dc.description.abstract | In 2014, the District of Columbia revolutionized what marijuana policy reform
campaigns have typically looked like throughout the United States. Founded by race-conscious,
frustrated residents, the leading pro-legalization campaign, DC Cannabis Campaign and the antilegalization
campaign, Two Is Enough DC, took on a much different tone than the campaigns that
legalized marijuana in states like Washington, Colorado, and Alaska. There was an active,
unprecedented desire to campaign for their respective positions on marijuana under the
framework that they wanted to protect the Black community. Historically and today, Black
advocacy has been riddled with the politics of respectability, which arguably, can be understood
as a survival tactic within White America. However, through the lens of both of these campaigns
and their implications, I evaluate intra-Black community advocacy and the way their approaches
to defining community affect their goals of protecting the community. I argue that regardless of
promises, advocacy for the Black community that aligns with traditional, conservative
respectability politics cannot comprehensively protect the entire community, and in order to
wholly do so, advocates must actively resist that kind of rhetoric. Fundamentally, through both
campaigns and their opposing approaches to liberation, my research evaluated the fight for Black
liberation and worked to unpack and decolonize the historical and current comprehensiveness of
advocacy for the Black community, particularly around “vices.” | en |