• DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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    6 months ago

    Have you considered that maybe that’s tyranny as well?

    What if, for example, someone decided to make weed a felony because he couldn’t outright make being black illegal?

      • RBWells@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        No, a correlation between being black and being arrested for weed. In my city, they made the legal status of the drug indeterminate and gave cops DISCRETION on whether to arrest or cite someone for having pot. Not a felony now in any event, misdemeanor or civil citation or nothing but how do you think this discretion will be used?

        • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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          6 months ago

          Nixon did specifically consider weed a hippies and black people thing, but even if that was statistically true selective enforcement was always the plan.

          • Tiefling IRL@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            6 months ago

            You want to know what this [war on drugs] was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying?

            We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.

            Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.

            • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              It’s baffling to me how info like this is public and people still believe the republicans were the good guys.

      • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        "You want to know what this [war on drugs] was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying?

        We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.

        Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

        • John Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon

        https://www.vera.org/reimagining-prison-webumentary/the-past-is-never-dead/drug-war-confessional

      • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        Oh sweet summer child, everyone smokes weed. Cannabis prohibition was about giving police the power to arrest anyone they want to - and they used that power to arrest Black people.

        And if you don’t smoke weed? Well what about this little baggy we “found in your pocket”?

        • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I really, really, really hate the phrase “Oh sweet summer child”. Is it possible to be any more patronizing? Couldn’t you just say it normally?

          • Cursed@lemmus.org
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            6 months ago

            Not that I care about either of you guys or your argument, but I gotta point out that it’s a phrase intended to be insulting and condescending. You’re just letting the other guy know they got to you by writing this.

            • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              Based, but I never denied that. I gave them the benefit of the doubt because I’ve unironically seen people saying stuff like this without realizing that it has a negative connotation.

              • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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                6 months ago

                I guess the fact that you were more willing to believe that Black people have a natural inclination towards drug use than to understand that cops are bad leads me to the conclusion that you aren’t a great person with smart ideas, and didn’t see the necessity in being super nice about it when responding to you.

                I could have laid into you for the racist-leaning narrative, but instead I insinuated that you were naïve, so truthfully I did give you the benefit of a doubt in regard to the racially insensitive question you asked.

                  • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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                    6 months ago

                    I asked specifically because I knew there had to be a better explanation.

                    You asked a racist question because you thought there was a non-racist answer? I kinda understand what you mean here, but those are some horrible optics that still involve you asking a racist question.

                    Fuck me for wanting to learn from other people in a conversational manner and not researching like I was preparing for a debate

                    No, just don’t ask questions with racist implications, such as suggesting that Black people are intrinsically more likely to use drugs.

                    Fuck you!

                    Calm down. If you have a problem with being called out for saying racist things, join Truth Social.

          • bc93@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Literally every argument on Lemmy and Reddit reads like two extremely smarmy atheists who think they know everything trying to convince the world that they’re mega smart and their interlocutor is a dumbass. It’s pretty unbearable.

      • ramjambamalam@lemmy.ca
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        6 months ago

        There has certainly been a correlation for being black and being charged with possession of weed if that’s what you mean.