incriminating him of selling illegal substances. In order to keep Malcolm from doing so, the Harvard representative must get Malcolm admitted to Harvard. The movie ends with Malcolm writing a college essay about a straight A student that loves punk rock, and another student that struggles through poverty by selling drugs. He then asks “which student do you think I am?.”
The movie ultimately deals with the systematic injustice of growing up in impoverished areas. Because of where Malcolm was born, getting into Harvard requires a wild ride dependent on the sale of drugs. Crime is embedded into the area where Malcolm lives, so much so that even a straight A student with a love for punk rock can be dragged into the scene. Students from these areas are automatically disadvantaged simply because of the things that surround them. The movie Dope illustrates this perfectly. Not only does it depict the difficult situations in a town like Malcolms, but also shows how these situations lead to inequality in the education system on a country-wide scale. While the movie may be fictional, the narrative is certainly applicable to many areas where crime and violence are overwhelmingly present. Those who inhabit these areas are subject to extreme disadvantages based solely on the fact that they are exposed to a completely different lifestyle. Dope is the perfect movie to highlight the systemic injustices that stem from these low-income, high-crime areas.
ven the lowest amount of bail for themselves. In regard to this, where we see systemic injustice comes into play has to do with the races of these people. Because of past discriminatation all throughout the US, people of Black and Hispanic ethnicity are disadvantaged in education and housing. These people are often forced to reside in poorer areas, making them much more susceptible to poverty and much more likely to become homeless. By criminalizing poverty, these people are immediately attacked. It is clearly a systemic injustice. These people have historically been at a disadvantage economically and while the country is certainly making progress, it is nowhere near perfect. These Black and Hispanic people who are economically disadvantaged are more likely to become homeless, especially when events like pandemics hit. By criminalizing poverty, the state is inadvertently targeting these groups, which is clearly unjust. Below is a link to a report by the public policy institute of California that outlines percentages of people in poverty in California by race.
Prior to the revolution, the Pahlavi dynasty ruled Iran since the 1920s. In the 1940’s the UK and USSR pushed the current dictator into exile and placed his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, in power. Reza Pahlavi ruled, then began the White Revolution, an effort to rapidly modernize the country. Despite some small successes, Reza Pahlavi’s White Revolution led to serious problems in the country due to a lack of planning and control over affected factors. Over the coming years, tensions between the citizens of Iran and the government built until the Iranian Revolution began in 1977.