Let's talk about two things that don't usually go together. Hope, and crack cocaine.

Wherever you expect this history thread is going to end up, I promise you it's going somewhere different. 1/

Americans have used cocaine since the 1800s when it was legal.

Early fizzy sodas and soft drinks were often marketed as medicinal rather than pleasure drinks. And they sometimes used cocaine as, shall we say an... active ingredient. Until 1903 Coca-Cola truly was "Coca" Cola.

The American black market for drugs was essentially born in the 20th Century. Why hadn't it existed before then? Because most drugs simply were not illegal!

The Smithsonian says: "Before 1900, the typical opiate addict in America was an upper-class or middle-class white woman."

It wasn't until 1914 that cocaine was formally criminalized in the United States shortly after newspapers started publishing scary stories about Black people using the drug.

Check out this New York Times headline from the time:

This is extremely obvious, but let's say it:

Making drugs illegal does not stop people from using them. Never has. Never will.

Although cocaine supply dried up after being made illegal, its popularity rose again in the 1970s.

These pioneering "second round" coke users were mostly white. It's regarded as a "chic luxury drug" and "the ambrosia of the gods" used at glamorous Hollywood parties.

If there was a real magazine called "Illegal Drug Innovations Monthly" crack cocaine would be the cover story in the late 1970s.

By combining coke with baking soda, dealers created a more concentrated and possibly more addictive & cheaper format (debated, but irrelevant here).

Public perception associated powder cocaine with wealthy whites–and crack cocaine with "inner city" Blacks.

If you guessed this perception led to some very bad policy outcomes, you would be correct. Congress created punishments for crack that were 100 times harsher. Literally!

Crack cocaine devastated many communities in 2 ways:

First, drug related crime exploded. Huge costs.

But second–– and this was policymakers fault––extremely harsh sentences for crack created a desperate cycle that became very hard to escape from. This is how they justified it:

Today we have lots of data that Blacks and whites use drugs at the same rate.

But punishments for crack cocaine was 100 times more harsh than for the powder version of the same drug.

Looking back now, both Democrats and Republicans generally agree that this was a racist policy.

In 2010 Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act which dramatically reduced the crack cocaine sentencing disparity from 100:1 down to 18:1.

Despite police opposition, it passed the Senate unanimously. (Remember that fact because it'll become relevant at the end of this thread)

The Fair Sentencing Act to reduce racial disparities in drug punishment passed during that brief window of time that Democrats controlled the White House, House & Senate. It had failed each prior year.

Folks forget this but Obama did actually have legislative accomplishments!

Regardless of whether the crack cocaine sentencing disparity was *intended* to be racist, the law was reformed.

Why? Because people came to understand that it hurt people of color more than whites. The intent did not matter as much as its ultimate effects. It was a step forward.

Beyond the crack vs powder cocaine sentencing disparity, can you think of any other US legal structures that clearly favors one race and clearly hurts another race?

Just think for a moment. This is the part where we zoom out and take a weird turn.

The Electoral College comes from a system of government balanced on a deeply flawed compromise with southern slaveholders.

Regardless of its original intentions the EC disproportionately harms voters of color who often live in cities. It literally makes their votes worth less.

States with large populations tend to have large cities and diversity.

Small population states are often rural and mostly white.

These two factors combine to mean that whites wield artificially large power within the Electoral College because it's not perfectly proportional.

States get Electoral College votes equivalent to the number of people in the congressional delegation they send to DC.

A tiny state like Wyoming–which has 2 Senators and 1 Representative–gets 3 EC votes.

LA County alone has 17 times more people but the same number of senators!

Thanks to the Electoral College, depending on how you calculate it, a white Wyoming voter is worth between 3 and 57 times more than the vote of a Black or Latino Californian.

That was not the founders' intent. And even if it was, oh boy would it suck! https://observer.com/2019/02/electoral-college-explanation-popular-vote-loses/

Many of the founders' ideas about elections turned out to be dumb. We made fixes such as:

- Letting women vote
- Letting people of color vote
- Letting voters directly elect Senators (they used to be appointed)

But 244 years later the Electoral College still needs to be fixed.

There are many reasons to ditch the Electoral College, from moral to practical.

But right now–as Americans are thinking more about the role that race plays in how our democracy–we should be talking more about how the Electoral College is functioning as a tool of white supremacy.

Remember how the Fair Sentencing Act passed the Senate unanimously?

Well, if Jeff Beauregard Sessions (R-Alabama) could support reducing punishments for Black crack users because EVEN HE REALIZED THEY WERE SUPER RACIST, I have hope that we can get rid of the Electoral College.

I hope this history thread took you to an unexpected place. If you learned something or found it thought-provoking, please consider sharing it.

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