Well as a fan of wholistic wellness (not "HOLE-istic" as some posers would say), and alternative medicines, I must say I agree with alot of what you said. I am not a big fan of pharmacutical companies (or at least many of their actions in the past 20 years or so) and I am against federal sentencing guidelines.

When you get into all of the "prison-industrial complex" stuff...or start suggesting that its just because a larger percentage of blacks commit crimes it is somehow racist to put them in prison...you start to lose me.

What is racist is the continued message to minorities that they are not good enough to succeed on their own, and the negative messages (reinforced by the government) coming from within many of their own communities that they can't succeed without being dependant. Partucularly the message that fathers aren't important. When society stops encouraging destructive cultures in minority communities by doing all these things AND generating anger by focusing on color and suggesting there is an entitlement to be had, they won't be in prison!

Wrongfully convicted man free after 40 years behind bars

is it possible that there is a misunderstanding about what happened at Abu Ghraib prison. I clicked the link that you posted and found no story. I did a quick search and found a story about how guards decided to use deadly force with shotguns after rubber bullets did not work. 2 were killed.

here
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11987-2004Aug18.html

I think there are more minorities in jail because of racial profiling.

4 white kids in a car with drugs, versus 4 black kids in the car with drugs. Who more likely to get pulled over, searched and convicted? I seriously believe that if the drug users I knew were black, they would have drug convictions already.

It's a vicious cycle. A kid is pulled over because he is a minority and matches the description of a suspect, gets busted for drugs, goes to jail.
Then he gets out, robs a liquor store, and the cops pull over someone new matching his description. And on and on...

In the post before this one "Vagrant Gaze" one of the homeless guys talks about how homeless people have to be careful about fitting the description of any other person who does a crime:

Its like you are walkin’ down the street and you see an old lady and she jumps--you can tell she's afraid just because you are there. And its because of the stuff other people do. And if I get high I might be lookin’ like it--you know what I'm sayin’--at times. It just makes me feel so bad. And I fear that because, like, I could be standin’ by them--I could just be there and someone sees and jumps to the wrong conclusions. They might not notice I'm there until I'm too close and I could get shot. You know what I'm sayin’, because they’re scared; people are really, really scared. I hang out at the park a lot--you know what I'm sayin’--people do things, they run in the park, you know. You can't really be a homeless person in the park, you know. The police have to come in and see who’s there, and see what's goin’ on. If you're hangin’ out in the park and somebody’s (mumbles something) they come down on you. Don’t be wearin’ the same color clothes or whatever. The guy could be wearin’ dark blue and white shirt, and you could be wearin’ black and a yellow shirt and that’s close enough in the dark, you know?

About 4 years ago...I was loading my car with one of the last sets of boxes to move to a new apartment. The high school across the street was letting out. All of a sudden 4 police cars skidded to a halt. Several officers took up positions around me and drew their guns. I was told to put my hand up, drop my keys and slowly back up. I did. I was handcuffed and ROUGHLY thrown into the back seat of the hot squad car, where I sat for nearly 10 minutes very uncomfotably having no idea what was going on. When I asked if someone could tell me what was going on, I was rudely told "no" as the door was again slammed in my face.

After the area was secured (and the lietenant at the scene recognized me as one of the local TV weather-casters), I was freed. Come to find out, someone had drawn a gun in front of my apartment moments before. The description of the suspect was "Asian in a black car". I am big, white and gumpy and at the time had a red car.

The point being, I think you guys are behind the times. Most police departments have so over-compensated for the concerns you mention, it often defies common sense. There was no way I could have possibly fit the description of the suspect, but my rights were violated anyway to keep from offending any minorities in the area.

I was very upset about it at the time...but looking back it's kinda funny. I think everyone should have the experience of sitting in the back of a squad car handcuffed.

Liberal (noun): "A person who is so open-minded, his brains have fallen out."

Just to clarify...I'm not saying the things you guys are talking about never happen. In fact, I'm sure they do. I just don't think it's the dominant, sort of like...cyclicle thing polomex was talking about. I think its the exeption and not the rule.

Ah, a weatherman, that explains a lot. ;)

See Dude, you got incorrectly profiled once in 29 years. What if that happened to you once a month?

One way to be able to say that 'X' group of people commit more crimes than others is by outlawing a behaviour that 'X' is involved in more than others. Why were the first drug prohibition laws enacted a hundred years ago? Opium - the Chinese immigrants in California putting supply-side pressure on the labor market. Marijuana - Mexicans doing the same.

And now we've got legislation regulating how low you sag your pants...

I'm not sure if Polamex's situation is the most accurate model, but come on, black kids don't do drugs more than white kids but they do get arrested for drugs much more. Part of it's the inherently classist (which race is closely tied to in the US) nature of the Drug War, part of it is the disparity of enforcement on white vs non-white population (like which neighborhoods get targeted by drug squads) and certainly some of it is racial profiling in those cases where non-whites have to commute through the wrong neighborhood for their skin color. The combined effect on those victims of the War is cyclical when it makes the individuals, their families, and their neighborhoods poorer (taking away their possessions, taking them out of the work force and out of parenthood, etc) causing more people to do the things poor people are more apt to do... deal drugs, steal from whitey, etc.

Yeah, my big leap is misdemeanor drug posession -> armed robbery. :)

But still, I think this kind of thing is happening. If you are some innocent youngin' going to prison for a couple of years, you're going to come out much less innocent. Think about how much your peers for the last 4 years have influenced you.

Well if I try to debate this one any further I am going to start saying things like "I have black friends and...etc." since that is the experience I have to draw on...lol

So I think I will agree to disagree and not go there!