Black Americans vote for Democrats 95% of the time. Republicans frequently argue that blacks should recognize the historic role which the Republican Party played in ending slavery, defeating Jim Crow, and fighting for civil rights.
Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly demonstrates in the above clip why that narrative doesn’t connect with blacks. People care more about their present than their past. Ignoring the disproportionate impact that the drug war has had on blacks presents tone deafness to the black community.
O’Reilly claims there is no organized effort among law enforcement to hunt down black people. Fair enough. However, when blacks are four times as likey to be arrested for drug-related crimes despite using drugs at the same rate as whites, there’s clearly some degree of injustice inherent to the system.
That injustice emerges from the nature of drug laws, which prove inherently subjective in their enforcement. When a person is victimized, they call the police and solicit a response. No one calls the police when they produce, distribute, or use a drug. As a result, law enforcement pursue drug suspects informed by bias rather than complaint. That explains the racial disparity, not an explicit policy of “hunting,” but a vulnerability which enables biased enforcement.
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