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[O C]

Nothing quite that extreme, but the evidence suggests a significant racial disparity does exist in the length and severity of sentencing by the judiciary for identical crimes.

Anecdotally speaking: I have read about poor white defendants with court-appointed attorneys receiving more lenient sentences than middle-class black defendants for identical non-violent crimes. I don't think making it just a class-based issue gels with reality: It's probably a combination--with race--which hits those who are poor and black the worst.

Thanks for the reply. From a human perspective, it's pretty fucking disgusting to treat people differently due to class or race. Crazy to think this goes on, with everybodies knowledge, but nothing can stop it.

I'm not quite sure what the question is (I'm being sincere).

The stats I just copied off of wiki and us census, quick google search is all it took. But the point I was trying to get with those numbers is that Black drug users get far harsher penalties then White drug users on average. And also that just simply people below the poverty line the White demographic still makes up a third of the entire population of Black Americans. Where not talking about lower class or the working class etc. We're talking about at or below the poverty line. So if this was a class issue then we'd see far higher incarceration rates for White Americans simply out of the sheer number of population.

This is not the case, so the metric being used is very racial here.

I see where you're coming from. Again, it's pathetic that race still dictates a lot of actions in America and around the world. Aren't people used to seeing different cultures, races and skin colours by now? I was hoping racists would get bored and move onto something else by now.

Thanks for the reply

 

[Slayven]

hmmm, but isn't this more classism than racism? (even if the classism happened trough racism in the first place)

i mean, they know the middleclass and upper class can defend itself against it so they won't even try it there. (atleast thats what i read or am i wrong?)

Absolutely, this is the outcome of a disparity in wealth not race in particular. Even though like you said, it's race that originally caused the massive disparity in wealth. They are targeting poor areas because they are more likely to commit crimes, not because they aren't white.

Nope a poor white person is still better off than a poor black person. Hell a poor white person with a felony record is better off than a poor black person with none

 

[CrushDance]

Nope a poor white person is still better off than a poor black person. Hell a poor white person with a felony record is better off than a poor black person with none

There's no such thing as white privilege. We're all equal.

 

[theignoramus]

In my experience, black people from 18-35 are nowhere near as enthusiastic about hard drugs as whites in the same age bracket. White people in their teens and twenties love telling you enthusiastic stories about their weekend experience on acid,molly, shrooms, or coke.
So it's not surprising to me in the least blacks statistically use less recreational drugs. With black people there's weed and maybe some uncle, aunt or distant cousin who got strung out on crack 10-15 years ago.

 

[AbsolutBro]

The special agent in charge, he says “You know, if we go out there and start messing with those folks, they know judges, they know lawyers, they know politicians. You start locking their kids up, somebody’s going to jerk our chain.” He said they’re going to call us on it, and before you know it, they’re going to shut us down, and there goes your overtime.

This right here really starts to touch on what I feel is one of the biggest issues with our criminal justice system: if you have money, you are basically above it. I recognize the disgusting racial beginnings of the drug war; drugs outlawed basically to target specific races. But as it's gone on, the class aspect of it really should not be ignored either. In an age of widening monetary gaps, having money is basically putting you in a caste above those that don't. It needs to stop. Knowing a judge should not put you above the law, and I feel the punishment for those who seek to go around the system like this should really be escalated.

 

[Dryk]

Here's the real question : Is this a race thing, or a class thing?

Would rich black people who know lawyers judges etc be punished while poor white folk get let off the hook?

It's both.Lots of poor black people due to racism -> More black criminals -> Prevailing attitude that black people are criminals -> More poor black people due to racism

That will happen less with poor white people because you tend not to stereotype your own group as much so they only get hit for being poor as opposed to poor and black.

 

[Infinite]

Here's the real question : Is this a race thing, or a class thing?

Would rich black people who know lawyers judges etc be punished while poor white folk get let off the hook?

Race and class intersect.

 

[EASTC0AST_GH05T]

There's no such thing as white privilege. We're all equal.

can't tell if you are being serious or sarcastic...

 

[JohnDoe]

There's no such thing as white privilege. We're all equal.

Can't tell if you are being outright retarded or if trolling race threads on GAF has reached a new level...

 

[Dryk]

Can't tell if you are being outright retarded or if trolling race threads on GAF has reached a new level...

Pretty sure it's sarcastic

 

[Gormless Noodle]

This right here really starts to touch on what I feel is one of the biggest issues with our criminal justice system: if you have money, you are basically above it. I recognize the disgusting racial beginnings of the drug war; drugs outlawed basically to target specific races. But as it's gone on, the class aspect of it really should not be ignored either. In an age of widening monetary gaps, having money is basically putting you in a caste above those that don't. It needs to stop. Knowing a judge should not put you above the law, and I feel the punishment for those who seek to go around the system like this should really be escalated.

A bit off topic, but reminds me of that rich, white kid that murdered >>4<< people by running into them with a car while drunk. NO Jail time, daddy's just too rich. It really is nothing other than a caste system.

 

[MiszMasz]

In my experience, black people from 18-35 are nowhere near as enthusiastic about hard drugs as whites in the same age bracket. White people in their teens and twenties love telling you enthusiastic stories about their weekend experience on acid,molly, shrooms, or coke.
So it's not surprising to me in the least blacks statistically use less recreational drugs. With black people there's weed and maybe some uncle, aunt or distant cousin who got strung out on crack 10-15 years ago.

The bolded is a little iffy, but in my experience the rest is easily recognisable here in the UK too.
It's not necessarily a hard fact, but in my age group (mid-twenties) and from my time at uni, the majority i knew and know regularly using anything harder than weed were/are whites, very often from affluent backgrounds. I can't say the same (or at least to anywhere near the same extent) with any of my mates from minority groups.

Whatever they were up to that evening, someone would have ket, coke, mandy or drone already. Several of them were dealers themselves, and they always had money for it.

 

[King Tubby]

Here's the real question : Is this a race thing, or a class thing?

Would rich black people who know lawyers judges etc be punished while poor white folk get let off the hook?

It's both. They intersect, they play into each other, and they're inextricable from each other due to the ongoing global legacy of racism and exploitation.

A wealthy black person is probably better off in this regard than a poor white person...but the system actively diminishes economic opportunities for black people (and other minorities) to become wealthy in the first place, and even wealthy minorities still encounter prejudice and harassment due to the color of their skin.

 

[Jenenser]

interesting fact would be how many blacks or hispanics are incarnated that are from a higher class.
someone has this information?
and how many asians compared to the populus are incarnated? (i've read they are by comparison more wealthy than the rest of the americans)

(and no, i am not arguing against things like minorety profiling/stereotyping and so on. i am just interested)

 

[Aureon]

Can't tell if you are being outright retarded or if trolling race threads on GAF has reached a new level...

That probably was the thickest sarcasm i've ever read.

 

[Angelus Errare]

I am shocked at this revelation. SHOCKED I tell you!

 

[Bay Maximus]

If this gets attention, I anticipate the only thing that will happen is that the approval of police will go up among certain groups.

This "war on drugs" needs to be put to rest.

 

[RastaMentality]

People don't get that even when you're an upper middle class black person, you're still going to get stereotyped because of the pervading perceptions. It's awful really.

 

[Bleepey]

The bolded is a little iffy, but in my experience the rest is easily recognisable here in the UK too.
It's not necessarily a hard fact, but in my age group (mid-twenties) and from my time at uni, the majority i knew and know regularly using anything harder than weed were/are whites, very often from affluent backgrounds. I can't say the same (or at least to anywhere near the same extent) with any of my mates from minority groups.

I remember watching Skins and thinking that was too far fetched. The black kids I went to school with rarely smoked cigarettes and even weed was rare among everyone. There were some rocker kids who tried a lot of everything. I recall going on a date with a white-American girl who once snorted heroin, has an Ivy League education, her and her sisters went to rehab and was hospitalised by cocaine use. She said the movie kids was a documentary for her. She found my relatively straight edge lifestyle boring and me declining the cocaine she was getting from her dealer she was texting in front of me, combined with me mentioning the arrest disparity between black people and white people despite black people using drugs less was where she told me I was boring and the date ended pretty much there.... Where was I again, only when I did my masters,working in a needle exchange and looking at OKC answers did I realise how common drug use was.

 

[tapedeck]

Obligatory:

I for one am shocked.

 

[AbsolutBro]

It's both.Lots of poor black people due to racism -> More black criminals -> Prevailing attitude that black people are criminals -> More poor black people due to racism

That will happen less with poor white people because you tend not to stereotype your own group as much so they only get hit for being poor as opposed to poor and black.

That's not entirely true. There are plenty of pretty nasty stereotypes for poor whites. Rednecks with bad haircuts, jacked up trucks, no shoes and sleeping with their cousins is a pretty common one. I think the fact that most poor blacks tend to be in urban areas as opposed to rural areas for poor whites plays a pretty major factor here as well. Policing very rural areas, especially where people are spread waaaay apart, is just not as cost effective or apparent as is policing urban areas.

A bit off topic, but reminds me of that rich, white kid that murdered >>4<< people by running into them with a car while drunk. NO Jail time, daddy's just too rich. It really is nothing other than a caste system.

Yeah, I remember that story. IIRC, it was the origins of the whole 'Afluenza' thing.

 

[DC R1D3R]

looks like these fucking white privileges need to come to an end huh guys?

let everyone on this planet live on an even playing field for once!

 

[JDSN]

I need to know the age of the DEA before passing judgement, if its younger than 100 years then its not their fault cos boys will be boys.

 

[Super_Cobra]

Like they would leave the Mexican drug cartels alone too. I've read that they have customs and DEA agents and some politicians on payroll.

 

[jackissocool]

Here's the real question : Is this a race thing, or a class thing?

Would rich black people who know lawyers judges etc be punished while poor white folk get let off the hook?

Both. You can't realistically separate those issues on a structural level. Capitalism's purpose is to oppress poor people at the expense of the wealthy. Then you add race, which provides a) a boogeyman to turn the working class against itself instead of the capitalist class and b) a convenient group to exploit to the extreme for cheap labor (starting with slavery, now taking the form of mass unemployment and incarceration).

If you have any interest in seriously tackling these issues, you need to take on both class and race (and gender, religion, sexuality, ethnicity, etc.) together, as separate aspects of the same fundamentally contradictory system.

Also: I hate all the "I am so shocked" posts. We should constantly be clamoring for more evidence of bourgeois oppression. I get that you're on board, but those posts seem so dismissive. Analysis and discovery of the ruling class's crimes should never be downplayed under any circumstance.

 

[Bay Maximus]

I need to know the age of the DEA before passing judgement, if its younger than 100 years then its not their fault cos boys will be boys.

And if it's over 100 then they are just from a different time.

The main thing to remember is it's never their fault for their racism.

 

[Byakuya769]

But white drug dealers and stoners are just funny goofs!

Lighten up. Literally.

 

[That1BlackGuy]

Shocking.

 

[Aztechnology]

Nope a poor white person is still better off than a poor black person. Hell a poor white person with a felony record is better off than a poor black person with none

I'm not disagreeing with that, I'm referring to the guy challenging the areas where they were cracking down on drugs hard. Which is what the OP posted about.

 

[Who]

Good to see it said so explicitly. Not that is going to change anything.

Pretty much my thoughts.

It's so fucked up.

 

[Sidewinder]

I already knew that, 25+ years of watching american movies and TV shows seems to be enough to know a lot about U S of A.

 

[Emperor_Uriel]

How does he go from hearing a guy say "We can't go after those people, they have money and connections!" to "The drug war is totally about race!"

Race is a secondary factor, socioeconomic status is, has been and will always be the biggest obstacle to justice. Black, white, Asian, Latino, Indian... the rich get away with everything from petty drug possession to actual murder because they have the cash to hire lawyers that make their living beating the legal system and bribe judges and politicians with zero integrity.

Issues of race would rapidly disappear if we addressed the income gap in this country.

 

[Crimson_Gold]

How does he go from hearing a guy say "We can't go after those people, they have money and connections!" to "The drug war is totally about race!"

Race is a secondary factor, socioeconomic status is, has been and will always be the biggest obstacle to justice. Black, white, Asian, Latino, Indian... the rich get away with everything from petty drug possession to actual murder because they have the cash to hire lawyers that make their living beating the legal system and bribe judges and politicians with zero integrity.

Issues of race would rapidly disappear if we addressed the income gap in this country.

It has been mentioned in this thread that middle-class African Americans have received harsher penalties than poor whites. A lot of the problem stems from profiling. The more likely you are to be arrested, the more likely you are to be punished. Money isn't a cureall for racial bias. Do you think a rich, black man in a hoodie will get the same treatment as a white man in a suit? You know the answer to that.

 

[King Tubby]

Issues of race would rapidly disappear if we addressed the income gap in this country.

It's both. You can't address the income gap in this country because *dog whistle* poor blacks and hispanics are lazy criminals who just want handouts from the government.

 

[Slayven]

How does he go from hearing a guy say "We can't go after those people, they have money and connections!" to "The drug war is totally about race!"

Race is a secondary factor, socioeconomic status is, has been and will always be the biggest obstacle to justice. Black, white, Asian, Latino, Indian... the rich get away with everything from petty drug possession to actual murder because they have the cash to hire lawyers that make their living beating the legal system and bribe judges and politicians with zero integrity.

Issues of race would rapidly disappear if we addressed the income gap in this country.

That is naive

 

[jhmtehgamr20xx]

Okay....we knew this already. So is the DEA gonna do something about it or not, because it's worthless for them to say stuff people already knew.

 

[esms]

That is naive

http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/RaceCharts3_3.png[/IMG
[IMG]http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/RaceCharts1_1.png[/IMG
[IMG]http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/RaceCharts3.png[/IMG
[IMG]http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1870202/thumbs/o-CHART-13-570.jpg?6[/IMG[/QUOTE]

Some other data from 2010, I believe

[IMG]https://aclu.global.ssl.fastly.net/files/imagecache/marijuana/JUS14-MJarrests-Uncovery-image.jpg

 

[zeemumu]

 

[Bay Maximus]

How does he go from hearing a guy say "We can't go after those people, they have money and connections!" to "The drug war is totally about race!"

Race is a secondary factor, socioeconomic status is, has been and will always be the biggest obstacle to justice. Black, white, Asian, Latino, Indian... the rich get away with everything from petty drug possession to actual murder because they have the cash to hire lawyers that make their living beating the legal system and bribe judges and politicians with zero integrity.

Issues of race would rapidly disappear if we addressed the income gap in this country.

If certain racial groups are more represented in the areas/incomes they are targeting, it stands to reason that race will play some factor in the minds of police. Look at how middle and upper-class black and brown are treated.

Police in the US aren't exactly renown for their intellectual rigor.

 

[Volimar]

This sounds familiar. Did this come out a while ago or was there another agent not too long ago that said almost the same thing?

 

[Emperor_Uriel]

It has been mentioned in this thread that middle-class African Americans have received harsher penalties than poor whites. A lot of the problem stems from profiling. The more likely you are to be arrested, the more likely you are to be punished. Money isn't a cureall for racial bias. Do you think a rich, black man in a hoodie will get the same treatment as a white man in a suit? You know the answer to that.

But that's still a class issue at it's heart. If your average black man earned the same amount of money, roughly, as your average white man, profiling would drop off.

The train of logic is: Poor people are dangerous + most black people are poor = most black people are dangerous. If you change that middle part to "most black people aren't poor," then there's less reason to assume they're dangerous. Add in the fact that higher income for black people means more regular social contact with whites, and you'll start to see the ignorance that leads to prejudice disappear as more and more black people play significant positive roles in the lives of their white friends.

 

[Ziltoidia 9]

That is naive

Does this take into consideration that black people only make up 13% of the population nation wide?

 

[DonasaurusRex]

put this guy with the other sea of witnesses that say this basically

 

[Beefy]

People that aren't white are so privileged. How come they can get special treatment of the cops? While a white person can't even get powerslammed let alone be killed for little or no reason. This is just shows how all cops are racist towards white people.

 

[greatestjediever]

People that aren't white are so privileged. How come they can get special treatment of the cops? While a white person can't even get powerslammed let alone be killed for little or no reason. This is just shows how all cops are racist towards white people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URTj4naIdAs

 

[Slayven]

Does this take into consideration that black people only make up 13% of the population nation wide?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/02/civil-rights-act-anniversary-racism-charts_n_5521104.html

 

[Kajigger]

How come I am not surprised.

Fucking pathetic ass country.

Seriously!?

If you keep pulling on branches, eventually a spider's gonna fall on you. This is the same with every country. Calling the U.S pathetic because someone stated the obvious in an interview is kind of over the top.

 

[Skellig Gra]

Yeah, they are too busy worrying about speed traps. That's all police do in rich white areas.

 

[ActuallyHulk]

Modern day nobles.

 

[Mumei]

I thought this sounded familiar.

But it's been a few years, and we could always use another reminder.