[beat]

I used to think the drug war was the problem. Not anymore. Think about the high-profile police shootings of unarmed black men over the past year. Not a single one of those was over drugs. They were all "walking while black". Ending the drug war would not, on its own, end the "walking while black" problem.

The family structure breakdown among the poor is directly, painfully correlated to the high incarceration rate. Absent fathers are absent because they're in jail, or expect they will be sooner or later, or because they're ashamed because they are unable to provide for their children.

One of my best friends is a doctor in Orlando, who happens to be black. Back during the Trayvon Martin shooting, he told me he would not even drive through Sanford. He didn't feel safe - from the police. In his daily life, he's a key administrator at a large hospital and a radiologist. In Sanford? He's a black man driving a car too nice for him.

That's not about the war on drugs.

[CPLX]

> He's a black man driving a car too nice for him. That's not about the war on drugs.

Actually, it kind of is. What's the implicit assumption in that story? Of course, that he's a drug dealer. What would be the pretext for pulling him over and searching his car? To look for drugs.

It really is the cornerstone of policing in 2015, just try to imagine counterfactuals where there was no such thing as illegal drugs and drug dealers and so on and it becomes obvious.

[beat]

But again, look at the high profile shootings recently. The cops weren't looking for drugs. In all of those cases, they were stopped for basic harassment.

The nice car isn't a reason to pull over the doctor. It's an excuse.

[CPLX]

I think you're saying this is not about drugs. That's correct.

That's a distinct statement from saying it's not about the war on drugs. It's definitely about that.

[beat]

To push it farther, I'm saying the war on drugs is a symptom, not a cause - it's rooted in racism. So it's not about drugs... it's about race.

[CPLX]

Yes, the war on drugs is an effect, and racism is the cause. If that's what you're saying then we agree.

But on a practical level, the war on drugs is the means by which institutional racism is most likely to be prosecuted in this country. So to some extent many racist acts are the effect of the racist war on drugs.

Perhaps a distinction without a difference. Clearly our drug policy and racism are deeply intertwined. Many do in fact disagree with that or are ignorant of it.

[beat]

Yeah. "A nice car like that, looks like a drug dealer" works because he's black. If a white doctor drove his Mercedes through the same down, cops wouldn't make such assumptions.

[darkroasted]

"The family structure breakdown among the poor is directly, painfully correlated to the high incarceration rate. Absent fathers are absent because they're in jail, or expect they will be sooner or later, or because they're ashamed because they are unable to provide for their children."

The Moynihan report decrying the break down of black families was released in 1965, before the drug war, at a time when incarceration per crime committed was approaching all-time lows.

The incarceration rates in America bottomed out around 1973. At that time, about 63% of black and poor persons lived in a single-female headed household. By 1978, with incarceration rates still within their historical range, the rate was nearly 70% (source Losing Ground by Charles Murray). Family structure breakdown came first, it was not caused by incarceration. It is wishful thinking to believe that if all these men were not locked up they would be upstanding and faithful fathers, the problems go far beyond that.

[pyrocat]

It sounds like you have a bone to pick with black men. Try reading some recent data: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/20/upshot/missing...

[darkroasted]

It's a structural issue and is very hard to fix. Men, everywhere, do what is needed to get sex. If women and the institutions of society do not require a commitment from the man in order to have children, then men will not give such a commitment. Why would they? But traditionally it is the father who restricts access to his daughter, or trains his daughter not to open up so easily. So fatherlessness begets fatherlessness.

[beat]

If you think fathers control the sexuality of their teenage daughters, you've obviously never raised one!

[darkroasted]

They used to have a lot more control, now barely any. Hence the rising illegitimacy rates across the board, for all races.

Shared environment still matters a lot. One father has a limited impact on his own daughter. But if the community has lots of fathers, all telling their daughters the same thing, and so your daughter has friends who all view it as low-status to have children at 16, then she will be a lot more likely to wait on having kids until marriage.