Drugs, Racism, and The New York Times

Cocaine, opium, and racial paranoia.

Radley Balko has combed through the New York Times archives to see just how racist the paper's drug coverage was a century ago. Pretty racist, it turns out: The articles he found feature headlines like "NEGRO COCAINE 'FIENDS' ARE A NEW SOUTHERN MENACE" and subheds like "Drug-Crazed Negroes Start a Reign of Terror and Defy Whole Mississippi Town."

You can see the rest here, along with a bonus bit of bigotry the Times ran in 1885. That article's called "The Similarity of Chinamen," and I'd try to describe it, but I don't think any summary I could write would do it justice.