incoherent reporting in the Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articl…
Until the past decade, when the price of cocaine dropped sharply, consumers were largely affluent and educated. That fed into the misperception that most powder cocaine offenders were white, specialists say.
Uhhh…what?
Consumers of cocaine were largely affluent and educated.
The majority of all Americans are white.
An even larger majority of all affluent and educated Americans are white.
…and yet, the perception “that most powder cocaine offenders were white” is *wrong* ?
Was most of the cocaine in the country being done by Cornell West, Denzel Washington, and Oprah?
I find the sentence, as quoted above, impossible to believe.
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:33 am
“Was most of the cocaine in the country being done by Cornell West, Denzel Washington, and Oprah?”
Don’t forget Marion Barry.
May 3rd, 2008 at 8:47 pm
One of the more depressing things I’ve noticed in doing pro bono legal work is the peculiar priorities of many of the poor people I’ve worked with here in the District of Columbia. It no longer strikes me as odd to visit a rat-infested home and find people drinking Coke with Hennessey, or to see a relative of our client (struggling to get child custody) driving a new Lexus. That most of the expensive drug abuse is done by poor minorities strikes me as entirely plausible.
A large part of why the poor stay poor is the warped priorities in their lives. They put luxuries ahead of necessities, and bad things happen. It might be that a majority of the powder cocaine users were white and affluent, as the article claims, but I’d bet a month’s pay that a disproportionate number of those drug users were the same kinds of poor people I deal with in child custody or landlord-tenant disputes.
May 4th, 2008 at 2:25 am
“A large part of why the poor stay poor is the warped priorities in their lives.”
Having a spouse who works in HR, I’ve found that this is true.