What I was trying to say is that people do bad things in pretty much the same way across various sets of groupings, but in many cases there is a specific set of people who are literally targeted for law enforcement.

White males and black males, for example, use recreational drugs at pretty much the same rate. (White males actually use them more, but the variance is not quite enough to be statistically important.)

Yet black males are simply far more likely to be targeted by police for drug investigation and drug use, and therefore become much more likely to have an arrest record, convictions, and drug records that then render them unable to participate in society fully because we don’t want drug criminals and felons in our workplaces, our neighborhoods, and our schools. Because these men are black, we target them for exclusion and arrest.

Literal, actual fact.

Not saying bad things should not be punished

Saying that we, as a society, deliberately choose through our policies and our systems to go after black males.

Yes, it would be great to stop criminalizing drug use. It’s a foolish policy.

But even if we decriminalize drug use, we will still have all the policies and systems in place to target black Americans for law enforcement far, far above the actual rate of crimes committed by black Americans.

Is this clearer?

It’s not about racism no matter how many times you or anyone else claims it is. You do a disservice by misrepresenting it while ignoring the real main issue, poverty and a secondary issue, personal responsibility.

Witness that white Americans use recreational drugs at a slightly higher rate than black Americans. Yet black Americans are much more likely to be arrested for recreational drug use.

Black American males have an astronomically higher chance of being investigated, arrested, charged, tried, found guilty, and imprisoned than any other racial group. It is distinctly racial animus.

Black American college graduates are less likely to be hired for the same job a white high school graduate gets.

Felony convictions result in a lifetime conviction for those so unfortunate as to be involved with the justice system–and the fact that black Americans, especially black American males, are charged with felony crimes means that these men cannot find a place in the American economic and social system that others do–which means black American males aren’t around to be fathers or uncles or brothers or husbands.

The American justice and political system targets black Americans much, much more than any other race or class of people.

It is not class-based. It is race-based.