The differences are not even close to those reported to as experiencing mistreatment by police, and this does nothing to refute the findings of systemic bias in studies like the Ferguson report.
But since you’re a proponent of this “black people are treated just fine” hypothesis, when do you think this began in America? When did black people start to be treated equally and fairly by law enforcement, and by society in general? What prompted this change?
Those links do a very poor job of explaining the history behind the crack vs cocaine sentencing disparity.
The bill that created it was passed in 1986 when Democrats had a majority in the House of Representative. Charlie Rangel, the congressman from Harlem and founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus was chairman of the the House Select Committee on Narcotics. He held hearings on the abuse of crack cocaine and championed the bill that made the penalties for dealing crack so harsh. He attended the signing ceremony. Most of the Black Caucus voted for the bill, and it was also supported by most of the black mayors of big cities. 222 house democrats voted for it and 15 voted against, 46 senate democrats voted for it and 1 against. Barbara Boxer, Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer all voted for it. In the Senate, Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, and Al Gore voted for it.
It was not controversial at the time and its purpose was to quell the two and a half decade explosion in crime that affected black communities disproportionately.
If you’re trying to prove here that most of Congress, for most of American history, aided and abetted the cause of white supremacism, I doubt you’ll find much disagreement here.
You are trying to conflate the idea that police departments do not make up crime statistics and target black people for selective enforcement while letting white criminals go, with “black people are treated just fine”. You even used quote marks even though you were not quoting me.
I do not think black people are treated just fine. Surveys indicate that black people feel that police are less courteous to them and more likely to curse at them. There is a cycle where police are more active in black neighborhoods because of the higher crime rates. The higher presence means more engagements between police and residents. Since some percentage of those engagements are negative, it makes the police and residents both more aggressive. People are bad at judging risk and so both police and black people are more afraid of each other than they should be which increases bad engagements.
I believe that the findings of the Ferguson report are true. That was not a case of a rogue police department but a local government trying to raise money by targeting the community. It is a common tactic among some cities. The population of Ferguson is 67% black, yet they did not seem too upset at the city. The year before the riots the mayor was re elected with no opposition. Two years after the riots he was re elected with 57% of the vote.
It is the opposite. The anti crack laws of the 1980s were serious attempts by the government to address the needs and problems of black neighborhoods. That is why the Congressional Black Caucus was for it. The crack epidemic was a huge problem that killed tens of thousands of young black men and the best attempts to solve it by the government are called white supremacy.
How many thousands of black people have to die before you think the government should do something?
Nothing here about American history. Nothing here about the history of American law enforcement. Nothing here about how black people were treated for the vast majority of American history. There’s no possibility of discussion here if you’re ignoring the relevant parts of our history here.
This was a feeble and failed attempt to address any problems, unless the problem is “prisons aren’t making enough money” or “not enough black people are in prison”. The government should have done something, but the drug war just made things worse. They should decriminalize drugs, focus on treatment and prevention, free non-violent prisoners, redress the systemic inequalities that have caused greater poverty and lesser opportunity in black communities, and much more.
We have about the same amount of cops, per capita, as Ireland (just as an example). But we have nine times the prison population, per capita. It’s not because the Irish are just inherently better – it’s because we have for-profit prisons and law enforcement that’s incentivized to mistreat and punish people for minor or even non-existent violations (among other things). And this almost always falls disproportionately on black people. It’s not a coincidence that the same thing was happening throughout American history, and it’s still happening now.
Here is the winning ticket .
" …Second, many of the assumptions used in determining the 100:1 ratio
have been proven wrong by recent data. For example, despite many of the
misconceptions at the time of Len Bias’ death, numerous scientific and
medical experts have determined that in terms of pharmacological
effects, crack cocaine is no more harmful than powder cocaine
…"
So there was some sort of justification based upon the science of what they knew back then, but recently they have new data. Makes sense to me.
Are the laws a whole lot closer to the same sentencing structure NOW?
Interested into why you think the Police Union acts according to police union rules but they would not change the rules if there was no Union?
When you start arguing that the Congressional Back Caucus was racist, you have gone off the rocker.
This is one of those issues, iiandyiii ,that I referred to in a different thread about you refusing to see any other viewpoint, you will die on this hill no matter how much data is stacked against you and will continue moving goal posts until every one else gives up arguing with you.
You are passionate in your belief. Sometimes that belief is wrong.
No one who disagrees with me has even attempted to refute my points about American history, nor answer my questions about history. To me, this all paints a very clear picture, and no one has even tried to refute that centuries long story.
Nothing about the price of tea in China, either. Crime statistics are not made up by racist police departments. They match what people say in surveys and they match anecdotal evidence about where crime happens.
At least we agree that it was an attempt to help the black community and not a racist conspiracy. It may not have worked as intended, but it was a sincere effort that almost all black politicians were on board with. In 1986 private prisons were an even tinier part of the system than they are now. They had nothing to do with the law and have nothing to do with crime laws now.
I hate to give the potato eating savages in Ireland any credit, but even after a two decades long decline in crime, crime rates in the US are 6 times as high as they are in Ireland. That is why their incarceration rates are so much lower.
I haven’t seen these matches, only vague allusions to similarity. But even if this is so, it doesn’t tell us much. It wouldn’t be a surprise at all if a brutalized and oppressed population has a greater likelihood of resorting to crime, when they have so many fewer chances at a decent life.
And why do we have so much more crime? Maybe because we’ve singled out populations for sustained, centuries long brutality and oppression? Maybe because our culture worships violence, and especially gun violence? Maybe because it’s so, so much easier to obtain the means to kill people here?
Just a thought. Maybe American history has some impact on the American present.
Of course police sometimes mistreat black people- and brown people and even white people. More often blacks almost certainly. But is to due to expectations and attitude or actual racism?
What’s the difference?
If your attitude is that you expect black people to be criminals because they’re black people, that’s racism.
And the whole frequency of crime thing can be a loop. Police find crime where they look hardest for it. If they look hardest for it in black neighborhoods, they’ll find more of it there. Because they found more of it there, they look for it harder there. So they find more of it there. Rinse, repeat . . .
After consulting my fellow mods, this’ll earn you a warning, puddleglum. Don’t be a jerk.
Really? Hyperbolic comments are now a warnable offense?
That was very obviously a joke (and not a bad one - I chuckled).
Many jurisdictions have arrest rates for black Americans that are as much as 10 times greater than whites, per capita.
Everything can be excused under the guise of “oh the poor oppressed downtrodden, I can totally see why those poor folks don’t follow the law.”
Laws are to be followed, or we won’t have a nation of laws.
Excuses.
When the law has been a tool to oppress for centuries, the idea of a “nation of laws” isn’t terribly comforting.