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> The notion that the drug war is a pretext for racism is utterly ridiculous The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies:

> The notion that the drug war is a pretext for racism is utterly ridiculous 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. -- Former Nixon aide John Ehrlichman > The PM’s cabinet in my home country The drug war didn't start in your country, so you have no claim to what the initial and subsequent motivations were of those who started it and popularized it around the world. > It goes without saying that Black people aren’t inherently more likely to be drug dealers or drug users Black people in the US are less likely to be drug dealers, however they are searched and arrested at a much higher rate. > There’s lots of other laws that have discriminatory enforcement, but nobody accuses the proponents of those laws of being motivated by racism. Sure they do. Just as one example, the law that felons cannot vote has frequently been cited as racially motivated. Another example is stop and frisk.

rayiner 4y ago
> Sure they do. Just as one example, the law that felons cannot vote has frequently been cited as racially motivated. Another example is stop and frisk. Yes, and those accusations are stupid because e.g. the prohibition on felons voting in most states dates to before the civil war when most Black people couldn't vote. Iowa had some of the strongest felony voting rules in the country, which it adopted in 1846 when it had virtually no Black people. Gun control laws were originally adopted to disarm Black people. Felon-in-possession and red flag laws disproportionately affect Black men. Do you go around calling contemporary proponents of gun control motivated by racism? A major justification for abortion in the early 20th century was limiting the birth rate of minorities and poor people. Do you accuse abortion advocates of being motivated by racism? No, you don’t because you recognize that there are independent reasons for those policies even if some advocates of those policies have (or had in the past) racist motivations.
- tchaffee 4y ago
  > Yes, and those accusations are stupid Your original claim was "nobody accuses the proponents of those laws of being motivated by racism.". You were wrong. Now you are moving the goalposts. > Do you accuse abortion advocates of being motivated by racism? That is indeed something that conservatives accuse pro-choice people of quite often. In all these cases you need to look at: 1. How recent the original motivations were and if they are still in place. 2. Outcomes. In the case of the drug war, the motivations were recent and include several modern presidents from both sides of the aisle. Starting with Nixon but including Reagan and Bill Clinton. And the outcome is jails filled with black people arrested on drug charges when the reality is that white people in the US both deal drugs and use drugs at a higher rate than black people. You have recency, motivations still in place, and outcomes. With abortions you neither have recency nor outcomes. The black population in the US is growing at a healthy rate. In fact, the black population in the US is young. Over a third of the U.S. Black population was 22 years or younger in 2019. > you recognize that there are independent reasons for those policies A policy can be motivated by both racism and other reasons. They aren't exclusive.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    > Your original claim was "nobody accuses the proponents of those laws of being motivated by racism." The phrase “those laws” refers to the immediately preceding “lots of other laws.” Not “all other laws.” The point is that people are selective about whether they throw around accusations of racism when a law has discriminatory impacts. Not that they allege racism only with respect to the drug war. As to conservatives making accusations that abortion is racist, they’re dumb and wrong. But the discriminatory impact of abortion on Black people is undeniable. According to Guttmacher, the Black abortion rate is five times higher than the white abortion rate. Black population growth as a percentage of the population has been stagnant for decades. That will directly lead to loss of Black political power as Hispanics have overtaken them as the largest minority group, and soon Asians will overtake them as well. And the recency is there too. People point to the things Nixon said about the drug war. But read about Nixon’s Population Control Commission!
    - 4y ago

rayiner 4y ago

> Sure they do. Just as one example, the law that felons cannot vote has frequently been cited as racially motivated. Another example is stop and frisk. Yes, and those accusations are stupid because e.g. the prohibition on felons voting in most states dates to before the civil war when most Black people couldn't vote. Iowa had some of the strongest felony voting rules in the country, which it adopted in 1846 when it had virtually no Black people. Gun control laws were originally adopted to disarm Black people. Felon-in-possession and red flag laws disproportionately affect Black men. Do you go around calling contemporary proponents of gun control motivated by racism? A major justification for abortion in the early 20th century was limiting the birth rate of minorities and poor people. Do you accuse abortion advocates of being motivated by racism? No, you don’t because you recognize that there are independent reasons for those policies even if some advocates of those policies have (or had in the past) racist motivations.

tchaffee 4y ago
> Yes, and those accusations are stupid Your original claim was "nobody accuses the proponents of those laws of being motivated by racism.". You were wrong. Now you are moving the goalposts. > Do you accuse abortion advocates of being motivated by racism? That is indeed something that conservatives accuse pro-choice people of quite often. In all these cases you need to look at: 1. How recent the original motivations were and if they are still in place. 2. Outcomes. In the case of the drug war, the motivations were recent and include several modern presidents from both sides of the aisle. Starting with Nixon but including Reagan and Bill Clinton. And the outcome is jails filled with black people arrested on drug charges when the reality is that white people in the US both deal drugs and use drugs at a higher rate than black people. You have recency, motivations still in place, and outcomes. With abortions you neither have recency nor outcomes. The black population in the US is growing at a healthy rate. In fact, the black population in the US is young. Over a third of the U.S. Black population was 22 years or younger in 2019. > you recognize that there are independent reasons for those policies A policy can be motivated by both racism and other reasons. They aren't exclusive.
- rayiner 4y ago
  > Your original claim was "nobody accuses the proponents of those laws of being motivated by racism." The phrase “those laws” refers to the immediately preceding “lots of other laws.” Not “all other laws.” The point is that people are selective about whether they throw around accusations of racism when a law has discriminatory impacts. Not that they allege racism only with respect to the drug war. As to conservatives making accusations that abortion is racist, they’re dumb and wrong. But the discriminatory impact of abortion on Black people is undeniable. According to Guttmacher, the Black abortion rate is five times higher than the white abortion rate. Black population growth as a percentage of the population has been stagnant for decades. That will directly lead to loss of Black political power as Hispanics have overtaken them as the largest minority group, and soon Asians will overtake them as well. And the recency is there too. People point to the things Nixon said about the drug war. But read about Nixon’s Population Control Commission!
  - 4y ago