For a man who once commanded the second-most profitable drug empire in American history, “Freeway” Rick Ross is disarmingly humble in appearance and manner. His blue sweatshirt, loose black jeans, genuine smile and 5’6” stature belie his past as the self-described “dictator” of a trafficking circle that touched communities from coast to coast in the 1980s and eventually landed him a life sentence.
The picture of Ross publicized for his Wednesday lecture hosted by the Political Theory Project and Students for Sensible Drug Policy better fits the stereotype of a man with such a resume — well-kept, thick beard, jaded but focused stare and pristine silver-gray suit that says he’s ready to do business.
But Ross said he is not interested in the “shiny” things that attract most people, which is why the former millionaire currently drives an ’88 Honda Civic for which he paid $600. Frugality was the key to his success, Ross told The Herald, and it should be the key to success for America’s youth.
“If somebody had taken the same time and worked at McDonald’s and … hardly spent any for themselves, then they would get rich,” Ross told a full crowd in List 120, which seats over 200 students, reflecting on the eight years he spent selling drugs and the subsequent 20 years he was incarcerated for it.
Ross might also say the expectation that a former drug boss must be an imposing figure with a stern glare in a pricy suit is informed by an inaccurate stereotype. Drug kingpin is not synonymous with violent gangbanger, he said, and Ross only started to carry a gun after an attempted kidnapping.
In fact, drugs were never more than a means to an end for Ross, who said he “hated the ghetto” and based his vision of the autonomous drug dealer on “Super Fly,” the 1972 Gordon Parks Jr. film in which a cocaine dealer “not only beat up on a white guy but also beat up the police.”
By the time he was 19, seven years after “Super Fly” was released, Ross thought “fighting over colors was the stupidest thing in the world,” but childhood experiences with racial profiling conditioned him to distrust white authority figures.
Even before he began selling drugs, the police were the enemy, Ross told The Herald. “They would pull me over and make me sit on the curb for no reason. Only because I was black.”
During his childhood, gangs appealed to Ross for the same reason selling drugs did — both represented a possible route to empowerment for a kid with no clear path to success. While privileged kids often grow up trusting in authority and getting a good deal of attention to ensure they grow up as successful as the role models in their lives, Ross’ father was not around, the police seemed to be against him and it was hard to focus on school knowing that an empty dinner table awaited him at home, he said.
“I never liked school,” he said. “I couldn’t understand what we were doing. We were talking about Jack and Jill, and we didn’t have milk in the house. I wasn’t really concerned about what we were talking about at school. I was more concerned about what we were going to do at home.”
If there was a positive influence during his childhood, Ross said, it was Richard Williams, who taught Ross how to play tennis. Tennis “saved (his) life.”
As a talented high school player, Ross traveled to wealthy neighborhoods, where he witnessed an affluent lifestyle previously unknown to him. Tennis gave him a concrete vision of a life to aspire to outside the disadvantaged neighborhood in which he grew up.
But illiteracy ended Ross’ dream of a tennis career, as he could not obtain a college scholarship without the ability to read. Teachers in overcrowded classrooms either failed to notice his inability or passed him along so he could keep playing tennis, Ross said.
Positive influences and role models are essential to a child’s success, Ross said, adding that there could have been some positive influences other than Williams in his life, but he did not notice them at the time.
“There was a black guy who owned a gas station, but I could never see myself owning a gas station. How could I see myself owning a gas station? Little old me? He never told me how he got a gas station.”
These disadvantages impeded his studies in more lasting ways than an overcrowded classroom.
“I didn’t know how valuable the library even was,” Ross said. “Nobody told me there was books in there that could help you get money.”
But Ross would discover the potential of books eventually. He proudly asserted that he taught himself to read while in prison, poring through more than 300 books. The first books he read were law books that helped him pick up on a flaw in the prosecutor’s case that initially put him in jail for life. Though many attorneys were reluctant to believe his argument, Ross said, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed that his sentence was unfair and commuted it to 20 years.
Since being released from jail in 2009, Ross has focused on giving back to the communities he damaged as a drug trafficker. He founded a literacy foundation and travels to high schools and colleges to discourage kids from using or dealing drugs by educating them about the dangers.
Ross also speaks out against what he calls discriminatory drug policies that target people of color and poor communities.
Crack and cocaine have similar effects on users, Ross said, noting that the only difference is baking soda. But the ratio for jail time served for those caught with crack compared to those caught with cocaine was 100 to one until 2010, when the the Fair Sentencing Act was passed.
The disparity in punishments for crack and cocaine users has largely contributed to a higher incarceration rate for black Americans, Students for Sensible Drug Policy member Diego Arene-Morley ’16 told The Herald. He added that he believes the policy discrepancy is racially motivated.
“We know that people of color are pulled over more and arrested more for drugs” that are used equally among different races, Arene-Morley said.
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