Said Richard Marianos, a former senior official with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, quoted in "How Biden’s Menthol Ban Endangers Black Bodies" (Washington Free Beacon).
Biden's move to criminalize menthol cigarettes would violate his goals of eliminating disparate impact—supposedly neutral policies that disproportionately affect minority communities—in law enforcement.... Such disparate impact is why Biden's menthol ban has earned criticism from left-wing civil liberty activists, such as the American Civil Liberties Union....
Posts
54 comments:
Now cross out "menthol cigarettes" and write in "guns" for Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Enforcement policies. Disparate impact on Blacks for sure!
The very first "Saturday Night Special" laws were aimed at Blacks.
https://reason.com/2022/01/16/gun-control-is-just-as-racist-as-drug-control/
Double standards, hypocrisy, and turning a blind eye for political support is nothing new. As with abortion and all other racially-charged topics, is this covert eugenics disguised as assistance?
"How Biden’s Menthol Ban Endangers Black Bodies"
Max Planck hardest hit.
When did people all of a sudden become “bodies”?
Isn't this the reason the term "disparate impact" was coined?
Massachusetts already banned menthol cigs, so people go to New Hampshire to buy them, like they've been going to buy liquor for years. The last time I was at the mall in the city a guy was in front of home and garden store trying to sell black market Kools. Reminded me of the character on campus years ago who was always saying "hash" to passersby.
What? I thought racist tobacco companies specifically targeted African Americans with menthol cigarette advertising. And I thought the death and disease caused by tobacco products disproportionately impacts African American communities. Can't the Democrats get their messaging straight?
I made this point on a Café post a short while ago.
And it will piss them (black voters) off.
When Newports are outlawed.....only outlaws will have Newports.
WHO knew I could have identified as black 30 years ago when I smoked Newports??/s
I work at a gas station. I can’t wait to start telling all my black Newport customers that I’ve been trying get to change their votes. The gas prices already have them tottering but take away a man’s Newports, well Biden might as well dress in klan robes at his next presser. People can make grand sacrifices for a cause but, it’s the little inconveniences that wear down your soul.
Since cigarettes are legal, banning menthol cigarettes is just stupid.
What's next? Banning sweet aperitif liquors?
Would banning Mogen David sweet wines be anti-Semitic?
Doing research for a book ten years ago, I learned that R.J. Reynolds introduced Salem cigarettes as a rival to Kool, which had a twenty-year market headstart, by handing them out to anyone and everyone on street corners in the inner city -- or, as they were known then, ghettos.
What is the deal with this new jargon of “______ bodies?” It’s usually black bodies, but I’ve seen brown bodies too. If anything, it makes black people sound like just blobs of flesh with not humanity or individuality at all.
Talk about theatrics with no good outcome!
If they propose to ban menthol cigarettes on the basis of some "greater risk" to the health of smokers, they're being hypocritical: ALL cigarettes pose a risk to the health of smokers. Either leave ALL cigarettes legal to use or ban ALL cigarettes from legal use. Of course, we know how that will go, so it is more sensible to allow smokers to smoke what they want...including cannabis.
Sort of odd to see the Washington Free Beacon headline writers adopting hipster/woke language like "endangers Black bodies."
If they were talking about poaching on wildlife preserves, would they say it was endangering grizzly bear bodies? Or just say it was a threat to grizzly bears?
What's up with this weird locution? Are black people somehow distinct from their bodies, so that clarity requires distinguishing between the person and the body, when discussing their health and welfare? Why is this only done when referring to blacks, not with whites?
It's ridiculous.
It’s black folk’s business what they want to smoke, of course, but it’s hilarious to see the fetishistic left-wing use of “endangers black bodies” to describe the banning of a product that indisputably endangers black bodies.
Democrats racist!?
Next he'll put them back in chains!
Usually, when you hear the term black bodies, you are about to get a truck load of bullshit. In this case though the commentary is spot on.
"This will criminalize the behavior of Black communities and lead to more interactions with law enforcement, not less."
Not if you also defund the police.
The government is so obnoxious. "Quit smoking!" "I'd rather not." "Fine! Then we'll make it taste bad!"
My old friend and roommate Kenny (RIP) and I used to joke about turning B/black. We lived in a mostly B/black neighborhood, bought cheap beer at the corner sto', and had started to smoke menthols. (Benson and Hedges Long.)
That was just a phase, but he continued bringing on the funk as long as he could play a guitar.
The entire administration apparently has shit for brains, not just Biden.
Isn't Washington Free Beacon a right-leaning publication? Because "black bodies" is definitely a left-wing construction which I always found rather dehumanizing.
So what? Biden is openly racist. Nada nuevo.
"Endangers Black Bodies"? Is Ta-Nehisi Coates advising the Free Beacon now? Or are they trying to be cute by appropriating the left's terms?
He should have watched "Trading Places" where Eddie Murphy tells partiers to "stop putting out your Kools on my floor!" Of course, the "N word" is also in that movie so it is already down the memory hole.
Why are menthol products any more dangerous than any other tobacco product?
What's the point of banning one but not the other?
The next Eric Garner is going to be selling menthol cigarettes rather than "loosies." When the police show up to enforce a stupid law and meet resistance someone is going to die.
The Democrat party and their minions will of course blame racism and the police. They won't wonder if maybe this foreseeable death wasn't due to the stupid "law" that they enacted. Never once will they think about how over extension of health regulations with no actual law being enacted killed anyone. They will go out to burn down a black neighborhood with a completely clear conscious.
Some of them will probably be wearing an "I Can't Breath" T-Shirt. They have forgotten nothing and they have learned nothing.
Religion (e.g. morality, ethics, political consensus/dictates), diversity [dogma], and disparate impact.
Blogger cassandra lite said...
Doing research for a book ten years ago, I learned that R.J. Reynolds introduced Salem cigarettes as a rival to Kool, which had a twenty-year market headstart, by handing them out to anyone and everyone on street corners in the inner city -- or, as they were known then, ghettos.
In 1958-59 I flew alone to NYC to visit relatives. I was about 10 at the time.
The airline passed out 4 packs of Winstons (or perhaps Marlboros) to every passenger on the plane, including me. I probably could have lit up and nobody would have said anything.
I got another pack on the way back. I gave both to my dad whose only reaction was to thank me. He was a Camel man himself. Filters were for sissies so he probably threw them away.
We had a smoking lounge in my high school in 1961. Only for juniors and seniors, though. US freshies had to smoke in the boys room and risk getting yelled at by the janitor.
John LGKTQ Henry
"When did people all of a sudden become “bodies”?"
When they were all reading/reading about Ta-Nahesi Coates.
"Isn't Washington Free Beacon a right-leaning publication? Because "black bodies" is definitely a left-wing construction which I always found rather dehumanizing."
I think it's an Alinsky-type tactic: holding the other side to their own terms. They say "black bodies" so you aim that back at them.
They say something race-neutral on its face is racist because of the disparate impact, so you use exactly that to skewer them.
Rush Limbaugh showed the right how that's done. It's sarcastic.
Isn't it pretty easy to add your own "menthol" flavor to nonmenthol cigarettes. I spent about 15 seconds searching Amazon and came away thinking there's no way to stop it. There is peppermint essence available for candy-making purposes....
""Endangers Black Bodies"? Is Ta-Nehisi Coates advising the Free Beacon now? Or are they trying to be cute by appropriating the left's terms?"
Just seeing this after writing my TNC comment at 11:53. Obviously, I agree with you: they are trying to be cute by appropriating the left's terms.
Next on their list is MD 20-20, 40s, Kente cloth, and Swisher blunts.
By Biden's standards, banning menthol cigarettes is Jim Crow 3.0.
I only ever bumed Newports from the brothers. That's gotta be the classiest brand name for a cigarette. Although I'd never pass up an unfiltered Kool.
I've always presumed that "Black bodies" was meant as a riff on DuBois's "Souls of Black Folk," to refer to physical as opposed to psychological threats.
The whole "B/black bodies" trope has been around graduate humanities departments for donkey's years. We were reading about it in the 1980s, if not earlier. It's a component of CRT.
Would you let your four-year-old smoke during his sex transition? Of course not! It's unhealthy. So why would you let your Negroes smoke?
Thank God we've got a President who will guide black people away from danger with a great sweep of his shepherd's crook.
Menthol cigarettes are common in rural areas too with non-blacks. Newports were the brand of choice in PA when I was growing up. It was lily white. I think it is the choice of lower income people regardless of race.
Stores that have to stop selling Menthol cigs should leave an empty shelf with one of those Biden, "I did that" stickers prominently displayed.
Disparate impact is a confounded standard. If you remove disparity in one case, you increase it in another case. The only way it can work is to apply it very selectively and only to the specific circumstance that you are interested in at the moment. Like menthol, you have to focus on health only, you can’t allow it to be framed as a disparate impact on freedom of choice. Controlling the messaging is critical.
Menthol cigarettes are common in rural areas too with non-blacks.
Yes. The only time I found unfiltered Kools for sale was in rural Iowa, 1971.
I preferred Newports at the time, but smoked Kools a lot because many of my college friends were Black. Bumming cigarettes was a way of life for 18 year-olds.
I switched to Camel filters when they became available. That was what cool, tough White guys smoked. Marlboros were for sissies. So much of smoking was image over taste. The tobacco companies did a good job of selling their products.
Next Up... Cheetos!
Progs really are caricatures of Jim Crow. On the one hand they display their paternalism towards Blacks with respect to mentholated cigarettes and the other hand with abortion they have accomplished what the Klan could have never dreamt.
This "bodies" stuff got started in colleges in the Eighties and Nineties. As ridiculous as it is, at least they aren't referring to people as "sites," another ridiculous fad of those days.
It's for their own good, of course, which the African Americans are too dumb to figure out for themselves. See sarc. Or maybe somebody actually said that....
Once the cities are rid of menthol they'll be safe again for fentanyl and handgun sales.
Well. I’m going to say something that is extremely selfish and self-centered.
I am a true sinner. I never have successfully given up smoking. (One time-period exception: pregnant + breast-feeding. Also, eschewed inside-smoking years before that was required.)
That said, I have always smoked the exact same cigarettes on which I got hooked way back in ‘79. They are menthols. I am white and female and, obviously, also old. Admittedly weak and stupid, as well, with regard to demon tobacco-weed. All that said: Really? I’m not going to be able to buy a version of Salem lights any more?
In a sane world, Black Americans would be enraged by the paternalism and benign racism behind this legislation. They are implicitly, and damn near explicitly, saying that Black people must be defended from their own stupidity and vice. Everyone admits that the intent is to reduce the amount of Black smokers.
The same thing with voter I.D.. The Left is implicitly stating that Black people are too ignorant or lazy to get I.D.s. The inartful among them state it explicitly.
Ann Althouse said...
Isn't it pretty easy to add your own "menthol" flavor to nonmenthol cigarettes? I spent about 15 seconds searching Amazon and came away thinking there's no way to stop it. There is peppermint essence available for candy-making purposes....
Online Vape Stores are selling "roll your own" menthol flavoring for e-cigarettes despite the FDA ban on selling the nicotine fluid already flavored. The federal ban occurred because untrustworthy suppliers were selling contaminated flavored mixtures back in 2019.
White Democrats have always believed they knew what was better for black people than the black people themselves. Since the founding of the party. Gahrie has it exactly right.
And back when I smoked, I smoked menthol cirgarettes too. They just tasted better to me. Maybe me and black people just have better taste than the white Democrats?!
Post a Comment