Why Rand Paul's Debate Comments on Race, Prisons Make Him a GOP Outlier A Republican talking about racial disparities is a big deal.
As you might expect, Thursday evening’s Republican primary debate offered its fair share of rhetoric and fear-mongering. There was, though, one moment of clarity and even compassion: Rand Paul’s brief monologue about the justice system and its unfairness to people of color, especially relating to drug crimes.
When the debate’s moderators brought up last year’s protests in Ferguson, Mo. and the Black Lives Matter movement that has sprung up in the past few years, Paul said this:
In Ferguson, for every 100 African-American women, there are only 60 African- American men. Drug use is about equal between white and black, but our prisons — three out of four people in prison are black or brown. I think something has to change. I think it’s a big thing that our party needs to be part of, and I’ve been a leader in Congress on trying to bring about criminal justice reform. It is difficult to state just how out-of-step Paul is with most conservatives on this issue. Movement conservatives tend to dismiss racial disparities in prison as simply the result of people of color committing more crimes, and many like to harp on things like “personal responsibility” and “the disintegrating family” as the reason for the higher population of people of color in jails. Granted, some of that may be changing as right wing power brokers like the Koch Brothers and House Speaker Paul Ryan are starting to come to Paul’s side on the issue.
The stats, though, are in Paul’s favor:
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