18 ms·

"Henderson was more than qualified, so why didn’t he get the gig? ... he has two drug possession felonies on his record" You know, people with illegal bookmaki

"Henderson was more than qualified, so why didn’t he get the gig? ... he has two drug possession felonies on his record" You know, people with illegal bookmaking convictions are kept out of the gambling industry for good reasons. It started off as a dirty industry, and to the extent you keep anyone with a hint of grime out of it, you avoid it regressing to that state. That keeps regulators off your back and eventually helps you turn it into a family-friendly mass market industry. It's also really difficult for people with fraud convictions to get job as accountants, no matter how good they are at forensic accounting. Trust is the commodity being sold. Do you really want someone with a shitload of existing drug connections, being the poster face for the industry you're trying to vanillify? The whole premise of legalization wasn't that your local corner boys get to go industrial after they gain mass market access, it was that the "drug trade" becomes roughly parallel with the "tobacco trade", where the worst thing that happens is penny-ante tax evasion.

RodericDay 11y ago
> Even though research shows people of all races are about equally likely to have broken the law by growing, smoking, or selling marijuana, black people are much more likely to have been arrested for it.
- fiatmoney 11y ago
  And? If Italians are much more likely to be arrested for illegal bookmaking & racketeering due to targeted efforts to take them down, does that mean it's a great idea to let Fat Tony with a felony conviction, a ball-peen hammer and a shitload of shady friends he has unclear relationships with open a casino?
  - RodericDay 11y ago
    It's a better idea than letting equally-as-dirty-but-white-and-uncaught Joe Trustfund take over in his absence. The former at least equalizes the second-order race issue, whereas yours naively compounds it.
  - kennywinker 11y ago
    A teenager with a weed possession conviction is not a mobster.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - jccc 11y ago
    Your analogy requires: A. the person to have convictions for dealing, not just possession, and B. mobster-era Italians to be just about as likely to engage in illegal bookmaking and racketeering as the general population, and C. a history of hundreds of years of imposing underclass status on Italians (like that imposed on African Americans), with modern-day policing skewed very heavily against them.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  Another poster has raised the claim that this only holds true for questions related to certain time frames. But even ignoring that and assuming this was fully for racist reasons, should that have any impact on those choosing to hire people? Even if the justice system is racist, that is a problem that belongs to the justice system.
MrsPeaches 11y ago
> Do you really want someone with a shitload of existing drug connections, being the poster face for the industry you're trying to vanillify? This seems like a poor choice of words at best.
- mc32 11y ago
  Word choice is fine. Vanilla means plain, unremarkable, blends in well. To become an unremarkable part of the economy. Taking an altogether different meaning not fitting the context says more about your interpretive frame of reference.
  - david-given 11y ago
    Yeah, this meaning has been around for ages: http://www.hacker-dictionary.com/terms/vanilla http://www.hacker-dictionary.com/terms/vanilla Where I'm from, vanilla crisps are ready salted. And vanilla ice cream is vanilla.
  - kennywinker 11y ago
    I think it was pointed out because vanilla is also associated with "white". In this case, one reading of the comment is "an industry you're trying to make white".
  - kbutler 11y ago
    Word choice is problematic: "vanillify" (exceedingly rare, new jargon "to make bland" doesn't even show up in google ngrams) is too similar to "vilify" (to demonize) to use in a context of "to un-demonize". https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=vanillify&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url= https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=vanillify&case... "face of" or "poster boy for", rather than the mixed-up "poster face for". https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=poster+boy%2Cposter+face&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cposter%20boy%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bposter%20boy%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BPoster%20Boy%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cposter%20face%3B%2Cc0#t4%3B%2Cposter%20boy%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bposter%20boy%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BPoster%20Boy%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cposter%20face%3B%2Cc1 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=poster+boy%2Cp... But then, just because nobody says it that way isn't a reason not to...
kennywinker 11y ago
Everything you say is entirely logical, but omits the reality that as a black person in america you are vastly more likely to be arrested for drug crimes. Not more likely to DO drug crimes, just more likely to get caught. This means profiling and racist policing directly leads to economic exclusion. If the american dream is upward mobility, that means black people get a smaller shot at the american dream. But all that aside. This is like saying that people who've had DUIs can't work at bars. The guy in the article had possession charges. That means he had nothing to do with selling the stuff, he was just a fan. That's a big difference from being an accountant convicted of fraud or a bookie trying to work at a casino.
- fiatmoney 11y ago
  "This is like saying that people who've had DUIs can't work at bars" In fact, people with alcohol-related felonies have a really tough time getting liquor licenses.
  - kennywinker 11y ago
    Yes, but this guy wanted to work at the front desk, not own the license. And society hasn't recently taken major steps towards legalizing DUIs.
    - mc32 11y ago
      But this is more like someone owning a liquor store selling to underage kids, thus breaking the law losing his license then getting denied a job at distillery for prior lapse of judgement.
      - kennywinker 11y ago
        It doesn't sound like that at all to me. In fact, it sounds a lot more like getting caught drinking underage, and then getting denied a job at a distillery. If we're being precise, it sounds like getting caught drinking when you're 20, then a few years later the drinking age is lowered to 19 but you still get denied a job at a distillery.
elcct 11y ago
A lot of people don't recognize "drug crime" as a crime. Your comparison is actually like comparing apples to oranges. There was no legal drug industry, so how people were going to it legally?

RodericDay 11y ago

> Even though research shows people of all races are about equally likely to have broken the law by growing, smoking, or selling marijuana, black people are much more likely to have been arrested for it.

fiatmoney 11y ago
And? If Italians are much more likely to be arrested for illegal bookmaking & racketeering due to targeted efforts to take them down, does that mean it's a great idea to let Fat Tony with a felony conviction, a ball-peen hammer and a shitload of shady friends he has unclear relationships with open a casino?
- RodericDay 11y ago
  It's a better idea than letting equally-as-dirty-but-white-and-uncaught Joe Trustfund take over in his absence. The former at least equalizes the second-order race issue, whereas yours naively compounds it.
- kennywinker 11y ago
  A teenager with a weed possession conviction is not a mobster.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- jccc 11y ago
  Your analogy requires: A. the person to have convictions for dealing, not just possession, and B. mobster-era Italians to be just about as likely to engage in illegal bookmaking and racketeering as the general population, and C. a history of hundreds of years of imposing underclass status on Italians (like that imposed on African Americans), with modern-day policing skewed very heavily against them.
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
Another poster has raised the claim that this only holds true for questions related to certain time frames. But even ignoring that and assuming this was fully for racist reasons, should that have any impact on those choosing to hire people? Even if the justice system is racist, that is a problem that belongs to the justice system.

MrsPeaches 11y ago

> Do you really want someone with a shitload of existing drug connections, being the poster face for the industry you're trying to vanillify? This seems like a poor choice of words at best.

mc32 11y ago
Word choice is fine. Vanilla means plain, unremarkable, blends in well. To become an unremarkable part of the economy. Taking an altogether different meaning not fitting the context says more about your interpretive frame of reference.
- david-given 11y ago
  Yeah, this meaning has been around for ages: http://www.hacker-dictionary.com/terms/vanilla http://www.hacker-dictionary.com/terms/vanilla Where I'm from, vanilla crisps are ready salted. And vanilla ice cream is vanilla.
- kennywinker 11y ago
  I think it was pointed out because vanilla is also associated with "white". In this case, one reading of the comment is "an industry you're trying to make white".
- kbutler 11y ago
  Word choice is problematic: "vanillify" (exceedingly rare, new jargon "to make bland" doesn't even show up in google ngrams) is too similar to "vilify" (to demonize) to use in a context of "to un-demonize". https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=vanillify&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url= https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=vanillify&case... "face of" or "poster boy for", rather than the mixed-up "poster face for". https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=poster+boy%2Cposter+face&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cposter%20boy%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bposter%20boy%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BPoster%20Boy%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cposter%20face%3B%2Cc0#t4%3B%2Cposter%20boy%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bposter%20boy%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BPoster%20Boy%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cposter%20face%3B%2Cc1 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=poster+boy%2Cp... But then, just because nobody says it that way isn't a reason not to...

kennywinker 11y ago

Everything you say is entirely logical, but omits the reality that as a black person in america you are vastly more likely to be arrested for drug crimes. Not more likely to DO drug crimes, just more likely to get caught. This means profiling and racist policing directly leads to economic exclusion. If the american dream is upward mobility, that means black people get a smaller shot at the american dream. But all that aside. This is like saying that people who've had DUIs can't work at bars. The guy in the article had possession charges. That means he had nothing to do with selling the stuff, he was just a fan. That's a big difference from being an accountant convicted of fraud or a bookie trying to work at a casino.

fiatmoney 11y ago
"This is like saying that people who've had DUIs can't work at bars" In fact, people with alcohol-related felonies have a really tough time getting liquor licenses.
- kennywinker 11y ago
  Yes, but this guy wanted to work at the front desk, not own the license. And society hasn't recently taken major steps towards legalizing DUIs.
  - mc32 11y ago
    But this is more like someone owning a liquor store selling to underage kids, thus breaking the law losing his license then getting denied a job at distillery for prior lapse of judgement.
    - kennywinker 11y ago
      It doesn't sound like that at all to me. In fact, it sounds a lot more like getting caught drinking underage, and then getting denied a job at a distillery. If we're being precise, it sounds like getting caught drinking when you're 20, then a few years later the drinking age is lowered to 19 but you still get denied a job at a distillery.

elcct 11y ago

A lot of people don't recognize "drug crime" as a crime. Your comparison is actually like comparing apples to oranges. There was no legal drug industry, so how people were going to it legally?