Marla wrote on Mar 2
nd, 2017 at 2:09pm:
Big Donger wrote on Mar 2
nd, 2017 at 2:02pm:
No, Herb, the blacks, Hispanics, Latinos and whites in US jails are there because of the anti-drug laws designed to put them there.
In other words: capitalism.
That,
and the white power racism Herbie identified. Nixon started the war on drugs to manage the black ghettos. The war on drugs (and the drugs themselves) ended the black power movement of the 1970s. Successive law-and-order auctions by politicians have, in some counties, put entire communities behind bars.
Poor white crackers have been collateral damage in this war, and believe it: this is a war. The streets of many American neighbourhoods are patrolled by armoured troop carriers and cops in military uniforms carrying high-powered weapons, all surplus from the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Cops are encouraged to be trigger-happy. They see their job as a war too. The training and policies of many county police departments enforce a shoot-first-ask-questions-later policy, and this isn't coming from the communist party or the ACLU, it's coming from ex-cops themselves.
It should come as no surprise that, along with its incarceration rate, the US has the highest rate of shootings by police in the developed world. It should also be no surprise who those targets are.