> Flight risk is really not as high as the system is designed for.
The system is rigged against the minorities. Look why cannabis was criminalized in the first place - to target blacks and hippies (https://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-...). As a politician, keep as many of 'em in jails as you can, thus showing the white population you're "tough on crime" and at the same time filling the coffers of your private prison operator friends with state cash for the jailing.
This white against minorities narrative breaks down once you understand that ~80% of minorities are DNC voters[1] and Bill Clinton was the number one guy who f*ed them over the most with the infamous Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994[2].
2. In a speech at an NAACP convention in Philadelphia in July, Clinton acknowledged that tougher incarceration provisions in the bill were a mistake. “I signed a bill that made the problem worse,” Clinton said. “And I want to admit it.”
I think this issue has many different angles than just the usual whites vs. minorities.
The lack of options/failure of the political system does not disprove the narrative that there were/are racial motives behind some of the systems we live with today.
"It can't be whites vs blacks, politicians that black people voted for did it too".
When you actually write out your argument it doesn't make any sense. What if they were given two options, both of whom would have continued racist policies? There's also a phenomenon whereby politicians identified with a specific "outsider" group have a lot more pressure (and ability) to defy the interests or stereotypes of that group. H Clinton under a lot more pressure to be hawkish to defy weak women narrative. Obama under a lot more scrutiny about anything that could be seen as a handout to African Americans. Politicians from the left often ripping up regulations, because they sedate the left who would have prevented right candidates from doing it.
Basically, it's way more complicated and your argument doesn't hold water.
Nicely put. Your comment reminds me of Rubin and Summers ripping up Glass-Steagall at the end of the Clinton administration and the current uproar at attempts to get rid of some banking regulations.
How likely are those people to vote Republican though? If there is little change of that then introducing a harsh new law might win more votes than it would lose.
How is it a "narrative"? The widespread and coordinated use
of drug laws to persecute minorities is a matter of historical fact. Are you disputing the historical facts? Are you familiar with the rigorous academic research on this subject? You might want to start here [1]. Calling something a "narrative" doesn't actually change anything, let alone the facts.
You say "drug laws" but then link to stories about marijuana. If you want to discuss historical fact, you can't just focus on marijuana when the picture is much bigger. African-American leaders[1][2][3] quite often wanted tougher laws about drug use. Drug laws may have been influenced in part by racism, but that is assuredly not the whole story. Black people don't want their communities destroyed by drugs and crime any more than anyone else, and they want enforcement as much as anyone.
You don't think Clinton was playing the same game as Nixon in '94? He already had one group of voters in the bag; he was reaching out to another group so he wouldn't get Dukakissed in '96. If he had known he'd be facing a lump like Dole, he might not have bothered...
> If the question is price, then this is really more of a system targeting the poor than one that is against any specific minority group.
Well, if the majority of poor people are blacks (and Latinos), then it certainly is a racist policy to have vastly different sentencing for the drugs for poor and rich people.
Crack is substantially cheaper to obtain than powdered cocaine. Crack is just powdered cocaine that's been cooked with other substances, essentially diluting it.
The question is purely price, and it's the system targeting drug users of certain class/ethnic groups more than others. If you look at drug law enforcement in the US, it's substantially more punitive towards poor/minority groups.
1- Can't imagine ya'll refute what crack is/the pricing of it since those are just objective facts. So, for anyone who's salty that the system is rigged against poor people/minorities:
I can do a the standard English alphabet, the Greek alphabet, simplified Chinese, Japanese kanji and any other alphabets you guys would like me to tack on with sources that state the same thing:
The War On Drugs is a War on Poor People and Minorities.
The system is rigged against the minorities. Look why cannabis was criminalized in the first place - to target blacks and hippies (https://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-...). As a politician, keep as many of 'em in jails as you can, thus showing the white population you're "tough on crime" and at the same time filling the coffers of your private prison operator friends with state cash for the jailing.