Content
@
0 reply
0 recast
0 reaction
Tay Zonday
@tayzonday
SOME things, like neoliberalism, you can blame on BOTH American political parties. But the “War On Drugs” is a Republican child. Richard Nixon’s domestic policy advisor confessed in 1994 that it targeted rights-seeking blacks and anti-war hippies, their political enemies: https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/ Should Jimmy Carter have done more with his supermajority to end the drug war? Sure. Carter’s key legacy is actually neoliberal deregulation. Reagan caught the drug culture-war pass from Nixon and the neoliberal pass from Carter like a champion wide receiver. I grew up in the 1980s. Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign was ubiquitous. Drug abuse has *never* varied with race or income-level. Reagan’s super-severe crack VS powder cocaine punishment caused decades of black family separation and federal handouts to corporate prisons. Marijuana prosecution also depopulated disproportionately black areas. This is partly why today’s black family wealth 1/8 that of whites.
18 replies
5 recasts
40 reactions
thoughtcrimeboss
@thoughtcrimeboss
I know what Nixon said. The war on drugs began decades before Nixon as a way to target minorities, it just picked up that name (war on drugs) later.The war has usually been bipartisan, even 2day with new fentanyl legislation.Biden sponsored Reagan's mand. minimums in 86' and don't forget the democrat's 94' crime bill. Both parties have a lot of work to do to even began to atone for the massive amount of suffering and death they have directly caused and continue to cause through prohibition.
1 reply
0 recast
2 reactions
Tay Zonday
@tayzonday
One great book documenting the use of all types of selectively enforced laws, not just drug prohibition, to re-enslave blacks is “Slavery By Another Name” by Douglas A. Blackmon: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_by_Another_Namei
1 reply
0 recast
1 reaction
