For reference, race relations in Canada between white and aboriginal populations is if anything more strained than black and white is in the US. As a white guy, the only context in which I can observe the incarceration rate is if I specifically blame the incarceration rate on the police and judicial system being at fault for disproportionately targeting aboriginals. To observe that aboriginals are in fact responsible for a disproportionate number of crimes will get me labelled a racist. No amount of explanation about systemic disadvantages stacking the deck against aboriginal youth will cover that mark up here. To be sure there are circles where you can have that discussion, but you have to really know each other before you aren't going to worry about being classed as a racist straight away before any discussion can occur.

Really, simply observing the statistic? There must be context why it was said in the first place. I've brought up statistics regarding incarceration of blacks in America and have NEVER had the reaction you have had. I can only assume it's in context of why it's been brought up.

...unless you know a bunch of nut cases. I guess there is that possibility.

@Stormsinger

i can agree with the intent of your comment but i think it ignores a far greater,and possibly more dangerous facet of this current election cycle.

look,
when the DNC began it's political play to nudge sanders out,and was changing the rules of application to keep laurence lessig off the ballot.it became obvious (to me anyways) that clinton was tagged for the run,and the DNC was attempting to steal sanders thunder,which was shockingly impressive,and redirect it to boost clinton.

but the DNC had failed to successfully execute this plan because they didn't understand the true nature of those sanders supporters.so their plan backfired.

the RNC did almost the EXACT same thing with trump.they hated the man,wanted nothing to do with him,but they saw how powerful his campaign was picking up steam and they attempted to play the long con.for a year they allowed trump to do and say whatever he wanted,with little rebuttal or regard.they watched as trump got bigger,and bolder,and more brash.they watched his numbers climb consistently..and they waited.and after a year,they attempted to step in and steal trumps thunder by offering a more "reasonable" candidate.

ok ok...enough with the trump.
you want cruz?...nope.
how about ben carson? he is a sweet guy and BLACK....nope.
marco rubio?he is spanish with immigrant parents...nope
john kasich?...nope

because the RNC didn't get it either.they too,attempted to steal trumps thunder and their plan backfired.

liberals didnt get it.
conservatives didnt get it.
corporate media didnt get it.
political pundits,who get PAID to get it,didnt get it.
pollsters didnt get it.
suzy mcprettyface who reads the teleprompter didnt get it.

but the americans who lived in those dead midwestern towns got it.they may not understand neoliberalism,but they could see the effects by the boarded up stores,closed banks and the only jobs to have were the night shift at the one fast food joint left in the entire town.

these are the very same people who may not fully comprehend what the bank bailouts meant,or how austerity affected them,but they understood that the biggest industry in their town was no longer coal,or steel,or fishing but production of meth.they saw small shops close and crumble under the weight of a walmart superstore,and chains of pill mills.

they watched as construction jobs dried up,and private prisons expanded.there are some towns in texas and florida that literally survive on the incarceration of other americans.so they may not have fully understood that the "war on drugs" is actually a war on people,but they certainly could see the after-effects.

and these people were being told..everyday..that the economy was doing great.
that unemployment was at an all time low.
that the american dream was still attainable.
and at the very same time they were also being told that if you were on food stamps you were a loser,and a leech.
that if you lost your home it was YOUR fault.
that if you couldnt find a job you were lazy.
and if you DID happen to find a job,but it paid minimum,well then you should have gone to college or made better choices.

and since when did it become a virtue to exploit the hopeless and the desperate? to take advantage of someones misfortune and pay them pennies to do a job,but god forbid someone actually demands what they feel they are worth,because then you are accused of being a rip off artist!

when did THIS tactic become and american ideology?

and that really is the core nugget of this tale.
the ideology of america.
the amercian dream.
it was dead,and those people finally got it.
and there is NOTHING more fanatical or zealous than a defeated idealist.

so you can judge them for voting trump,but i think we should also understand WHY they voted for trump.

chris hedges wrote a truthdig piece that is far more eloquent and illuminating than anything i could ever put to paper.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/we_are_all_deplorables_20161120

I'm far enough away from these issues to admit that I don't have anything like concrete knowledge on the subject, but I feel like I should mention some of the more obvious counterpoints to some of the things he's said in this video. Otherwise I'd get that dirty echo chamber feeling, and no amount of showering seems to wash that away. Could be I'm just a masochist, though, who enjoys arguing.

I think there's racism in every culture. I think it's often much more subtle than described in the video, often even subconscious. I also think that modern western culture is among the least racist cultures to have ever existed, despite our many complaints.

I guess I'll talk about Libya first. The west (the white people he was talking about) is continuously demonized for supporting tyrants and the like. Yet when they participate in overthrowing a clear example of a extravagant super villain tyrant, they are demonized for that. I'm not saying they didn't have other motives, I'm just saying that it's an example of a tautology. No matter which choice they make they are labeled racist.

Now, when beleaguered folk make a desperate attempt to dangerously cross a sea, well knowing the risks they are incurring, it is again the fault of the Italians for not rescuing then with sufficient alacrity. Yes, many of them are coming from countries the west had a hand in destabilizing. But it would be pretty racist for you to demand that the Italian navy take full moral responsibility for the actions of other western nations, simply because they are white too. Also, if the only number you pay attention to is the number that drown, your bias is showing.

Next the issue of the Commonwealth. It seems absurd to expect the UK to treat former colonies populated by citizens that had moved there the same as former conquests that have since shrugged off the yoke of empire. The justifications for this discrimination would seem to be a combination of racism, cultural chauvinism and sober pragmatism. The latter two factors clearly scale with the gap between the culture of the colony in question and the home country, and probably ought to in some sense.

The incarceration thing is tougher to poke holes in, and clearly a much more touchy subject. Once could argue all sorts of justifications for why more members of ethnic minorities are apprehended, but it's nebulous and smells of bias and chauvinism, at best ending in a chicken vs egg conundrum. But once you're in police custody, I think can agree on demanding a higher level of equality of outcome. So I checked out a charity called Inquest who had compiled pretty comprehensive stats on police custody deaths since 1990. Here's a link: http://www.inquest.org.uk/statistics/bame-deaths-in-police-custody
To summarise, since 1990, ethnic minorities have made up a total of 153 out of 1557 deaths in police custody, or roughly 10%. Given that they currently make up 13% of the population, that seems to be well within an acceptable range of results, so I was confused at first. Then I thought maybe he had misspoken and had meant to say state custody, or inmate deaths. So again I looked for some numbers, and again Inquest had the most comprehensive data, broken down by year and ethnicity etc. Again here's a link: http://www.inquest.org.uk/statistics/deaths-in-prison
It shows 453 out of 3963 prison deaths are suffered by ethnic minorities. This seems almost perfectly in line with the 13% population of said minorities. So again, I'm a bit confused by the point he's making.

All of that said, I think I agree with the sentiment of his presentation, which perhaps confuses me even more.

@Mordhaus

"We have always been a gun violence culture up until the post WW2 era. Think frontier, wild west, duels, and mafia shootouts. We glorify violence everyday, we even give sickos who shoot up groups of people mass media coverage. "

Don't you think that that idea is outdated in 2016? Fine, that's the culture. Change the fucking culture.

When I grew up in Ireland, nobody gave a second thought to driving drunk. Sunday after church, people went to the pub, had a few pints with the neighbours, the kids played space invaders and then the whole family got back in the car and drove home.

And most of the time, it was absolutely fine. People got home, there was the occasional accident, but ya know, what can ya do?

Until it wasn't fine. And it took decades, but eventually, it became socially unacceptable to drive drunk.

"I'm just extremely leery of package deals like lets ban everyone who ends up on a list from having weapons based on a government decision."
I get that. But be reasonable. You're ok with not letting people fly, but you draw the line at owning weapons?

That is some fucked up list of priorities. I would be far more concerned with restricting someones right to travel (essentially restricting their freedom of movement, or a lighter form of incarceration) than whether they can own a gun.

You say that owning a gun is a constitutional right whereas travel isn't. I say that freedom of movement is a fundamental basic human right... oh, look at that, Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights!
"Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state."

I'm completely willing to say that it should be a lot harder to put someone on this kind of list, but there's no way the right to own a weapon is more important than freedom of movement.

Finally, re: slippery slopes
"The Patriot Act, meant to be a well intended set of rules to help us protect ourselves, has been perverted to lessen quite a few of our rights."

The Patriot Act wasn't a slippery slope, it started at the bottom of the slope and went straight over a fucking cliff. It should never have been passed in the first place.

@Asmo , @enoch , @Jinx --

I appreciate what you're saying and I know that I *should* feel the way(s) you suggest. ...But I have a hard time actually getting there.

At some point, we are all responsible for our own actions, and the consequences of our own actions. Even though these people may not have any of the sort of opportunities that I take for granted, even though circumstances well outside of their control might push them into the direction of addiction, at some point they made a choice to start up with this crap. And they make a choice to continue with the drugs, even if the physical and mental addiction makes it nearly impossible for them to choose anything else.

There's a lot of problems in the world. There's a lot of people who unjustly have to contend with major problems that are absolutely 100% in no way their fault. Addicts are at least partially at fault for getting themselves into the mess that they are in. That puts them way down the line on my empathy list, that's all I'm saying.

Asmo said "To fix a problem, you first have to understand it. That does not require sympathy or empathy." That in particular helps me look at the issue from a different angle. Just because addiction is not a problem on my personal priority list, I 100% agree that it *is* a problem, and it is a problem that affects *me* also, indirectly if not directly. I live in a society of people, and helping each individual person in the society can help *everyone* in the society.

The war on drugs and its approach of mass incarceration, etc. pretty clearly doesn't work well to alleviate the problem. The part of me that (mostly jokingly, but not entirely) would tag this as EIA might be happy to take the approach of letting these people all shoot themselves up with krokodil or whatever else until they kill themselves. But rationally, I know that wouldn't fix anything. I'm not convinced that it would be worse than the war on drugs, but it definitely wouldn't be ideal.

So rationally, I know that social systems to help people break those addictions and whatever situations or psychological problems contributed to them are probably the optimal solution, from a society-wide sort of view. But I don't want to be at the front lines of any of that myself, because I think that it *does* require some empathy to the situation to be an effective contributor there, and I simply recognize that I personally can't scrounge any up.

So by all means, STOP taking my tax dollars and spending them on the war on drugs, and START spending them on social programs that experts and scientists who study addiction believe will do a better job of actually fixing the problem. But that's the extent of the personal involvement that I want to have.

I do not mean to be rude, but the reason why you're feeling no empathy is because you assume that drug addiction is a choice that people make, turning away from better and brighter options and choosing the short road to an early death.

It isn't. It's generally a result of inability to deal with life, a job, trauma from their past etc. It is a result of social systems which allow people to sink to the point they need an escape. Look at any mental ward, most of the inmates (if allowed) will smoke. Same with various anon groups, smoking/coffee etc are almost encouraged as an alternate addiction to the one that will put them in a grave far earlier.

Addiction is a crutch, a way of escaping from something else.

The work by Carl Hart on addiction provides a lot of proof that when given social interaction and ways to reintegrate with society, addicts can and do have the fortitude to get off drugs. And that most drug addicts are fully functional, and drugs are a way for them to cope with the stresses or lack of control in their life.

http://www.drcarlhart.com/

To fix a problem, you first have to understand it. That does not require sympathy or empathy. That is basic science and it's based on evidence. That the DEA is freaking out over krokodil is because they don't understand that drug abuse in the US is a factor of the social situation people find themselves in. At least for the classes of people that will use a cheap and dangerous drug (not to put too fine a point on it, predominately black). It would not be unexpected that because of the supposed danger, users found with krokodil may end up with far harsher sentences than heroin users. Soaring African-American incarceration rates again?

Funny how we never see videos like this over oxycodone or cocaine abusers, or housewifes who will pop whatever prescription they can get their hands on. They are no less addicted, but it's a nice, clean, acceptable addiction that allows them to stumble on through life. Is that EIA?

Of course Obama's an extremist, don't you remember when he enacted Sharia Law and took away all your guns? Or the incarceration and subjugation of all white heterosexual males? Or outlawed Christianity, Christmas and the US flag?

Is the War on Drugs an extension of the philosophy of "Supply-Side Economics?"

Deciding if the War on Drugs is a failure depends on how you measure success.

If the intention of the War on Drugs was to increase incarceration rates, strengthen gangs, destabilize society (especially the among the poor) increase fear, and waste tax-payer money, then it has been very successful indeed.

Under the War on Drugs, a large amount of wealth has been concentrated among a few individuals at the top of large gangs and cartels, while the drugs themselves have trickled down to be consumed by masses, and the "war-laws" used to jail the poor.

Under the same period after Supply-Side Reaganomics, we've seen concentration of power not only among organized crime/drug-cartels, but also among other industries as well, including media, banking, telecommunications, and many others.

It kind of is. Incarceration, torture, and execution are not on the table, true (although in the UK it sounds like incarceration for making remarks deemed to be "offensive" due to racism, discrimination, etc. isn't ALL that far-fetched).

You can think that Carr's joke was lazy and unfunny -- that's fine. Personally I like it, and find it at least mildly clever in that he said it was trying to come up with the "shortest" joke possible. But anyway, some/many people in the UK agreed with you and made complaints to the station. The station/broadcaster came back with that statement you linked to, in my opinion mainly just to cover their own asses in the event of Government intervention (which I am led to believe by several news stories was / still is a real possibility).

The idea that there is any possibility of the Government intervention being required to punish Carr or the station -- purely because some people took offense to some nonsense that he said -- is what I find to be ridiculous.

Except that is not what happened.

The complaint was that Carr (and by extension the One Show) had breached broadcasting standards. Ofcom felt that he did and gave a lengthy explanation of why they felt that way.

You are entitled to disagree, but let's be clear here: he is not being incarcerated or tortured.

He made a tasteless (and not particularly funny) joke. People called him on it.

Let's compare that to Louis CKs bit on pedophiles. His joke was definitely uncomfortable, but it had an interesting point: before you condemn someone as a monster, maybe try to understand why they do such awful things.

Whereas Carr just said "hah! dwarfs are short, geddit?!". It's exactly as Tompkins described... it's lazy and unfunny.

I disagree.

This was in England, but (from HERE):
-----
“I tried to write the shortest joke possible,” he (Jimmy Carr) said. “So, I wrote a two-word joke which was: ‘Dwarf shortage’. It’s just so I could pack more jokes into the show.”

Carr added: “If you’re a dwarf and you’re offended by that, grow up.”

Ofcom has received two complaints about the incident, which aired on 4 November, and has decided it warrants a formal investigation to see if there has been a breach of the broadcasting code.
-----

That wasn't people telling Jimmy Carr that the joke "wasn't funny". They specifically were suggesting that he shouldn't / couldn't say it, and he might have to pay a fine or face other actual legal consequences for it.

Saying "that comedian's joke offended me, so I am never going to pay to see one of his shows ever again" is a perfectly acceptable decision.

Adding "and I will encourage my friends and acquaintances to do the same" is also basically OK, as long as you accept that they don't have to listen to you.

...But calling up Momthe Government and saying "that comedian made an offensive joke, I demand that you fine (/incarcerate, /torture, /summarily execute) him!" is just insane.

@00Scud00

I don't think they're mutually exclusive views. Giving pot users a criminal record or incarcerating them is terrible social policy but I don't think it's something he should so unabashedly encourage. I've watched him for a while and he tends to glorify it on the show as something cool and trendy rather than just be for decriminalization.

Um, it's more like taking a little from <5% to improve the lives of all 100%, so off the bat 'Regan' is lying. Having a 'bottom' 15% living well below poverty levels creates a climate that's good for no one, including those at the top. Creating a 'safety net' for those people creates a society with less crime and more opportunity for all, and wastes less money on policing, prosecuting, and incarceration, as well as less production lost. Yes, there will be a few who 'take advantage' of the programs to loaf, but there will be more who take advantage of the programs to succeed where they had no opportunity to do so without them.
The classroom play was also ridiculous. Socialism would mean that they all got the education they needed to preform on the test, including the classroom materials and tutoring if needed, capitalism would mean those who inherit books and can afford classroom materials and teachers get to 'learn', those who can't afford them only get to 'learn' by osmosis if they're allowed to participate at all, never learn directly, so only the truly exceptionally gifted might 'learn' while the rest sit in the corner getting dumber. (in their analogy, 'learning' is analogous to 'succeeding financially')
In this ridiculous classroom fantasy, they offer an extreme version of the downfalls of pure socialism, but absolutely none of the benefits, then show how that system doesn't work.
Because of this disingenuous one sided portrayal of the system it's claiming to explain, I dub this *lies.

this is offensive on so many levels.
let me guess bob,because a black man posted this,it must,therefore NOT be racist?

this is incredibly racist,because this man is basically saying that black folk are too stupid to make up their own minds.that they are chumps and sell-outs for simply always voting democrat.

because republicans have ALWAYS been a voice of reason and championed the underclass! right bob?

we could use the same logic and apply it to the mind-numbing meth-head hillbillies who get cock hard at the voice of trump.who are convinced that the republicans represent freedom,liberty and the constitution.

while those very same republicans consistently rob these people,of modest means mind you,to pay their buddies in wall street.who pass legislation to poison their water,dumb down their kids,create food deserts,incarcerate them (while giving their CEO buddies a pass and a slap on the wrist).continue to allow tax breaks and subsidies for their donors.passing laws allowing big corporations to send jobs to china and utilizing prison labor (slaves) and then BLAMING the people!

yeah bob,that coin turns both ways.

so the black man who blindly votes democrat can be criticized for his lack of foresight,but so can the aging white racist who consistently votes republican.

because neither the republican nor the democratic party give a flying fuck about either of you.

you both are sell-outs,chumps and uncle toms to a system that threw you both overboard 40 years ago.

fuck this video,and fuck you bob.