Yeah no White person smoked Newports in my area, they were deemed for the African Americans and Hispanics, and I'm for North Jersey, and Racism was big time back then, if you smoked Newports or Kools, they'd call you the N word or S word, I tried a menthol once out of curiosity, but didn't like it anyways.
Yea, I'd wager that the blue-collar racism we experience in Boston is pretty similar to what you've got in New Jersey. I always feel like I'm in a liberal, progressive place, only for that to be inevitably broken by an incredibly racist statement. I had friends in Lowell who I did drugs with and I had friends from work and school. Friends from work and school were pretty chill. I remember I was hanging with this other junkie for a few months and as relationships go in that context we were pretty tight. I made a comment about how beautiful this Dominican chick was who lived in his housing project and he didn't miss a beat.
"You know she fucks n*****s right? Still interested"?
It was hard to be friends with someone after that. I'm a proud Jew and I feel like treating any race or religion as inferior would only be to say that what happened to my ancestors in Europe was okay too. By the way, so happy to see Netanyahu out of his ass. I'm a Zionist til death, but I also believe that we are not trying nearly hard enough to understand the Palestinian perspective. I believe both peoples can coexist if they're both willing to shake hands and cast aside the past, although, that can be difficult.