Miley Cyrus has historically been very open, almost boastful, about her indulgent recreational use of marijuana. She has posted photos of herself smoking, like the one above, that is emblazoned with the statement ‘WEED MAKES YOU HAPPY’, and references smoking pot regularly in anecdotes. She even told Jimmy Fallon during an interview on the Tonight Show that “no one’s ever smoked as much as I did,” while explaining why she quit smoking pot. By last December, Miley admitted she’s smoking again.
Now a picture of Miley’s mum Tish Cyrus that was posted by her dad Billy Ray has made the Cyrus family a case example at the centre of the debate over white privilege and drugs.
The picture shows Tish next to some kind of cabinet/safe, chock-a-block full of big bags of weed, with the caption reading,
“Yes! Like I said yesterday @TishCyrus…. my how the times they are a changing #CrAzYMaMa”
Yes! Like I said yesterday @TishCyrus…. my how the times they are a changing #CrAzYMaMa pic.twitter.com/tfvbGYC0Oc
— Billy Ray Cyrus (@billyraycyrus) February 15, 2019
Tish clarified in the comments of the Instagram post of the same photo that it’s not her weed, or her house, but the photo has already taken on a life of its own.
It’s been jumped on as an opportunity to highlight the privilege white people enjoy when it comes to marijuana usage, while black, brown, and minority groups are literally being mass incarcerated for weed-related charges.
It’s not an attack on the Cyrus’s, it’s just a necessary flip side of the narrative that it is vital to recognise. Many people, including news anchor Soledad O’Brien, pointed out the reality of racial bias in the criminal justice system.
Think of all the people incarcerated right now on marijuana charges. And you wonder why so many people understand that criminal justice is often neither fair nor just. https://t.co/mKNpzxGEVk
— Soledad O'Brien (@soledadobrien) February 16, 2019
"We have to stop putting people of color in jail for something that white people do with impunity,” – Cynthia Nixon on Marijuana use https://t.co/RJPW5Ev6Lg
— StanceGrounded (@_SJPeace_) February 17, 2019
— King Aladdin (@Chimz_) February 17, 2019
The recreational use of marijuana was legalised in California as of January 2018, making much of Miley’s Cyrus’s weed-related openness pre-legalisation. Again, the fact that Miley and her family are at the centre of this discussion is only because they are an example of the privilege white people enjoy. It is not an attack on them.
But this racial bias that exists in both American and Australian society is unjust. It exists in the movements to legalise weed, which focus mainly on privileged white kids who ‘deserve’ the right to just ‘blow off steam’ because they are ‘harmless’.
The poster child for the legalisation of weed is rarely anyone representing the black or Latinx communities that are being unfairly vilified, targeted, punished, and incarcerated for even just minor possession charges.
This is not about the Cyrus’s doing anything wrong, it’s about a privilege gap that we need to talk about, and system of oppression we need to address.