Racial Profiling in America

First, I owe you an apology.  I have lived in a figurative House of Plague this past month, as an influenza and cold-type virus invaded at the beginning of the month, working their way through everyone.  I'm finally over the worst of it.

Michael Brown - in a photo uploaded to Facebook by a friend

I've been reading about all the problems in Ferguson, and I find myself deeply troubled over the entire situation.  Morally, I believe that Officer Darren Wilson tremendously overreacted when he shot Michael Brown after talking to him for jaywalking.  I cannot express the level of overreaction; no one deserves to be shot or even threatened for jaywalking.

As for the Grand Jury refusing to indict Officer Wilson of any crime - I read that as one of two possibilities, either one bad.  The first possibility is that all of the people on the jury are prejudiced and/or biased against black teens, and feel that the officer did nothing wrong.  The second, and perhaps scarier possibility, is that Officer Wilson actually did nothing wrong legally and therefore did not merit an indictment.  If Officer Wilson followed police procedures, then we have a screwed-up system in place for the police to follow, and that needs to be changed pronto.

Let me disclose up front that I am a white woman living in suburban Atlanta.  The police here are friendly and respectful to me, and I have never had a conversation with a police officer who was less than completely cordial.  

I have a black friend here with a different experience. She gets pulled over approximately once a month for various excuses, though  the most common two are "I couldn't read your license plate" and "I think I saw a brake light out".   Mind you, her car is always clean, her license plate always readable, and her brake lights are never out.  She is getting pulled over for being black.

Her brother gets pulled over twice as much for the same lame reasons.

While the police officers are basically respectful to my friend, often apologizing for their mistake about her license plate or brake lights, her brother doesn't get apologies, or sometimes even common courtesy.  He gets harassed, for doing nothing more than driving a car under the speed limit with being a black man.

My husband has a friend who is black and drives a full-sized van.  He never speeds, never drives wildly, and never touches his cell phone behind the wheel.  But every single time he drives down I-75 to visit friends at Warner-Robbins Air Force Base (he's ex-military), he gets pulled over by police, who try to search his van.

Every.  Single. Time. 

A full-sized van - clearly black men only drive these to transport drugs, right?

The police approach him as they would a known drug dealer, acting belligerent and disrespectful.  The friend acts respectful, asks the officers why they pulled him over, and talks about his time in the military.  It's the military talk that gets to most officers, as they calm down and realize that this man might be black and driving a van, but he's not dealing drugs.

While relating this story to me, he told me that an officer once asked him why he drove the van.  Didn't he know that the police would pull him over more because of it?

I am still stunned at that question.  Why should anyone consider a police officer's reaction when buying a car?  Why should a police officer label any particular type of car as criminal?

The worse part is - none of these police officer will ever get into trouble because they are acting as expected and following police procedures.

American police racially profile everyone on the street and everyone that they interact with while on duty.  That means that black women who are not doing anything currently suspicious get a cursory search, and black men get treated as if they are guilty of a crime.  Black women who act suspicious get treated as black men.  Middle-eastern teen and men are all terrorists, and all Hispanic-looking people are potentially illegal.

Meanwhile, poor white people are treated like innocent black women, middle-class white people get treated with respect and given the benefit of the doubt in most situations, and rich white people are virtually untouchable.

For those who don't believe me, I suggest you read "Police Searches of Black and White Motorists" by Frank R. Baumgartner, Derek A. Epp, and Bayard Love.  Published in August 2014, this study covers police stops in Durham, NC from 2003 to 2013.  During this time, police stopped black motorists almost 1.5 as many times as white motorists, with over twice the search rates.

More telling are the reasons for the stops.  White people are pulled over on stops with more concrete evidence of wrong-doing, such as driving while impaired.  Black people are pulled over on more discretionary stops.
 
We, as a society, need to change how we treat each other.  The human body contains between 70,000 and 80,000 genes.  Only 378 genes are used to determine skin color - that means less than one half of a percent is used to determine whether a person is a shade of black, white, or brown.

As far as we know, these 378 genes don't control behavior, attitude, height, weight, or any other genetic trait.  All they determine is the color of a person's skin.

Come on, people, we need to let go of these prejudices.  We need to treat everyone as equal, regardless of our differences.  We need to treat each other with respect and politeness.  Otherwise, black men will never be safe walking down the streets.  And that is not okay.

Bibliography:

• Strachan T, Read AP. Human Molecular Genetics. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss; 1999. Chapter 7, Organization of the human genome. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7587/ 

The Conundrum of Racial Profiling

I must start out by saying that I, personally, have never been a victim of racial profiling. In fact, I might have benefited from reverse racial profiling occasionally since I'm white (for the record, my genetic makeup is over half Germanic, with Scottish and Irish thrown in for good measure). I believe racial profiling hurts everyone in a community, which is ironic since the people who use racial profiling firmly believe that the practice helps communities.

First, let me provide my own internal definition of racial profiling:

racial profiling:  the practice of law enforcement to use a person's ethnicity or race to determine whether or not to engage the individual (e.g. traffic stop)

I have a friend, Tiffany, who lives in a nearby community, Acworth, GA.  Tiffany and her brother get stopped by the local law enforcement about 2 dozen times every year for the same crime - DWB.

Never heard of DWB before?  Then chances are that you are white, because DWB stands for Driving While Black.

Tiffany and her brother always have the same conversation with the officers:

Yes, I live around here.  Yes, I have a driver's license.  No, you may not search my vehicle.  Why did you pull me over?  Oh, because you thought my brake light was out.  Wow - it seems to be working now.

They never get tickets, but they have gotten the message that the police do not like black people in Acworth.

That is problem number one with racial profiling - the practice leads the people who fit the profile feeling as though the local law enforcement is negatively biased towards them (which they are.).  That leads people to mistrust the police, causing a whole new raft of problems.

Problem number two is the real conundrum - racial profiling creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Think about it. If a police officer pulls over black people two times more than white people, simple probability says that the officer will find two times as many black criminals.   That leads to more racial profiling, leading to bigger probabilities of finding black criminals v.s. white criminals, leading to more racial profiling.  The vast majority of today's "statistics" that support racial profiling rest on this type of biased information.

How does this hurt communities?  Yes, and here's how:

1. Racial profiling does not lessen the number of criminals in non-profiled groups.  It may lead a police officer to pull over the wrong vehicle or overlook the real criminals in search of profiled citizens. 
2. As I stated before, racial profiling leads to distrust of the police, which leads people to handle situations better handled by the police because the people don't want the police involved since they cannot be trusted to do what is right.   
3. A basic principle of our legal system is presumption of innocence - a person is considered innocent until proven guilty.  Racial profiling goes directly against this principle - people are presumed guilty until the officer finds them innocent.    

So why am I writing this post?  Why do I care?

I care because if we ever want this practice to stop, we all need to stand up and acknowledge the truth of what is going on.  Because I feel like I am silently condoning this practice if I do nothing.  Because I want my children and grandchildren to live in a better world, and getting rid of racial profiling would be a step in the right direction.