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racism

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The demise of the Jeremy Scott Adidas or what I’m calling the Dred Scott Adidas reminds me of an interesting experience that I had while participating – sitting in the audience really – in a panel discussion on film distribution about 10 or 12 years ago. As is often the case during talks about movie distribution, the conversation turned to diversity or lack there of, and some audience member pointedly asked a distribution representative why they did not distribute more films for the Hispanic market. The distribution guy nodded, appreciating the question of course, and went on to describe the complexity of the market and the difficulty of reaching a niche market with a niche product. By way of illustration, he told the story of distributing a film called ‘Star Maps’ to the Hispanic market. The distribution rep, aware of the dangers of stereotyping, noted that in general their research…

The goal of a ‘Drug Free Society’ resembles that of a “Workers’ Paradise” or a “Rational Market” in its presumption that human beings are both predictable and perfectible, as long as the state behaves in one way or another and the consequence of inaction will be – not the status quo – but chaos. To stave off this apocalypse, the drug prohibitionist demands ever expanding freedoms and powers, with the dubious end goal of eliminating both the supply and the demand for drugs. His model nations are countries like Singapore or Malaysia, but the popularity of drugs among the middle class and educated  constrains him. Instituting Singapore’s laws would mean militarizing suburban police departments, imprisoning millions and executing thousands of  his core constituency, thus transforming his existential crusade into a protracted war against the weak. Addicts, poor communities, and developing countries pay the highest price for the drug war, and…