How Black People Are Being Shut Out of America's Weed Boom • Hacker News Board

Re: How Black People Are Being Shut Out of America's Weed Boom

#21

Post by jgh » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 3:41 PM UTC

RodericDay wrote: post #4

It's shocking to me how the comment section is replete with "a felony is a felony!" and "it's not a race issue- it's a criminal record issue!" messages. A few of them even go further and proudly proclaim they only read the first "paragragh". Too bad, they missed a critical point: > Even though research shows people of all races are about equally likely to have broken the law by growing, smoking, or selling marijuana,…

The comments section here isnt much better than that

Edit:

To follow up your edit, I find the attitudes toward race and gender on HN particularly troubling. Whenever there is an article that discusses legitimate race/gender issues it tends to be downvoted/flagged and drop like a rock off the front page. The comments are often calling into question the credibility of the person making the complaint about racism, and even blaming them / their race.

The reason that I find the attitudes here so troubling is because there are a number of influential people here. Many are entrepreneurs and future entrepreneurs. If these attitudes are a reflection of the racial attitudes in the tech industry then woe unto us. We are doomed. We fancy ourselves sophisticated, rational, and benevolent leaders of the future world economy but we are too arrogant to look inward at our own flaws.

Re: How Black People Are Being Shut Out of America's Weed Boom

#22

Post by kennywinker » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 3:42 PM UTC

fiatmoney wrote: post #16

kennywinker wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you say is entirely logical, but omits the reality that as a black person in america you are vastly more likely to be arrested for drug crimes. Not more likely to DO drug crimes, just more likely to get caught. This means profiling and racist policing directly leads to economic exclusion. If the american dream is upward mobility, that means black people get a smaller shot at the american dream. But all tha…

"This is like saying that people who've had DUIs can't work at bars" In fact, people with alcohol-related felonies have a really tough time getting liquor licenses.

Yes, but this guy wanted to work at the front desk, not own the license. And society hasn't recently taken major steps towards legalizing DUIs.

Re: How Black People Are Being Shut Out of America's Weed Boom

#23

Post by lmm » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 3:43 PM UTC

hnmcs wrote: post #2

Once I met a guy who worked for some Edward Jones-type company, investing the money of moms and pops, making money from watching various markets for opportunities to make profits. He was so in love with how effectively the whole world made sense in terms of dollars, contracts, and trades. He liked the meta-economics of the prevailing world economic order. He would think in terms of "is it worth it to me to buy your d…

> What did he think about weed then? That it was an unproductive (one of his favorite words) and likely immoral industry of drugs, not fit to be placed in his glorious world of markets and trade deals.

> What does he think about it now? You know already. What do all these full-time market-men think about it: markets are awesome and efficient and now it's just another market service for them to try to arbitrage and to buy ownership of so that they themselves can maximize profit on the margins.

Isn't that exactly how we want our businesses to behave? If a businessman who didn't want to get involved in something when it was illegal now wants to get involved now that it's legal, isn't that good business ethics?

Re: How Black People Are Being Shut Out of America's Weed Boom

#24

Post by david-given » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 3:44 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #18

MrsPeaches wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you really want someone with a shitload of existing drug connections, being the poster face for the industry you're trying to vanillify ? This seems like a poor choice of words at best.

Word choice is fine. Vanilla means plain, unremarkable, blends in well. To become an unremarkable part of the economy. Taking an altogether different meaning not fitting the context says more about your interpretive frame of reference.

Yeah, this meaning has been around for ages: http://www.hacker-dictionary.com/terms/vanilla

Where I'm from, vanilla crisps are ready salted. And vanilla ice cream is vanilla.

Re: How Black People Are Being Shut Out of America's Weed Boom

#25

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 3:44 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: How Black People Are Being Shut Out of America's Weed Boom

#26

Post by RodericDay » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 3:44 PM UTC

fiatmoney wrote: post #13

RodericDay wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even though research shows people of all races are about equally likely to have broken the law by growing, smoking, or selling marijuana, black people are much more likely to have been arrested for it.

And? If Italians are much more likely to be arrested for illegal bookmaking & racketeering due to targeted efforts to take them down, does that mean it's a great idea to let Fat Tony with a felony conviction, a ball-peen hammer and a shitload of shady friends he has unclear relationships with open a casino?

It's a better idea than letting equally-as-dirty-but-white-and-uncaught Joe Trustfund take over in his absence. The former at least equalizes the second-order race issue, whereas yours naively compounds it.

Re: How Black People Are Being Shut Out of America's Weed Boom

#27

Post by greenisland » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 3:45 PM UTC

mtalantikite wrote: post #15

greenisland wrote: post #10

I read the entire article. The man was duly convicted of a crime in Oklahoma. He broke the law, regardless of what anyone thinks. Fast forward to when selling dope in certain places is now legal and this guys want a piece of the action, but... he cannot legally do so because he's a convicted felon. Should we undo his conviction? No. He was tried fairly and found guilty based on the laws of the time and place. His fau…

The point here is that there are more consequences when you're Black in the US. Statistically speaking people of color, and in particular Black Americans, are arrested and convicted of marijuana related crimes at a much higher rate than any other group [1]. That translates into Black Americans being kept out of the newly legal business because of racist policing policies. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/…

I appreciate your remarks. But -- what I'm saying is that no one should feel sorry for this guy. It pains me to see the vast numbers of Americans who but a few years ago were for tough legislation and tough policies and who now desire to see criminals released from prison because the sentence may be too harsh. Really? If you do the crime, you do the time. We should not undo sentencing. It was all done legally at the time and it should stand.

I don't like the dope industry. It attracts children who think that smoking marijuana is harmless. It's not. The dopeheads can trot out all the industry-inspired crap they like, but it's not healthy. I'm all for ACTUAL medical patients who are in severe pain using it, but so many go to these quack doctors who will give a medical reason for a few dollars. Actual doctors with hospital admitting privileges should be the law.

Marijuana is not harmless and just a few years ago the majority of Americans agreed. The morality in America has slipped precipitously since our heyday as a nation in the 1950s.

Re: How Black People Are Being Shut Out of America's Weed Boom

#28

Post by mc32 » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 3:46 PM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #22

fiatmoney wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This is like saying that people who've had DUIs can't work at bars" In fact, people with alcohol-related felonies have a really tough time getting liquor licenses.

Yes, but this guy wanted to work at the front desk, not own the license. And society hasn't recently taken major steps towards legalizing DUIs.

But this is more like someone owning a liquor store selling to underage kids, thus breaking the law losing his license then getting denied a job at distillery for prior lapse of judgement.

Re: How Black People Are Being Shut Out of America's Weed Boom

#29

Post by kennywinker » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 3:46 PM UTC

fiatmoney wrote: post #13

RodericDay wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even though research shows people of all races are about equally likely to have broken the law by growing, smoking, or selling marijuana, black people are much more likely to have been arrested for it.

And? If Italians are much more likely to be arrested for illegal bookmaking & racketeering due to targeted efforts to take them down, does that mean it's a great idea to let Fat Tony with a felony conviction, a ball-peen hammer and a shitload of shady friends he has unclear relationships with open a casino?

A teenager with a weed possession conviction is not a mobster.

Re: How Black People Are Being Shut Out of America's Weed Boom

#30

Post by kennywinker » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 3:48 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #28

kennywinker wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but this guy wanted to work at the front desk, not own the license. And society hasn't recently taken major steps towards legalizing DUIs.

But this is more like someone owning a liquor store selling to underage kids, thus breaking the law losing his license then getting denied a job at distillery for prior lapse of judgement.

It doesn't sound like that at all to me. In fact, it sounds a lot more like getting caught drinking underage, and then getting denied a job at a distillery.

If we're being precise, it sounds like getting caught drinking when you're 20, then a few years later the drinking age is lowered to 19 but you still get denied a job at a distillery.