how much does the war on drugs have to do with the upswing in racism?

[mopinko]

i know there are many contributing factors. hate radio, black president, all that.
but we have been treated to a near daily parade of black mug shots on the teevee machine since day one.

it seems to me that racism was dying out in the 60's and 70's. not dead, of course. it will likely never die.
but it has puzzled my what would breathe so much new life into such a stupid idea.

the war on black people using drugs has labeled the whole race as criminal, it seems to me.
black lives really dont matter to those that cooked up this little war. and lit the match with their crack.

[NightWatcher]

1. it was dying out in the 60's and 70's? Seriously?

[mopinko]

4. well, perhaps too strong of a word.

but yes, attitudes were changing. barriers were falling. people were making friends across the color line, and accepting people of color as friends and as heroes.

[Romulox]

2. The Drug Warrior in Chief is African American, and so is the Attorney General (and her predecessor)

And yet the Drug War continues.

[Kalidurga]

3. The war on drugs was started because of racism, back in the 1920's I believe.

I think that is when marijuana got on the radar of politicians IIRC. So, it can't come as a surprise that today's war on drugs has a huge racist component. It is also a war on poor people, I grew up very poor and I saw first hand how poor people's drugs were treated so much differently than say a kid of a doctor that would get a hold of prescription meds.

[mopinko]

5. how much of that was meant to divide and conquer?

how much did nixon and raygun see the "rainbow coalition" as the threat to their evil ways that it was?

[Kalidurga]

7. I have no idea

But, the war on poor people that I experienced was pre-Reagan. But, in a sense I suppose Reagan's vision was always with us.

[WDIM]

6. Especially anti-cannabis laws.

The disparity of arrest of african americans and other minorities due to cannabis is highly evident.

The justification for the laws being enacted were racist to begin with. The fear pushing of the media claiming black men would rape white women. The racist stereotypes of lazy mexicans. A simple look at propaganda used to make the plant illegal anyone can see the racism all over it.

[gollygee]

8. Ronald Reagan is a big part of the upswing in racism

The "no on drugs" was only part of the propaganda. There was also the "welfare queen" thing, I think he talked about food stamps and said something like "a young buck" or "a strapping young buck," he talked about states rights in a dog whistle way, he spoke negatively about the Voting Rights Act of 1965, he nominated openly and horrificly racist people for federal positions such as as federal judges, I think he even nominated someone who was openly racist to a civil rights position.

And that's just off the top of my head. The war on drugs was definitely part of the racist propaganda machine he had going though.

[mopinko]

9. it's the part that was on the teevee and the front pages

day in and day out.
was "if it bleeds, it leads" just a part of the plan?

[KamaAina]

21. Then there was his campaign launch in Philadelphia, MS

where three civil rights workers were murdered during one of the Freedom Summers. Got dog whistle?

[Mr Dixon]

10. madness

The war on drugs was created to jail brown people who doesn’t know that? The entire focus was/is on low Level Street dealers, not the manufactures nor traffickers, guns are the same way going to let that sink in.

[mopinko]

11. but what i am saying is- has it lead to an increase in racism?

[Mr Dixon]

14. IMO

I would say most people have become more tolerant of race and a number of other issues, but the system remains that same if not worst.

[ProfessorGAC]

12. Thirty Years Ago, I Would Have Said "A Lot"

But, that ship is already in dry dock. There are reasons other than the WoD for the most recent uptick in overt racism. One of those reasons is named Obama. There are plenty of "good" americans who still can't get over the dark skinned guy in the WH.

[mopinko]

13. agreed.

and so stated in my op.

[Eleanors38]

15. The WOD and racism have been entertwined since the WOD started in earnest a century ago.

"The cocaine-crazed brain of a Negro"

Look it up, over a century ago. Plenty quotes like this.

Then Mexicans.

Then hippies.

[mopinko]

16. so stipulated.

i guess i am asking sort of a chicken and egg question.
but i honestly believe that daily parade of those caught up in drugs, all "other", is a big driver of the current state of racial frenzy.
after all, we know that the modern frenzy was, in fact, certainly at least arguably the direct result of an act of the cia.
was discrediting the black community what they were really doing, or was that just a happy accident for the promulgators of the southern strategy?
and were they also conspiring with the wealthy few who owned the teevee machine to pummel us with images of dangerous black people? or blood and guts and the siren song of fear?

and whether intentional or not, is it not a driver of the rabid paranoia we see every day?

[Eleanors38]

17. The Democratic Party was and is easily cowed by "Soft on [anything]!"

So it is easy to get a policy like the WOD when there is no opposition.

Prohibition of a thing, practice, or status is always about going after a culture and punishing it. Gin, gays, guns, ganja: It's all a proxy war.

Frankly, it should be noted that there were few-and-far-between people within the black community who spoke out against the WOD. Everyone was cowed.

[applegrove]

18. How much does it all have as a goal stopping understanding between groups in the USA to protect

the Sourthern Strategy that is the main reason the GOP wins elections is the question I would ask.

[mopinko]

19. exactly

it serves their purpose a little to well for me to think it is accidental. i dont think the cia does much without a long term view of the damage they are inflicting.

[applegrove]

22. I don't think it has anything to do with the cia.

[mopinko]

23. we now know that they started the crack epidemic.

that is a fact.
how much more did they have to do to demonize those that used it, and those that sold it?
we also know about operation mockingbird. that is also a fact.
did they touch off the media frenzy? did they stage manage it?
stranger things have happened.

[JI7]

20. it's more the other way around

Racism is why blacks are targeted more when it comes to any laws.

Look at the hate of black people like Obama. And other successful ones.

[mopinko]

24. like i said, chicken and egg.

but a great deal of progress seems to have been swept away.

[WillyT]

25. K & R !!!

[TheKentuckian]

26. It is a big factor in the law enforcement piece. Ending the stupid and failed drug war wouldn't make

cops, the system, or juries less racist of course but it would drive down encounters and greatly cut into the fuel supply for the prison industrial complex fires.