[lbo-talk] Noam Chomsky is losing it

[// ravi]

On Sep 28, 2011, at 7:16 AM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> On Sep 28, 2011, at 2:16 AM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
> 
>> People of color are disporportionately jailed and punished for crimes that white people walk away from. Of course, they are also poor. But if poverty were the only variable, then there wouldn't be the disproportion.
>> 
>> How do I talk about this without talking about prejudice against people of color?
> 
> It's the "prejudice" problem. Having identified it, what do you do about it?

It is only because we have identified it that we can do something about it, no? What do we do? Any of a number of things, I would guess: ongoing measurement of statistical disparity, training of police and other arms of the law, changes to law and jurisprudence that attempt to correct the results, make people aware of hidden bias, perhaps even statistical weighting of sentences, so on.

	—ravi