Thinking again about your 'the reason African Americans didn't get ahead is because the police weren't corrupt enough' post -...
Thinking again about your 'the reason African Americans didn't get ahead is because the police weren't corrupt enough' post - that's also what killed the labor movement, right, the RICO act killing their ability to a) acquire money, and b) channel it to politicians to get laws passed? And this electorally weakened the democrat party by removing the faction of their internal politics that was somewhat in touch with the average voter, leaving only the wealthy, minorities, and ivory tower types?
I mean I’d challenge that, the RFK-led mafia crackdowns of the 1960s were essentially white ethnic Democrats shedding the corrupt machine system – union links to the Democrats were mostly of the form of funding campaigns and party operations out of dues-filled accounts and having the pension accounts used as a mobster slush fund was not providing any obvious benefit
(I think in some cases the mafia were essentially first allowed in to organized labor because if something was going to co-opt the labor power and autonomy of workers, organized crime corruption was preferable to communism)