comment: >
  
  The ruling class poisons the well by simply throwing identity politics at something. It creates the divisive rift that they want and destroys progress on popular communist/ socialist causes. Class politics and real solutions to these issues are off limits. The goal is to pin people on each other, and shift blame away from the ruling class. The ruling class should absolutely do this for themselves. It’s a genius move. They have think tanks for a reason. It’s the best thing for them to prop up the idea that handouts should be based on race because it destroys the entire notion. This is the system we have and it should be this way if we fall for the identity politics trap every time.
context: /u/Viceroy1994 (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
  All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
  Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
  ^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards >
  
  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. >
  
  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. >
  
  That all depends on what the law is targeting. Let's look at Marijuana for instance. When crackdowns on Marijuana started under the Nixon administration, we now have quotes from Nixon's counsel stating things to the lines of we know it's not illegal to be poor or black in the US but we also know a common thread between them is they enjoy Marijuana. So we criminalized it against what out own experts said so we could break up their activist groups. 
  Like even though Marijuana law is written neutrally, it was created and enforced in a way specifically because it would be easy to target minorities. So you may want a "crackdown", but if the institutions that are enforcing those laws are inherently racist, it's going to become an issue of race. >
  
  In the case of MJ the law isnt racist so its not a racist law its a racist enforcer. No one is in the streets over planned parenthood or abortions because they were designed to "curve the black population" a literally racist policy.
  The problem with CRT (real one not booggyman one) is it assumes that at some level everything is racist.
  Just because X affects Y more doenst make X anti Y it just is an observation.
  When we have proof, like we have for war on drugs THEN and only then is it worth a discussion otherwise its of no merit or positive value >
  
  I would agree if we had no information apart from "law targets marijuana users", however in this case we have more information about why the law was inacted.
  If a racist creates a law with the purpose of reinforcing said racist view and we can prove it, and prove that it doesn't positively said negative racist affect in some other way, I think it's fair to say the law contributes to racism and is somewhat racist in kind.
  We're basically arguing about the chain of causality and assigning blame. It's the same argument as saying "guns don't kill people, people kill people". Guns are a tool which enables people to kill other people more easily, therefore they contribute to murders. Isn't that the same here? This law contributes to racism. If the law was erased, the gaps between races would be reduced, and basically nothing else would get worse in society (as has been shown with the myriad of other successful examples of countries legalizing marijuana). Therefore, the law is in some part racist since it contributes to a racist outcome.