Racist Profiling: Why Do Mainstream Media and Officials Ignore the Data?
One glaring aspect of the mainstream media’s treatment of the Gates incident is its general failure to discuss research data on racial profiling. Data-free opinions increasingly trump investigative reporting seeking empirical evidence. Racist profiling of African Americans and other Americans of color of color remains widespread. There is much empirical evidence.
One Gallup poll found that 83 percent of the black respondents thought that racial profiling was widespread, and in another recent poll some 20 percent of black respondents reported that they had faced such such racial profiling or other discrimination by police in the last 30 days.
A recent ACLU report has summarized racial-profiling research studies involving numerous police departments as showing
large differences in the rate of stops and searches for African Americans and Latinos, and often, Indians (Native Americans) and Asians, even though these groups are less likely to have contraband.
There have also been a number of recent court settlements. In 2008 the ACLU and other plaintiffs settled a class action lawsuit on racial profiling by Maryland State Police (MSP) officers in the Interstate 95 corridor. Studies over a long period showed motorists of color were disproportionately targeted and stopped and searched without good reason. An ACLU report notes that the settlement
agreement provides substantial damages to the individual plaintiffs, a requirement that the MSP retain an independent consultant to assess its progress towards eliminating the practice of racial profiling, and a joint statement by all parties involved in the lawsuit condemning racial profiling and highlighting the importance of taking preventative action against this practice in the future.
This profiling by police is not the only racial profiling that Americans of color face. Researchers Thomas Ainscough, Carol Motley, and Anne-Marie Harris, among others, have reported on audit and other studies that show discriminatory treatment of black and white customers in retail establishments, including poor service and various kinds of surveillance, searches, and neglect routines.
A recent Southern Poverty Law Center report Under Siege: Life for Low-Income Latinos in the South found too that in southern areas Latinos
are routinely cheated out of their earnings and denied basic health and safety protections. They are regularly subjected to racial profiling and harassment by law enforcement. . . . And they are frequently forced to prove themselves innocent of immigration violations, regardless of their legal status. (p. 4)
Numerous other studies (see here) show these patterns for many other walks of live, for African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Middle Eastern Americans. Many whites seem predisposed to see African Americans and other Americans of color as inherently deviant or criminal, a centuries-old idea in the white racial framing of this society. It is no wonder black men like Professor Gates often run into this problem. It probably happens millions of times a year in the United States.
One can think of a number of strategies against profiling. For several years, U.S. House member John Conyers and U.S. Senator Russ Feingold have introduced the End Racial Profiling Act, which prohibits racial profiling and requires law enforcement departments to collect stop-and-search data, to have effective complaint procedures, and to insure that those abused by police departments have a right to sue. This legislation has yet to be passed. (Guess why?) In May 2008 even the United Nations Special Rapporteur on racism called on the US Congress to pass the End Racial Profiling Act, as well as to set up an investigative commission to examine continuing racial discrimination.
Interestingly, there are modest educational steps that might help somewhat. Thus, in one psychological study Canadian researchers showed 264 photos of Chinese, black, and white male faces to 20 whites. After they had been trained these volunteers for hours on seeing subtle differences in these human faces, white volunteers were less likely to associate negative words and concepts with black faces than they were before the training. One researcher suggests that such training in seeing facial differences might reduce racial profiling by police and others. What do you think?
August 1st, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Give me some time to read the research, I’ll get back to you on what I think about the training in facial differences. Just off the top of my head, I can imagine that the process humanizes people of color.
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In regards to the entire post – 2 thumbs up!
August 1st, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Hey all,
So i am a big fan of the shooter studies of Joshua Correll and the priming stuff of Jennifer Eberhardt (so, unlike No1Kstate, I will pull and Obama and speak before I know all the facts). Both of their work pretty convincingly shows that whites (and most people of color) will react to danger faster if they are primed with “blackness” in any number of ways. (Interestingly Eberhardts work shows that cops primed with whiteness slow their reaction times to the point of putting themselves in danger if the armed perp is white. How is that for white privliedge? The thing that bothers me in Corrells work especially is he shows that in the lab after some training cops and lay people can get their reaction times down and eliminate the bias. However, he fails to mention that cops have already had a TON of training, and after all this training, when they are brought into the lab they still have “fear of a black planet” and shoot before thinking. So. basically, we don’t know the duration of these effects, and I would tend to argue (again in an Obama-like fashion) that the effects won’t last that long, given the pervasiveness of the white racial frame when the officer leaves the lab and go back to their typical day of profiling Dr. Gates. I guess doing a day after follow up to Correll’s work would be a publishable extension…
August 1st, 2009 at 6:39 pm
The End Racial Profiling Act has died on the congressional vine since the 107th Congress being introduced in one, if not both Houses, in each of the last 4 congresses before the current 111th Congress.
August 1st, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Victor, thanks, can you post a few of those cites in a little more detail, for our viewers. Thanks.
August 1st, 2009 at 7:35 pm
@ Victor Ray – Have I done something to offend you? What’s the matter?
August 1st, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Nevermind, VR. After re-reading it a few times, I’m almost certain you’re not insulting me.
August 1st, 2009 at 11:18 pm
Hey No1K
I have never had any desire to offend you. I was apparently pretty poorly saying that you were being a little smarter than I by not speaking before you knew all the facts. So, the pieces I am talking about are by Joshua Correll at the University of Chicago. The piece is called “Across the Thin Blue Line: Police Officers and the Decision to Shoot” (2007). The point I was apparently un-eloquently making was that his research shows that you can train people to not have a split second reaction to blacks, but it ignores the fact that the duration of that training is unknown. So, how long this “training” lasts is an open question.
Eberhardts research is available here:http://www.stanford.edu/~eberhard/
She shows that priming whites with terms like “jazz” or “basketball” makes them more likely to perceive a weapon emerging from a background, (check the site if I am not being clear) and that this can actually make cops less likely to see a weapon when a white person is holding it.
Of course, all this is in a lab, generalizations from there to the real world are fraught, etc. But, it is very suggestive….
I hope I have been more clear that in my last post. And No1, no harm intended. I was making fun of myself for commenting before I had read the research, which you had (intelligently) refused to do.
August 2nd, 2009 at 12:10 am
@ VR – Yeah. I realized you were being self-depricating after a few reads, but thanks for being clear about it. That was really sweet. ;}
August 2nd, 2009 at 12:48 am
One of the references to rates of searches (the first) in the summary report refers to “Driving while Black or Brown,” another ACLU report about traffic stops in Arizona (http://www.acluaz.org/DrivingWhileBlackorBrown.pdf). I looked it up.
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Taking just a naive look at the report, what strikes me is how well-calibrated the stops and searches actually are. The report shows the blacks, whites, and hispanics are stopped just about in proportion to their percentage of the population in Arizona. They are searched at different rates, but the “hit rate” — the rate at which contraband is found — is closer to equal. Virtually identical for blacks and whites (34-38%), lower for hispanics (22%). That means that, although blacks and hispanics are more likely to be searched, they’re also more likely to be carrying drugs.
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This may or may not mean that racial profiling is actually going on, and it doesn’t address the fairness or rightness of profiling, but it does suggest that the cops are acting more or less rationally — the likelihood of being searched varies directly with the likelihood of carrying contraband. It does appear that hispanics could have a reasonable gripe, but you’d like to know something about the background crime rates before you concluded anything.
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So here’s the conclusion I’m leading up to: there’s evidence here that both sides are arguing in good faith. Blacks and hispanics ARE searched more frequently than whites, and they ARE more likely to be breaking the law. That’s where the discussion starts, not where it ends, of course.
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I thought many of the recommendations in “Driving while” were very sensible:
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“Consent searches” strike me as a farce, although you could just as easily suggest an education campaign informing drivers that they don’t have to consent. When a cop asks if it’s okay to search your car, the implication is clear. (By the way, ACLU publishes a card with advice when dealing with a cop; somebody should send one to Professor Gates.)
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A/V equipment for police vehicles makes good sense for all. If I were a cop, I’d insist on it, since it’s just as likely to protect him. Put in cameras! The sooner the better.
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The ACLU omits what would be the best solution — abandonment of the harmful, costly, and failed “war against drugs.”
August 2nd, 2009 at 8:30 am
Hi Darren,
That report is actually pretty clear that racial profiling is going on. In fact, that is the reason the report was written, to establish that fact. Also, if as the report claims, the so-called “hit-rate” for whites were slightly higher for contraband (for example page 9 claims they were 38% for whites vs. 34% for blacks on average) even though whites were less likely to be searched than people of color, it does not mean that “both sides are in good faith.” This dose not mean, as you claim, “the likelihood of being searched varies directly with the likelihood of carrying contraband.” It means that if whites are being caught at a greater absolute rate than people of color white they are being searched less, it varies inversely with the likelihood. From this follows 2 things. 1) if whites were searched at they same absolute rate they would most likely be seen to be carrying contraband (we can’t be sure because this is probabilistic, but we have good evidence that white teens are more likely to carry weapons to school, and sell/consume drugs at much higher rates than people of color 2) law enforcement in is dereliction of duty (and dishonest) because they are focusing their resources on people of color who aren’t breaking the law, while ignoring whites who are. This is basic statistics and logic. In fact, if you had read the next page of the article it shows results from a national study that whites are much more likely to be carrying drugs than people of color nationally. This is clear evidence that law enforcement in this country is suffering from a form of what Charles Mills calls “white moral cognitive dysfunction”-a collective hallucination and inability to see their own immoral behavior in the face of clear, scientific, unequivocal evidence that if they were not busy chasing blacks, latinos, and native americans the U.S. would be a safer place.