America can take all the criticism dopes like Dan can churn out and a whole lot more. It's just when these empty shirts (or in this case, hoodies) are called on their bullsh*t by presentations of facts, they backpedal while throwing out the same old, same old: "America bad. Life unfair. Racism."

How about some new material? This poor-me victim crap is plenty stale. Last time I checked, Whites were paying the same $4-a-gallon for gas as everyone else.

Nowhere on earth have Whites done so much for a Black minority than America, spending over a trillion dollars in 50 years on what amounts to 13% of the population. How about a little gratitude? Just a little? They're still practicing slavery in North Africa and tribes (Hutus/Tutsis) are still pointlessly killing each other over there; any White colonial remnants left decades ago, can't blame them.

Voting for Obama and his odious doof of a pastor? As long as you're not doing so out of White guilt or Black entitlement...and if not those what do you got? O-Bam's "principles" are socialist, ultra-left-wing to the left of Ted Stumblebum Kennedy. There's nothing else there in the way of plans or leadership, except to raise taxes. I don't think I'm being unfair here, if you know something I don't about Obama's experience and quals, do tell.

The White House is the absolute last reward anyone should receive for having a victim mentality.

QM, WTF are you going on about this time? And WTF does the price of gas have to do with it?

Here's a few clues about what they are complaining about, not Dan himself but some of what I consider the more valid racial complaints based on what I've seen. You're more than welcome to try to "disprove" it but given that it comes from our own records that seems unlikely.

http://www.sentencingproject.org/Admin/Documents/publications/inc_comparative_intl.pdf

That's a bit out of date but is the record of our rate of prison growth from the mid 1920's to pretty recently. Prison population stayed fairly consistent in line with population growth for decades then explosive growth with the drug war which hasn't stopped yet.

And these are some of the results of that growth.

http://www.prisonsucks.com/

And in case you assume they really earned it, not really, or not as much as it seems. Some of the stats behind the stats then I'll try to explain how it happens.

http://www.idpi.us/resources/factsheets/mm_factsheet.htm

As that shows they are just 15% of the nations drug users which isn't far off from their portion of the population as a whole, about 14%, but they make up 37% of those arrested for drug violations, 59% of those convicted, and 74% of those sentenced to prison for a drug offense.

Ok, let's look at part of WHY that happens.

Take a neighborhood which didn't start off with people much different than in any other, but they lived in a crowded area. Pass safe school zones and such and the effect turned out to be that they can overlap in places... in the suburbs a kid spends little time in one so spends little time at risk unless they do something at school. In the city they might spend most of their life in one and not even know it much of the time. Where the kid in the suburbs has options such as treatment that mandatory took the options away in the city. The 100:1 disparity, yes 100:1, between the way we sentence crack and powder cocaine didn't help any either.

That type of thing starts us off, then come the politicians and such. Someone notices that we've got way too many felonies for a small area and orders a crackdown without considering what caused the spike in felonies so it's designated a high crime area. So now they are not only getting hit with the safe school zones but increased enforcement as well, everyone is a suspect and they start to get treated that way. Prison doesn't do good things for people so kids who went in with a bad habit come out criminals, often with gang ties since it's not easy to survive alone inside and not easy to leave them when you get out.

Now the neighborhood is being hit by two sides, the cops on one hand and the new prison gangs on the other, and eventually what used to be a decent area starts to look like too many of our streets do today.

If you want to get some details on it ask whatever you'd like, if you'd like to hear it from law enforcement themselves try LEAP and some other groups, they are well aware of the situation and trying to help fix it too.

One last thought here, this isn't specifically racial but goes to the conditions in our system in general due to overcrowding, under funding, and a number of other issues. It's a bit of reading but if you want an education that's a good start. http://www.prisoncommission.org/

Some prisons have become so overcrowded and so poor at care that we've had to have the feds take over aspects such as medical care, and NO it's not a partisan issue as some of the more simple minded would have us believe. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK), Chair of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Corrections and Rehabilitation, stated the following about this. “For the vast majority of inmates prison is a temporary, not a final, destination. The experiences inmates have in prison — whether violent or redemptive — do not stay within prison walls, but spill over into the rest of society. Federal, state, and local governments must address the problems faced by their respective institutions and develop tangible and attainable solutions.”

What we're doing doesn't work and intentionally or not, yes, it has had some sharp and specific racial impacts which I'd hope like hell weren't intended. These are some of the ones I'm aware of, others who are more familiar with other areas have valid complaints as well. Assuming they just happened because we weren't paying attention so some programs had some unexpected results, then yes, Dan Charnas has an excellent point in that it would really help if we listened for a change instead of insisting we didn't mean anything so everything just MUST be alright. It's not alright and many of the problems we're dealing with today we helped to create ourselves through flawed policy.

"America is run by an under-educated white majority?" Fuck that, It's run by the majority of her citizenry being kept in the dark as to the true workings of this machine, all her peoples kept slaves-Race is simply another diversion by the powerful elite, who use the predictability of humans to their advantage...who use drugs, politics, professional sports, a convoluted legal system, sold-out and privately owned print and broadcast media, and a propaganda machine that made Joe Goebbel's look like a high-school newspaper.

Is it not obvious to all, that equality, racism, and bigotry are simply meaningless words with regard to the real issues on this planet, that effect every person equally to varying degrees? More diversion, more diversion, more diversion......Obama is as black as a Rockefeller through these dark glasses-the system is not able to be effectively repaired at this point.....
Fuck it, I need some cornbread, baked chicken and collard greens, and a thermos of dirty martinis'.....

Here....while we're at it, let's cancel out that quantummushrube vote.....

>> ^quantumushroom:
The White House is the absolute last reward anyone should receive for having a victim mentality.


If you're referring to Sen. Obama as having a victim mentality, he and his wife are exceedingly driven and highly successful people. Its my experience that people as hard working as them define themselves as the sum of their actions, not the actions of others.

Ah yes, choggie. Care to tell us who's stifling the "free energy" people? Yes, you dummy, you typed it. Now let's see you defend it. Defend your nonsense.

P.S. I am not THEM but I'll high five THEM if they can get you coherent enough to answer the question.

QM, WTF are you going on about this time?

I'm disgusted by whining "on behalf" of Black Americans, this time by an indoctrinated White guy (Dan) without an identity of his own.

And WTF does the price of gas have to do with it?

This is not directed at anyone in particular but everyone: Blacks are not being singled out for punishment by this society! Life is hard for everyone trying to make a life for themselves! Enough with the bitterness. There is no "White privilege" at the pumps. Everyone suffers.

I appreciate your educational efforts, Drattus, and I agree 100% the drug war corrupts everyone and everything it touches. Drug Prohibition was started as racist laws against Chinese immigrants, just like gun control was started to prevent freed Blacks from having the best means of self-defense.

For this particular sift though, my argument refers to the pervasive and unproductive victim mentality which even Dan here seems to have absorbed by osmosis.

Dan thinks dragging White people down will make everyone 'equal.' No one told him about self-responsibility and free books to rent at the library.

QM, I don't doubt a bit that there are a lot of BS complaints out there and a lot of people talking about issues who probably shouldn't. Doesn't matter if it's sexism, racism, or any other specific issue someone wants to get themselves worked up about, when we get into parsing language and picking at the little things we aren't really helping anything.

That doesn't mean that there aren't valid complaints out there or that we shouldn't listen and try to sort out the big ones from the little ones.

In any case look at it from their perspective. The records of what's going on has been clear for a while now and we should have noticed and fixed it by now, the best reason they can see for us not doing so is that it isn't us so we don't care that much, other issues are more important. We'd yell loud enough I'd guess if those stats applied to us though. If you were black you might suspect some racism too I'd guess. I'm fairly sure I would.

If you think it's about dragging anyone down you didn't listen to the same vid that I did. It's about respecting the idea that everyone hasn't been impacted by things in the same way and we won't know what they mean if we don't listen to the other side too now and then. Had nothing to do with who to vote for or any of that, just a commentary sparked by issues in the news at the time. That's the way I took it at least.

I do appreciate your comments on the drug war and such, good to know we're on the same page there. Take care.

QM, you can blame the state of Africa today on the colonial powers. It was the Belgians who created the "Hutu" and "Tutsi" designations. Hugely discriminating between the two groups and instilling the kind of resentment that would end in blood spilling. Seriously, the Belgians (and others) were absolutely savage in their colonies, cutting off limbs with machetes for not working hard enough was routine on their rubber plantations. So the locals were no strangers to ultra violence.

The colonial powers drew borders on maps all over the world, paying no heed to what religous, ethnic or tribal groups were forced together, look at the middle east, the balkans, ireland. They left such a mess behind them, even appointing corrupt dictators before they left, I dont think you can blame the Africans for not being able to clean up such a massive mess of a continent.