How the War on Drugs Gave Birth to a Permanent American Undercaste

horrible article with barely any good arguments.

is this country still racist? yes of course there are still racist PEOPLE and even groups, but to act like its some grand conspiracy of the white upper class to put black people in jail on minor drug charges is outrageous and down right insulting.

as the half japanese poster mentioned, its not about race as much as it is about not being able to move on. many blacks realized that if they continued to play the victim, they could be lazy and still live a decent life....

im half iranian and my dad came to this country during the iranian revolution and hostage crisis....he experienced racism to the extreme even death threats, bricks through his windows, etc. he worked hard and didnt give up and it shows....sure there are still plenty of racist people who have called me arab, iraqi, terrorist, etc and i dont let it hold me back nor use it as an excuse. hell fox news even calls iranians "jew hating, terrorist funding, instigators" but you dont large percentages of iranian-americans being incarcerated.

i worked with ALOT of black people and since i am not "white" they would often let me in on their racist conversations about how they really felt about "the white man"...it was truly pathetic; these guys were constantly complaining about how they were only getting hired for this position, getting paid X amount compared to white employees, etc etc etc when they would ignore the fact that the only reason our company was given the contract(and subsequently our jobs)was because they were BLACK owned. in case you didnt know, governments are required give out certain percentages of contracts and money to minority owned business REGARDLESS of their bid, qualifications, or competence.

affirmative action is against our constitution yet blacks think they have it hard LOL
 
Toast to the Spirits said:
How fucked. You know what is interesting about history? Whites had the least right to be in this country in the first place. Whites murdered the natives and stole their land. Blacks were brought here by whites against their will and made into slaves, and they are often still treated like slaves in less obvious ways. What the fuck. I'm white by the way. United States of America, what a joke. No doubt I'm grateful to have been born here by the luck of the draw but damn, what a dark past this country was founded on.
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every nation was founded by conquering and has a "dark past" and had bloodshed at one point or another. And some of the blacks that were brought here by whites were also sold to the "whites" by their own people for goods.
 
ktx49 said:
is this country still racist? yes of course there are still racist PEOPLE and even groups, but to act like its some grand conspiracy of the white upper class to put black people in jail on minor drug charges is outrageous and down right insulting.
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Regardless of the original intent/motivations, that is the current result of the institutions the white upper class has complete political control over. They are fully aware of the results of their political decisions, and do nothing about them to fix the issue you just described. If this isn't a conspiracy I don't know what is.
 
The War On Drugs is an old school "Stealth Tax" but applied only to black America!

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I'm not suggesting some miracle will happen where black guys magically become businessmen in a suit and tie (and in fact I hope that doesn't happen). What I'm suggesting is that we'll see a steady, somewhat rapid integration of young black males into the higher end of the workforce (i.e. not flipping burgers), along with a mutually self-reinforcing trend of integration of minorities in general society. That's probably a pretty hopeful outlook, but I'd like to think I'm not that far off.
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You should visit Toronto. I think you'd like it.

Not that it's some Sangria-la (sp?). It has it's problems too along the same lines related to financial status.

I think there is a faster 'assimilation' than in the U.S. from my limited knowledge on the issue. However, there is chronic underemployment of foriegn trained professionals and it seems to take a generation to get established in many cases. Once the kids grow up in our school system they are able to access many options their parents couldn't.

I don't think it's a 'right or wrong' answer and neither is it a moral choice in most cases.
 
Coolio said:
Regardless of the original intent/motivations, that is the current result of the institutions the white upper class has complete political control over. They are fully aware of the results of their political decisions, and do nothing about them to fix the issue you just described. If this isn't a conspiracy I don't know what is.
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what issue are you talking about?
in case you dont know, you can graduate a mostly black innercity high school by simply attending; try that a white-suburban school. they are given jobs, scholarships, grants, and funding because of the color of their skin; what else can we do to help them?

name ONE political decision in the last 20 years that has descriminated against blacks??

conspiracy? do you also think the gov't created HIV/AIDS to wipe out the black population too LOL
 
royal c: good post, that is a great doc! i torrent'd it a few weeks ago. I recommend everyone gives it a watch, it really give a good look into the true war on drugs.
 
Oh1o0hwhyO said:
royal c: good post, that is a great doc! i torrent'd it a few weeks ago. I recommend everyone gives it a watch, it really give a good look into the true war on drugs.
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Yeah - its quite a revelation - how crack cocaine was introduced into black areas of America by CIA design, and the real reasons why its in the interests of many that most current banned drugs stay that way.

I did'nt realise to what extent drugs were used as a vehicle to justify ethnic cleansing and slavery by successive American administrations8o

How the hell did they get away with it, and still are??
 
What a crock of shit! Some cultures in America celebrate and value the criminal lifestyle more than others do. Those cultures are overrepresented in prison and throughout the criminal justice system. Before you think that I am some racist peckerwood...I am white and chiricahua apache on my father's side and latino on my mother's. I have also practiced law as a public defender as well as, having been to prison myself. Here in California blacks are a minority in prison...it is us latinos who make up the majority but whites are rapidly increasing in number. Real racism is someone trying to convince any group that it is being fucked over by another group when in fact it is conduct, misfortune and poverty which will land someone of any race in prison.
 
lol interesting article. do you think the mainstream medias glamorization of the drug dealer hustler lifestyle ie rap videos movies etc.. plays in to this equation in any way.

i mean you basically have rapstars glamourizing this (hood, trapper,hustler) life and in a way brainwashing young black youth tellin them this is the good life do this and youll be ballin like me and have millions

so its like monkey see monkey do. its a all good if a few uneducated black guys that were criminals become famous millionaires if it means thousands of blacks become incarcerated and marginalized.

lol when nwa first came out the FBI sent them an explicit warning tellling them to stop glorifying and glamorizing gangster rap and the lifestyle out of fear the reprecussions it would have on youth. why did they just let them continue doing this. do you think if they really wanted to stop a threat like this they would have been more aggressive in curbing gangster raps popularity. as you know gangster rap exploded. did the government and media regulators realize this was too big to stop? perhaps freedom of speech made it so all they could do is censor shit on the radio or tv and not stop people from producing and putting this music out there.

or maybe they realized that this could benefit them and they're agenda. effectivley selling impressionable young minorities a one way ticket to marginalization.

sorry if this sounds like some dumb conspiracy theory.i didn't just think off this now either ive thought it a few times before too. lol i remember one time being really baked thinkin about this and wondering"what if those rappers on tv aint even really black dudes and they're just white guys pretending to be black so they can brainwash the young black males into a life of crime.

of course this is all moot when you think about it. white kids are copying black guys and emulating that rapper shit too dealing drugs and what not. maybe they just dont get caught as often as us colored folks though.
this whole race thing is rather confusing. when you have racists, minorites that trully were fucked over, and dumb fucking yokels that throw the race card around for the stupidest shit all the time. the point that its like the boy who cried wolf.

really im not so sure how real this margianilization is i mean the police force is activeley looking for more minorites to join there ranks. well they are in canada anyways i dont know about the states.
and they do too raid and search suburban areas. i think a good chunk of grow ops in my city being busted these days are in upper class areas so its not just the ghettos and projects being targeted
 
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Practically all ethnic groups coming to America have had prejudice and discrimination against them to some extent. Irish and Italians are good examples. They struggled and some chose a life of [organized & unorganized] crime... most of the rest settled in and worked diligently to overcome their hardships. Many African americans have also chose crime but perhaps they weren't as dedicated and organized as the others. However, most have chose legitimate work and do very well.

The problem is that our system has made it to easy to get on the gravy train and stay there. For many its a choice. They know if they vote for certain candidates the money will keep coming. That is repression and creates dependency on the govt.

Yes the cia has conspired to allow drugs to flow into countries including our own... but that is not to keep the black man down. It's to keep our "allies" friendly and their other valuable resources flowing. Why do you think we still support the current Afganistan President when is brother [and probably him] is a major player in the pot and opiate business.
 
^ Black Americans do not draw analogies to ANY immigrant group in the US's history. They are simply American, full stop.

A history book I once read described American Blacks as "a people who have more right to call themselves American than any other group living there," and I think there is some truth to this. They were FORCIBLY brought to the US LONG before living memory, and forcibly stripped of pretty much all the culture they had before that, with the exception of their musical melodies and dance, and arguably some of their cuisine. Their culture today is one hundred percent American, to its very core. They have no other homeland, and no strong cultural link to any other place or group of people on earth, despite the valiant efforts of the African roots movement in the 60s.

When the going got rough, Italian and Irish Americans, by contrast, could always remind themselves that they're the bearers of ancient, proud civilizations across the sea. They were forced to give up none of this previous culture and heritage when they came, and they were able to draw on a preexisting community structure and old comforts from 'the old country', whenever discrimination reared its ugly head. More to the point, even when these and other immigrant groups were on the bottom of American society, they could take comfort in the fact that this was just a function of their being noobs, because they were NOT on the bottom where they came from, and would not necessarily be on the bottom anymore, once they'd learned their way around American culture.

Black Americans, by contrast, are like sailors who've been shanghai'd, waking up with no memory of anything before their capture, and having no sense of having ever been anything BUT on the bottom of society.

This is a very, very important point that's lost on a lot of Americans who are descended from recent immigrant groups that have risen up from the bottom, but who are not themselves immigrants.

Black Americans are the US's equivalent of India's untouchables. They are fully American, and occupied a place in American society that was lowly, up until 40~50 years ago, which is not enough time for such a legacy to disappear.

Notice I'm NOT saying that none of your points have any merit, SubDude. I basically agree that if the average standard of living for Black America is to improve, this change must come from within this community, not from outside in the form of handicaps and handouts, which are of limited help to anyone in the long run. But I am saying that the betterment of the Black community must necessarily take a very different approach than that taken by any new immigrant group this country has ever seen.
 
^ I can't disagree with much of what you say.

Yes African Americans are different in how they came here. However, like irish/italians/indians etc... they can now be proud of their heritage. No different than any other race/culture. I think books/movies like Amstead Roots [one of several] was a fascinating study and extremely important to understanding early black american history. At the time, most of us had little knowledge of the level to which they were abused and exploited. They were definitely wronged.

However, when do we move on and and forever throw away the "race card" so often played by the [Reverends] Jesse Jacksons, Al Sharprtons, Jeremiah Wrights...et al? It's disgusting to see these men manipulate their own race for personal gain.

At this point I still believe it's more of a class struggle than race. The politicians could care less of the ethnicity of the people they exploit. They will step on whoever they can to get power.
 
Basically what I'm saying is, Black Americans' sense of their place in American history and society is very fertile ground for attitudes of "This system fucked us, so fuck the system; we're going to fuck it back for all it's worth". It's a similar situation for American Indians, who also live in communities riddled with chronic problems, and generally don't feel bad milking the system for all they can get while contributing nothing, out of a not-wholly-misguided sense that that's what they're owed or historically entitled to.

It's very easy for Black or Native Americans to judge and poormouth members of their own communities who show a willingness to cooperate with and contribute to the majority society, since historically such behavior has only gotten them walked on by the White majority, rather than being respected and accepted by it. (Uncle Tom, Squanto.)

Again, I agree with you that this mistrustful and reciprocally exploitative attitude toward mainstream American society only hurts these communities nowadays. But many times bitten, many times shy.

I only see this situation having a CHANCE at changing when legalized, systemic discrimination is long gone from living memory, which it isn't, for either racial group.
 
MyDoorsAreOpen said:
I only see this situation having a CHANCE at changing when legalized, systemic discrimination is long gone from living memory, which it isn't, for either racial group.
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Yes thats why crying "race" when someone [who happens to be a minority] gets a bad deal needs to stop. These days that just creates more distance between groups. Shit happens to all of us. So unless it's a blatant case of hatred or something illegal... lets leave race out of it.

BTW... I meant Amistad & Roots [two of several].
 
dtxx said:
The comparisons of modern times to slavery are meaningless at best. People who rely on the race card still won't give it up.
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People who refuse to recognize the power structures in this country still won't give it up.
 
SubDude said:
Yes thats why crying "race" when someone [who happens to be a minority] gets a bad deal needs to stop. These days that just creates more distance between groups. Shit happens to all of us. So unless it's a blatant case of hatred or something illegal... lets leave race out of it.
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The drug war is designed to make sure that the powerless stay powerless, and it is certainly intended to fall hardest on blacks. I'm sorry you have to endure the inconvenience of hearing about it.
 
Howard B Huge said:
And, if this country is so racist, how did a Black man become President instead of a far more experienced, White P.O.W. who sacrificed 5+ years of his life for his country?

And what about the Black on White crime rate as opposed to the White on Black crime rate?
That rate is consistent thru out the US and has been for years and is not a result of selective enforcement/prosecution either.

As someone stated above who is part-Japanese, their grandparents had their homes and businesses taken away and they were locked up, without a trial, without any rights, etc...yet you don't see Japanese people "in the system" because they didn't resort to crime upon being freed, despite the anti-Japanese sentiment that was prevalent at the time.

Instead, they worked hard to regain what they had lost and didn't complain about being "victims" despite being faced with racism and other obstacles.

"The (white) man is keeping me down" argument is a false, self-perpetuating one and the mentality of entitlement as well as the mentality of victimhood are both self-defeating.

I see people that come here from Asian countries such as Viet Nam, unable to speak English, yet they manage to become successful thru sacrifice and hard work.

The race card is played out.

The people who continue to play the race card only hurt themselves.
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The ignorance and willful blindness that radiates from this post is astounding. the Asian situation first of all is not even remotely comparable to the African American situation. Were Japanese discriminated against, yes, was the WWII incident tragic, yes, but the Japanese were not brought here exlcusively as slaves. African Americans were forced here, a person could be sent to jail for teaching a black person to read, a blakc person could be lynched for learning how to read. The experience of the African American is unique out of all the minority groups in the US, whether they be Latin, Asian, Indian, etc. This country passed laws that applied only to discriminate against Blacks (Jim Crow anyone). There is a troubled history that has always existed in the United States since its inception with African Americans that is not true of other ethnic groups. The situation the japanese faced is much more similar to the prejudice that Irish Immigrants faced when first arriving in this country, they were hated, discriminated against, stereotyped, and treated poorly. But african Americans were actually viewed as sub-human by a large population of whites, that could be executed simply for looking at a white woman. the prejudice that has existed against African Americans greatly exceeds anything any other minority has faced.

Next, the situation of Asian immigrants and African descendants are radically differenent. People like to point out how successful Asians can be when they come here as somehow being indicative of some deficiency of blacks. The main reason so many Asians are successful when they come here is the same reason so many of the German and Irish immigrants were successful. It takes a very motivated, courageous person to uproot themselves and transport themselves voluntarily to a unknown country. The people that immigrate here are usually coming from countries with terrible economies, but the people who immigrate are incredibly motivated, intelligent, and driven, you have to be to make this sort of effort. I got into this same argument with my ex-wife who was Korean as she always talked about how great Koreans were because they could come over here and be successful, and that blacks were just lazy, blah, blah. I told her that there are plenty of lazy stupid koreans, but those were not the people that were immigrating here. We are getting some of the most intelligent and highly motivated people on the planet that come here and using them as some broader indicator is just not a proper comparison group. When we visited Korea she finally conceded I was right as we found lots of poor, stupid, lazy koreans all over Korea, but the people in US were usually very hardworking and intelligent.

There is a self selection going on that seperates out the most highly motivated, skillfull, etc. So these points about Asian success prove that a select group of highly motivated people with a strong sense of community organzing can succeed in the face of broader societal prejudice, yes indeed. but taking a race that has historically been discriminated against, been taught culturally to devalue education (it can get you killed), taught to devalue marriage (slave families typically spilt apart as it was believed that rebellions were less likely if families were never allowed to form strong bonds.

It is not playing the race card (I hate this, as it seems only white people want to now bitch about the "race card") simply by stating historical facts that go to explain a societal phenomena. It is actually intellectual cowardice not to actually confront and admit to these issues, rather than subscirbing to the juvenile propaganda that we are all given equal opportunity in this country. If the statistics and history bore this out, I would concede it, but the truth is much more complicated, and it is just insane and ignorant to deny the unique historical situation of african americans in this country and deny that many are suffering from systemic problems that are still the direct result of a slave culture that instilled some terrible values in AA, and created a sense of racial superiority in whites that still lingers today. If you think America is not racist I ask you to go view some footage of the busing protest that took place in the 70's. You will see white people in their teens, 20's, 30's and older screaming about niggers, and they don't want their children being forced to intergrate with monkeys, and they are standing there with their chidlren. This was a hugely divisive issue, and you are living in a dream world if you think that all these people just suddenly realized how wrong they were and live perfectly racially harmonious lives after that.

No, the republican party learned that overt racism was not acceptable based upon new international standards, it looked bad in our war against Communist, so overt racism could no longer be claimed, the seccessionist and anti-integrationist suddenly adopted policies that were no longer "anti-black" but were simply for "states rights." This was an organized strategy that was referred to the "Souther Strategy" that wanted to pick up racist democrats that were mad as hell at LBJ for the civil rights act. LBJ actually admitted upon signing the Civil Rights act that he had given away the South to the republicans for the next 100 years. Look up a guy named Lee Atwater, he desinged the Southern Strategy for Ronald Reagan and openly admits that the goal was divide the country on racial issues, and push racial issues, but appear race neutral. It was a brilliant, if evil scheme, that worked incredibly well.

If you have never heard of Lee Atwater, the Southern Strategy, LBJ and the civil rights act, if you did not know that there were laws against teaching blacks to read, laws that forbid slaves from marrying, then you simply don't know enough about American history to even make an informed commment about the race card.
 
SubDude said:
^ I can't disagree with much of what you say.

Yes African Americans are different in how they came here. However, like irish/italians/indians etc... they can now be proud of their heritage. No different than any other race/culture. I think books/movies like Amstead Roots [one of several] was a fascinating study and extremely important to understanding early black american history. At the time, most of us had little knowledge of the level to which they were abused and exploited. They were definitely wronged.

However, when do we move on and and forever throw away the "race card" so often played by the [Reverends] Jesse Jacksons, Al Sharprtons, Jeremiah Wrights...et al? It's disgusting to see these men manipulate their own race for personal gain.

At this point I still believe it's more of a class struggle than race. The politicians could care less of the ethnicity of the people they exploit. They will step on whoever they can to get power.
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So for you a couple of movies simply automatically corrected this nations atrocious record of dealing with African Americans. Well they showed Roots back in the 80's so why can't them blacks just shut up and move on. did you just seriously state that 400 years of brutal slavery and legalized discrimination was all made irrellevant based upon a few movies? So all of a sudden, all of history is erased, everyone is now equal, all is made right, because a few movies were made that showed white people that we did bad things. Your arrogance, your ignorance, your small mindedness, are just frightening to me. Look, for hundreds, hundreds, of years, the only life that African Americans knew was one of open hostility from whites, open legalized discrimination, where blacks could be hung for no reason at all, where women were repeatedly raped by slave masters as a matter of course, where families were never allowed to form, where a slave who had escaped to freedom in the North, could be hunted down, captured and returned to his status of a slave, just about 100 hundred years ago. Imagine that for a second, you have escaped, you have been living free for 10 years, suddenly you hear there are bounty hunters looking for run away slaves, and you can be taken by these men with no legal process, and taken forcibly back into bondage, and local law enforcement was required to assist and anyone that tried to help could be arrested. Slaves were property, were do you think this big concern over "property rights" came from, it was arguments over slaves, they were not human. You can't seem to understand what this does to people, they were not even viewed as human, they could be murdered in the street for pleasure and it would be legal. They had no protection, nothing.

This only ended with the civil war, but that was just the instituition of slavery. The institution of White dominance and superiority would be legally codified and enforced for the next 100 years. So though slavery was ended, blacks were never thought of as equal to whites. Some of the comments Lincoln made regarding African Americans was startling to me, it was just so commonplace to view blacks as being grossly inferior to whites, it was simply part of the culture. This legal apartied was only ended in the 1960's, 50 years ago. Those people are still alive, they lived through haterd that you can not even imagine, their parents and grandparents had lived through slavery. this is not like Roman history that is long since past, this is recent history. Slavery ended a mere 150 years ago, that is not long at all. Legalized discrimination (not mild mistreatment, harsh brutal treatment that was designed to instill a sense of inferiority in blacks) was only legally ended 50 years ago. Those attitudes still exist, they still thrive, and to take the position that they don't is just ignorant, and really, really insulting. the race card. I can not believe that we have managed to again turn this around on blacks and actually take the race issue away from them and claim it as our own. That is just masterful propaganda, and it looks like the brainwashing has been sucessful.
 
snakjaw said:
People who refuse to recognize the power structures in this country still won't give it up.
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The level of historical and racial ignorance which has been displayed in this thread has been truly disturbing to me. I can not believe that actually pointing out legitimate racism, pointing out legitimate, factual historical antecedents for current societal problems could be blithely discarded as "playing the race card." That whites now feel discriminated against is just an amazing piece of political propaganda that became a reality because the speakers said it enough, it became real. That was Atwaters goal and I am amazed that the American people are so stupid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater
 
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