Reagan endorsed reparations for Japanese Americans while enforcing anti-black drug laws

Evidence

In spite of such stories, black Americans are more likely to be convicted when they use crack cocaine and to receive longer sentences than white Americans. It turns out, the same President Reagan who apologized and approved redress payments for the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II saw no contradiction in enforcing discriminatory laws that imprisoned drug users for longer sentences when they were using or dealing while black. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 418

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• QUESTION: Brown’s juxtaposition of Reagan’s Japanese-American redress with his drug-war enforcement is rhetorically pointed—worth interrogating for the strongest response: is the contrast unfair because of differing degrees of documented intent, and how would she answer that?

Related

• The Reagan era enforced discriminatory drug laws despite endorsing Japanese-American redress (similarity 0.96)
• Compensation paid for Japanese internment was never paid to black Americans (similarity 0.78)