How has Power and Bias affected Racial Injustice in the US

[CerebralKnievel]

So, this is something I've been researching for a few weeks. I'm nearly done in any event, but it occurred to me... I am an honored member of the greatest collection of egotistical, verbose sociopaths on the planet (Sherdog)! Why am I not peering into these great minds?

What do you all think? Why have prison populations increased exponentially over the past 30 years when prior to that many experts had actually said they ought to be decreasing?

Why are nearly 1/4 of all African Americans on course to experience some level of the correctional administration? Racial profiling by an insidious mastermind? Failure of policy?

What of the southern strategy? Were these Dixie Krauts successful in manipulating our society to actually marginalize black Americans (and other ethnicities) into a second class status by way of bullshit political rhetoric and targeted racial profiling in the justice system, or again... Are the facts of arrest numbers and such merely an unfortunate bi-product of the failures of our society and government?

What the hell was the drug war all about? Why would Reagan's administration want to entice police departments to target drug users and provide them with tools, funding and training to do so with the most freedom to execute at will? A need to generate voter interest? Old rich white man racist political games?

Is Leagon an American hating Muslim?

Spoiler

Yes.

 

[PolishHeadlock]

Amerikuricana assured me that this is all due to evolution since black people didn't need the agricultural revolution and white American girls sleep around too much.

If everyone just got a union factory job and married an underage Eastern European all of these problems would go away because you get the girl before she can become a slut to people that doesn't respect farming technology.

 

[n...not crazy]

I'm not really sure.

 

[CerebralKnievel]

Amerikuricana assured me that this is all due to evolution since black people didn't need the agricultural revolution and white American girls sleep around too much.

If everyone just got a union factory job and married an underage Eastern European all of these problems would go away because you get the girl before she can become a slut to people that doesn't respect farming technology.

Verifiable and all properly cited. I'm putting this into my paper. May I reference you as a source?

 

[Higus]

Why are nearly 1/4 of all African Americans on course to experience some level of the correctional administration? Racial profiling by an insidious mastermind? Failure of policy?

Here's a scary thought: what if the justice and incarceration system is working exactly as intended, i.e. that bias towards black people isn't just a byproduct of a failed system, but rather the designed outcome of a very effective system?

 

[nixkid]

Amerikuricana assured me that this is all due to evolution since black people didn't need the agricultural revolution and white American girls sleep around too much.

If everyone just got a union factory job and married an underage Eastern European all of these problems would go away because you get the girl before she can become a slut to people that doesn't respect farming technology.

I logged in just to like this. Holy shit, that was hilarious.

And since I'm already here.

What the hell was the drug war all about? Why would Reagan's administration want to entice police departments to target drug users and provide them with tools, funding and training to do so with the most freedom to execute at will? A need to generate voter interest? Old rich white man racist political games?

Relevant:
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/22/11278760/war-on-drugs-racism-nixon

At the time, I was writing a book about the politics of drug prohibition. I started to ask Ehrlichman a series of earnest, wonky questions that he impatiently waved away. "You want to know what this was really all about?" he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

 

[Rex Kwon Do]

Are you normally a SJW or are you just writing this from the perspective of one?

 

[panamaican]

I logged in just to like this. Holy shit, that was hilarious.

And since I'm already here.



Relevant:
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/22/11278760/war-on-drugs-racism-nixon

I was just about to post that vox article, lol.

 

[Seano]

The people who started the "war on drugs" have sort of been proven right over the past few decades, IMO. They simply overestimated their ability to convince others to practice self control. The idea that people should live a clean lifestyle was not wrong.

 

[JudoThrowFiasco]

is this one of those threads thats aim is to make me feel sorry for black plight or for me being white?

 

[PolishHeadlock]

The people who started the "war on drugs" have sort of been proven right over the past few decades, IMO. They simply overestimated their ability to convince others to practice self control. The idea that people should live a clean lifestyle was not wrong.

I don't think anyone is saying that drugs are good. The argument is that the major weapons (prison) used to combat drug addiction has been counter productive.

 

[Seano]

I don't think anyone is saying that drugs are good. The argument is that the major weapons (prison) used to combat drug addiction has been counter productive.

People do make it sound like the "war on drugs" was all a product of some evil white men out to get the minorities though. It was an attempt to fix something that was obviously a huge problem and was going to get bigger. unfortunately though, what we do instead is glamorize that lifestyle in movies and music. The idea was a good one, the implementation failed.

 

[PolishHeadlock]

People do make it sound like the "war on drugs" was all a product of some evil white men out to get the minorities though. It was an attempt to fix something that was obviously a huge problem and was going to get bigger. unfortunately though, what we do instead is glamorize that lifestyle in movies and music. The idea was a good one, the implementation failed.

I think it's a reaction that the people backing the policy are either stupid or liars.

They had a failed policy for 45 years so the reaction is that the people backing it are either stupid or lying about the intentions.

 

[nixkid]

People do make it sound like the "war on drugs" was all a product of some evil white men out to get the minorities though. It was an attempt to fix something that was obviously a huge problem and was going to get bigger. unfortunately though, what we do instead is glamorize that lifestyle in movies and music. The idea was a good one, the implementation failed.

Historically, drug prohibition has always been racialized. To deny it is to deny history.

Cocaine prohibition gained steam because it was seen as a drug that turned blacks into "crazed negroes" that had an insatiable need to rape white women and who could take bullets point blank without flinching.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/why-we-took-cocaine-out-of-soda/272694/

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9901E5D61F3BE633A2575BC0A9649C946596D6CF

"Southern sheriffs had increased the caliber of their weapons from .32 to .38 to bring down Negroes under the effect of cocaine."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Narcotics_Tax_Act

"Most of the attacks upon the white women of the South are the direct result of a cocaine-crazed Negro brain"

The push to criminalize Marijuana came after it was a associated with Mexicans and miscegenation by Harry Ansliger.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Anslinger

"Colored students at the Univ. of Minn. partying with (white) female students, smoking [marijuana] and getting their sympathy with stories of racial persecution. Result: pregnancy"

And then there is the article I linked earlier of the Nixon adviser admitting that the war on drugs was used as a tool to quell blacks and the anti-war hippies.

 

[CerebralKnievel]

I logged in just to like this. Holy shit, that was hilarious.

And since I'm already here.



Relevant:
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/22/11278760/war-on-drugs-racism-nixon

Thanks amigo. Going to read this in more depth after work.

 

[CerebralKnievel]

Are you normally a SJW or are you just writing this from the perspective of one?

Well, depends on your opinion, I suppose. I have really been disgusted by many of the claims and arguments and methods of "civil protest" from the BLM groups. On the other hand, I'm disgusted by how this nation has bowed down to corporate lobbying influence. I harbor disgust and enmity for environmental polluters. Also have a strong belief that an affordable and accessible structure for healthcare, education, utilities (including cellular and Internet), etc. would be a large part of improving our society for everyone. Perhaps that's seen more as socialist amongst today's ignorant mass of Americans.

Anyway, I view SJWs as people who see police doing their job and instantly begin filming and chanting, as though they're somehow accomplishing something of merit, and I despise most of them.

 

[CerebralKnievel]

is this one of those threads thats aim is to make me feel sorry for black plight or for me being white?

Neither. I'm white, I think all the world of Martin Luther King Jr. On the flip side, I shake my head at some of the sensationalist anecdotal bullshit I am hearing from these hipster liberal mobs today. I feel like the focus has gone from attacking the right problems to parading pictures of degenerates who were shot by police for acting like degenerates.

That said, this is a school assignment and I've been writing it from a perspective of one trying to understand how power in the system has influenced racially biased miscarriage of justice, which I believe is very prevalent and a disgrace to our society.

 

[CerebralKnievel]

Here's a scary thought: what if the justice and incarceration system is working exactly as intended, i.e. that bias towards black people isn't just a byproduct of a failed system, but rather the designed outcome of a very effective system?

So, one of the books I'm reading, the New Jim Crow, basically details precisely that. The problem is that after all the facts and testimony, you're left with one going issue: the absence of actual facts to prove that the system was in fact orchestrated as it is to legally subjugate minority people.

 

[Steve-French]

People commit crimes they go to jail. The war on drugs is lame, but it's not like these people didn't know the rules before hand. Even if you don't agree with the law you have to abide by it; and if you don't you have to take responsibility for your actions.

 

[in the]

There's a story floating out today that a Nixon aide said the war on drugs was purposely done to target political opponents and blacks.
http://archive.is/dmrUn