As a side conversation: legalizing drugs is a fantastic idea, as far as I'm concerned, but for the same reasons that the state lotteries contributed to the destruction of an underground economy, that same problem is likely to occur with legalization. I mean, it's not like the kid who gets hired to run drugs is, under legalization, automatically going to find employment in the now legitimate drug market or even be the beneficiary of the taxes that will be levied on those legalized drugs. We would remain living in a racist society in which the benefits of legalization would largely redound to the powerful, with a few crumbs thrown around to make it seem legit.
the mechanisms of racialized oppression would likely just shapeshift as we've seen it do for decades now.
At 10:06 PM 7/12/2013, Carrol Cox wrote:
>" As to the War on Drugs - drugs are the bane of Black communities. "
>
>This is a wonderful example of the spontaneous racist ideology generated by
>the War on Drugs.
>
>Before the rise of state lotteries, 40% of the "outside" money that flowed
>into "Black communities" came from the sale of numbers tickets. Since state
>lotteries destroyed the numbers racket, 40% of the "outside" money that
>flows into "Black communities" comes from the sale of drugs. Most of those
>sales are NOT to other Blacks, of course, but to whites.
>
>The phrase, "black community," is itself a bit tricky. It is needed (and
>ideologically neutral) in some contexts; in other contexts, such as the
>sentence quoted above, it is crucial to racist ideology.
>
>Carrol
>
>P.S. I agree with Michael about profligate use of the term "Stalinist" to
>name all things evil. It reminds one of the use of "Papist" in 17th-c
>England.
>
>
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