re: #243 Blue Spot Vlamingii Tang

Are you saying that their demographic did not end up in jail very much?

No, they did. So what?

Just a little tip. You are a smart guy, but your penchance for four letter exclamations doesn’t add to your arguments. Call me old fashioned.

You’re old-fashioned.

Perhaps I should have told them not to be stupid, their opinions are only worthless anecdotes?

You seem to be really confused here. I’m not claiming there is no problem with drug dealing in poor black neighborhoods. I’m saying that there is no reason to believe that the rate of dealers in the black population is higher than in the white population. My support for this is that, even though epidemiological studies have shown that there is equivalent usage rates in the white and black populations of nearly all drugs, the black population is incarcerated for it at a much higher rate. Therefore, pointing out that blacks are incarcerated for dealing at a higher rate than whites, on its own, means nothing.

Sorry, I thought that would be understood. It was just a somewhat cynical quip about the suggestions floating about that incarceration rates of different groups are only due to police, or legal, biases.

I’m suggesting that we should do a lot to fix the inequities in the judicial and legal system, which demonstrably, provably exist. That doesn’t involve just being nicer to people. And I don’t think that would solve the problem of drug dealing among the poor subclasses, either, of any race. It’d just be, you know, nice to do, because of justice and all that stuff.