It is. It created disproportionate mandatory minimum sentencing surrounding powdered and crack cocaine, and since crack cocaine was affecting the black community at much higher rates than the white community, this led to a huge increase in the incarceration of black Americans. To be blunt, this is common knowledge, and you should be embarrassed to be missing it.

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Black communities asked for the bill. It was written by Black leaders.

"Rep. Bass is right. According to a 1994 Gallup survey, 58% of African Americans supported the crime bill, compared to 49% of white Americans. Most Black mayors, who were grappling with a record wave of violent crime, did so as well. As he joined a delegation of mayors lobbying Congress to back the bill, Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke said, “We’re trying very hard to explain to Congress that this is a matter that needs bipartisan support.”"

"In a recent interview Rep. James Clyburn, a member of the House leadership and one of the most powerful African American elected officials, reflected on the reasons for his vote in favor of the bill. “Crack cocaine was a scourge in the Black community,” he recalled. “They wanted it out of those communities, and they had gotten very tough on drugs. And that’s why yours truly, and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus, voted for that 1994 crime bill.”"

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/did-the-1994-crime-bill-cause-mass-incarceration/

[–] pjwestin@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Should have kept reading:

But one thing is clear: the 1994 bill interacted with—and reinforced—an existing and highly problematic piece of legislation: The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which created huge disparities in sentencing between crack and powder cocaine. Under this bill, a person was sentenced to a five-year minimum sentence for five grams of crack cocaine, but it took 500 grams of powder cocaine to trigger the same sentence. Because crack is a cheaper alternative to powder cocaine, it is more prominent in low-income neighborhoods. These neighborhoods are more likely to be predominately Black and in urban areas that can be overpoliced more easily than suburban or rural areas. While the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, enacted under the Obama-Biden administration, reduced the crack/powder cocaine disparity from 100:1 to 18:1, the damage had been done, and its effects continue to this day.

Do you see how this demonstrates the Ratchet Effect yet? Conservatives (and Joe Biden) pass a piece of legislation during the Reagan years that causes mass incarceration of black men. Clinton doesn't move us back to the left, but passes legislation that reinforces the conservative legislation. The closest the Democrats get to, "turning the dial to the left," is when Obama gets legislation passed that makes the problem 18 times worse for the black community instead of 100 times worse for the black community, and only after the bulk of the damage is already done. Do you see how even, even when the Democrats, "move us to the left," things are still worse than where they started? That's the Ratchet Effect.

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

A policy demanded by Black leaders having unintended consequences is not a Ratchet effect.

[–] pjwestin@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

Yeah, I'm not really interested in your thoughts on the legislation you just learned about from me a few hours ago, but thanks anyway.