There was no wave of compassion when addicts were hooked on crack

They were expecting sixty thousand Junkies and acid heads in New York upstate, half a million showed up. I think Jimmy was the only black guy !i
 
Gregor Eisenhorn said:
Hmm... it's fucking fantastic that times are rapidly evolving and people are stratng to realise that being an addict is not a crime but that it's a huge problem that needs to be solved.

But I just can't help not agreeing with this man. 30 years ago, an addict was an addict- a criminal needed to be seperated from society behind bars. Yes, black people had it worse... but that's not saying that white addicts just suddenly sprung up and are now being cured instead of locked.

30 years ago HIV was something alien to us, Princess Diana holding a dying baby was a fucking sensasion (not because she way royalty, mind you), nowadays it's normal that we are helping people diagnosed with HIV.

So is the response to the people who abuse drugs. Times change and we as humans have much more compassion than we did before.
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No, man..

What the OP is saying is that addiction wasn't considered a problem until white people started being locked up

Until then, it was considered a disease that afflicted only black people and it was treated as such. Society at large never gave a fuck about the war on drugs until they started becoming victims of it themselves

US drug policy has directly contributed to racism in America. White people have largely continued to ignore this and stifle the truth since we've known about it in order to perpetuate an unofficial system of favoritism

Nixon and other republicans initiated the war on drugs for the sole purpose of attaining power, NOT to protect Americans from the dangers of drugs, like he claimed. By eliminating the biggest demographics to challenge his support, he effectively subverted American democracy so he could hold onto executive office, and we're still feeling the ripples of it today.


Schy, I am absolutely ashamed of you. Disgusting.
 
Padawanbater2 said:
No, man..

What the OP is saying is that addiction wasn't considered a problem until white people started being locked up

Until then, it was considered a disease that afflicted only black people and it was treated as such. Society at large never gave a fuck about the war on drugs until they started becoming victims of it themselves

US drug policy has directly contributed to racism in America. White people have largely continued to ignore this and stifle the truth since we've known about it in order to perpetuate an unofficial system of favoritism

Nixon and other republicans initiated the war on drugs for the sole purpose of attaining power, NOT to protect Americans from the dangers of drugs, like he claimed. By eliminating the biggest demographics to challenge his support, he effectively subverted American democracy so he could hold onto executive office, and we're still feeling the ripples of it today.


Schy, I am absolutely ashamed of you. Disgusting.
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It's pretty straight forward
 
bearkat42 said:

Back then, when addiction was a black problem, there was no wave of national compassion. Instead, we were warned of super predators, young, faceless black men wearing bandannas and sagging jeans.

No matter how far from our lives crack was, we’re guilty by association. By the time I was in college in the early 1990s, my short dreadlocks meant older women would cross the street to avoid me.

African-Americans were cast as pathological. Their plight was evidence of collective moral failure, of welfare mothers and rock-slinging thugs and a reason to cut off all help. Blacks would just have to pull themselves out of the crack epidemic. Until then, the only answer lay in cordoning off the wreckage with militarized policing.

Today, police chiefs facing heroin addiction are responding not by invoking war, but by trying to save lives and get people into rehab. Suddenly, crime is understood as a sign of underlying addiction, rather than a scourge to be eradicated.

One former narcotics officers said: “These are people. They have a purpose in life, and we can’t look at it any other way.”

But he couldn’t quite put his finger on just what had changed. His words reflect our collective self-denial. It is hard to describe how bittersweet many African-Americans feel witnessing this. Glad to be rid of a failed war on drugs? Yes, but also weary and embittered. When the faces of addiction had dark skin, the police didn’t see sons and daughters, sister and brothers. They saw brothas, young thugs to be locked up, not people with a purpose in life.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/there-was-no-wave-of-compassion-when-addicts-were-hooked-on-crack/
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i live in the epicenter of the heroin epidemic . On the south and west sides if chicago the open air drug trade is pretty much aside from public aid the only thing keeping tge black community alfoat for several generations now. Im not joking this is all those people have. Heroin is sobad here ppolice are required to carry narcan to combat ods
 
Padawanbater2 said:
It is straightforward. I find it equally as disgusting as BK that it would need describing

Especially for a white person

If you don't acknowledge this shit, I truly question your intelligence

+2 to you my friend

-2 more for Schy
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Sandernistas, Pada? let he who cast the first stone..try going back to neutral, it suits you better.

Schuy
 
Padawanbater2 said:
No, man..

What the OP is saying is that addiction wasn't considered a problem until white people started being locked up

Until then, it was considered a disease that afflicted only black people and it was treated as such. Society at large never gave a fuck about the war on drugs until they started becoming victims of it themselves

US drug policy has directly contributed to racism in America. White people have largely continued to ignore this and stifle the truth since we've known about it in order to perpetuate an unofficial system of favoritism

Nixon and other republicans initiated the war on drugs for the sole purpose of attaining power, NOT to protect Americans from the dangers of drugs, like he claimed. By eliminating the biggest demographics to challenge his support, he effectively subverted American democracy so he could hold onto executive office, and we're still feeling the ripples of it today.


Schy, I am absolutely ashamed of you. Disgusting.
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what part of my post(s) do you have issue with?..please cite, perhaps you didn't understand my meaning.
 
ChesusRice said:
Sort of like the RESPONSE to the Bosnia genocide compared to the response to the Rwanda genocide.
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If you're looking to add to your list of genocides, that were shrugged off... look into Cambodia.

Some people have said Pol Pot was the creature of the USA. Thanks America!!
 
ThickStemz said:
If one wants to be cynical you can compare the crack epidemic of 30 years ago to today and point out race as the only difference.

However, that would discount the large number of whites that were addicted to crack since then also.

I think the difference is ecconomic. The poor communities ravaged by crack then had little representation in government.

Today heroin addiction is on the rise in white suburbs because of pain pill abuse.

We've also learned a lot more about addiction since then. Its accepted as a disease now. And the family members of those in power are much more affected. We've also had 60 failed years of combating the problem one way show to be a dismal failure.
Race would play a role, but far from the only one.
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I have to agree with many of those points. I lived in the "whitest" state and in one of the nations poorest counties. NYT and the Post reported we had the Nations highest rate of opiate abuse per capita sometime around 99-01 as well as an explosive increase in cases of hepatitis C (3x the national average). Largely due to extreme poverty.
 
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