comment: >
  
  Who demographics affect shouldnt affect laws though. Opioids typically affect white people but I want a crack down on it. It wouldnt be racist it would be logical and good for poor community's. Same with meth, cocaine etc.
context: /u/Viceroy1994 (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
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  Poverty is an issue to be sure, but the root causes tend to be far different from racial inequalities.
  A prime example I use to illustrate is the GI Bill post World War 2. While written in a seemingly race-neutral language, the execution was handed to state governments for fund distribution, with laws that stymied loan offers despite federal backing e.g. many banks just wouldn't make loans for Black Americans at a state level. This resulted in only a few thousand of the 1.2 million Black Americans who served gaining any benefit from the GI bill, and this had generational effects; one estimate puts that descendants of WWII Black Veterans would need $180,000 a piece to have the same benefit level that white vet descendants received over the subsequent eight decades. >
  
  !delta
  You bring up an interesting point, people in-charge of enforcing these laws might have a racial bias, but that's not an issue with the laws themselves, the idea is still sound, it will just need a good, carefully monitored execution. >
  
  This is, I think, what people often mean when they talk about structural racism.
  It's easy to point at the specific laws and policies and say they're not racist in themselves.
  Sure. But things exist in a context, and are often even written with that in mind.
  It's not automatically racist to penalize one drug far more harshly than other, for example, but it sure might be if the harshly penalized drug was used a lot more by people of one racial background. >
  
  
  This is, I think, what people often mean when they talk about structural racism.
  
  Exactly. It's also what collegiate level critical race theory explores (not the bogeyman panic rhetoric the political right likes to frighten with). Essentially, examine a law with neutral language, compare demographics of groups affected, and determine what factors affect certain groups more sharply than others.