The first is historical. When we look back at Jim Crow, do we say that grandfather clauses and literacy tests were about improving the quality of citizen engagement at the polls? Of course not. Jim Crow was designed to reaffirm a racial hierarchy within the constraints of the new constitutional amendments. Is it inconceivable that we would get policies designed to reaffirm racial hierarchy in the colorblind constraints of the civil rights movement?
The second is rhetorical. What specific appeals did politicians make to support the War on Drugs? What images did they use?
And the third, as a comment below points out, are the results of the drug war. Was it carried out in a racially evenhanded manner?
The War on Drugs is large enough that there can be no smoking gun tape of politicians conspiring to pull one over on society and do the racism again.
> The paper argues that Japan's 'war on drugs' in the 1980s was a direct result of pressure from the United States to adopt harsher sanctions and from a punitive Japanese public that associates drug use with poor self-control.
I think you'll find a similar story elsewhere
What is that centre, in nonsymbolic language? Actual people who consciously designed a plan to terrorise and marginalize minorities? I don't think that's what the op (or the writers he cites) are claiming. I suspect what they mean is more abstract. Something like:
The biases, concious or otherwise permeating society influenced the decision making in such a way as to... IE a personification.
We narrate our stories using abstractions & personifications, mixing symbolic and regular language. What we end up is more poetry than anything. It sounds good when it expresses our feelings. This is (to quote Monty python) no basis for a system of government (or thought).
What/who's intention was it, that you mention above? Are we talking about actual individuals collaborating knowingly to achieve these goals or is this a "nation weeps" sort of abstraction. What, in less poetic terms does "the real goal" really mean?
How does this explain drug policies in Japan or Azerbaijan?
I mean, I definitely agree that Machiavellian dynamics were involved. Electoral feedback loops. Racism. All these played a role.
But.. when someone insists about the "real reason" without demystifying the abstractions... I think we've left the realm or rational discussion. We're in religion territory.