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Comment by peterwwillis | Hacker News Reader

It's funny that they didn't interview any actual neighborhood-dealers. The people sitting on the corner slinging dope have a much more dangerous job than people with clientele who are discreet and wealthy. I suppose it's because they're perceived as so dangerous that reporters never talk to them. But ask a corner man his life story and he'll tell you about serving time, getting shot, and paying off cops to stay alive. Stories like this one really gives you a romantic - and unrealistic - idea of dealing.

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This story is neither romantic nor unrealistic; this is just a different kind of drug dealing.

If anything, those exotic "street" stories full of violence and danger seem awfully romanticized to me; they certainly have nothing to do with any experience of drug culture I have ever had.

"actual neighborhood-dealers"

Actual neighborhood-dealers in my neighborhood are more like the one depicted in the article, than the "corner" style inner-city dealers you see in movies and on TV. They might not be hustling around NYC selling to business people in office buildings, but they aren't "on the corner" packing a gun and paying off cops either.

"Corner" style inner-city dealers definitely still exist.

If you're in SF, walk by the corner of Turk and Leavenworth and you'll have quite a few entrepreneurs of a different sort offering you "Roxies and Ps" or "Chiva".

It's because upper-middle class white people need to see an upper-middle class white person doing something in order to reflect on their previous thoughtless condemnation of it.

Of course the problem with that is that a large percentage of those readers will leave the article with the message that "not all drug dealers are bad, some of them are like me." That's how you end up with cocaine/crack sentencing disparities.

Part of the point of the article is exactly that - what is your "neighborhood dealer" now-a-days?

The people sitting on the corner slinging dope is itself an image, and may not be reflected in reality anymore. Especially with police wise to that kind of behavior, surely it makes sense to be able to blend in?

>> The people sitting on the corner slinging dope is itself an image, and may not be reflected in reality anymore.

Have you been in a bad part of town lately?

The places to buy drugs are liquor stores and car washes in bad neighborhoods. Plenty of people standing around willing to sell you $20 worth of your drug of choice.

Why do you think so much gun violence occurs in those areas?

Vice is doing that all the time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvN7fKmCoXA

it's because the angle you mention has been covered plenty of times. watch a few episodes of Drugs Inc. and you'll see.

this covers the end we rarely hear about and is far more interesting as it's far removed from the street.

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