Driving While Black: Proof It's Happening

There's an issue that every class of black folk are indignent about -- underclass, working class, middle class and even the Black Crusaders. And that's police brutality and harassment. I think 30 or 40 years ago, there was a hope that integration of police forces would help alleviate this problem. But the racist way of dealing with minorities appears to be part and parcel of the culture of U.S. police procedure. Being hassled by the police for little or even no reason is something that has happened in every African-American family. It's not fair. And it needs to stop. Racial profiling is racism. Period. There's an interesting article in CNN that breaks down the phenomenon based on a Justice Dept report that was last released in 2002.

Traffic stops are the most frequent way police interact with the public, accounting for 41 percent of all contacts. An estimated 17.8 million drivers were stopped in 2005.

Black, Hispanic and white motorists were equally likely to be pulled over by police -- between 8 percent and 9 percent of each group. The slight decline in blacks pulled over -- from 9.2 percent in 2002 to 8.1 percent in 2005 -- was not statistically significant, Durose said, and could be the result of random differences.
The raw numbers

The racial disparities showed up after that point:

# Blacks (9.5 percent) and Hispanics (8.8 percent) were much more likely to be searched than whites (3.6 percent). There were slight but statistically insignificant declines compared with the 2002 report in the percentages of blacks and Hispanics searched.

# Blacks (4.5 percent) were more than twice as likely as whites (2.1 percent) to be arrested. Hispanic drivers were arrested 3.1 percent of the time.

Among all police-public contacts, force was used 1.6 percent of the time. But blacks (4.4 percent) and Hispanics (2.3 percent) were more likely than whites (1.2 percent) to be subjected to force or the threat of force by police officers.

People interviewed described police hitting, kicking, pushing, grabbing, pointing a gun or spraying pepper spray at them or threatening to do so. More than four of five felt the force used was excessive, but there were no statistically significant racial disparities among the people who felt that way.

Two years ago, the Bush administration's handling of the 2002 report and its finding of racial disparities generated considerable controversy.

Departing from normal practice, the earlier report was simply posted on the statistics bureau's Web site without any press release announcing it.

The bureau's director at the time, Lawrence A. Greenfeld, appointed by President Bush in 2001, wanted to publicize the racial disparities, but his superiors disagreed, according to a statistics bureau employee.

Greenfeld told his staff he was being moved to a new job following the dispute, according to this employee, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

This time there was a press release.

It's not just in your head. We're not over-sensitive. I think this is an issue that is hard for white people to get because the fear of not knowing what might happen during a police interaction and the humiliation of being treated like a criminal while trying to pick up your kids from school or head to your parents' house or to a dinner party in a different neighborhood just isn't something they experience or hear about. Except from their black friends.

From the article, it sounds like the Bush administration was trying to bury this report in 2002 due to embarrassment. I will be interested to hear the presidential candidates' answers on this issue and I am willing to bet a lot of other minorities are eager to hear their positions on racial profiling too.

Katrina: More Proof George Bush Does Not Care About Black People

Or Americans in general. Rikyrah alerted me to this story so the hat tip goes to her. What can you say about an administration this lazy, incompetent and uncharitable toward its own citizens. In the Washington Post today:

Allies offered $854 million in cash and in oil that was to be sold for cash. But only $40 million has been used so far for disaster victims or reconstruction, according to U.S. officials and contractors. Most of the aid went uncollected, including $400 million worth of oil. Some offers were withdrawn or redirected to private groups such as the Red Cross. The rest has been delayed by red tape and bureaucratic limits on how it can be spent.

In addition, valuable supplies and services -- such as cellphone systems, medicine and cruise ships -- were delayed or declined because the government could not handle them. In some cases, supplies were wasted.

When will Congress open hearings on the Bush administration's continued mishandling of Katrina relief? Why is the Fox News Debate such a high priority for the Congressional Black Caucus and this issue is not?

A28: Tomorrow a National Impeachment Action

The good people of A28.org are serious when it comes to holding our leaders accountable. Unlike many Dems who say we should just "move on" from the deception, mismanagement, poor leadership and crimes of the Bush administration, they are calling on the full force provided by our democracy. Tomorrow.

George Bush and Dick Cheney have lied the nation into a war of aggression, are spying in open violation of the law, and have sanctioned the use of torture. These are high crimes and misdemeanors that demand accountability. Since Congress doesn't seem to get it, on April 28 Americans from Miami, Florida to North Pole, Alaska are going to spell it out for them: IMPEACH!

The goal is to spell out "impeach" across this great country in any way possible, and A28 is providing some cool color-coded Google Maps tools to help you join or build local actions in your own neighborhoods. I hope we'll think about driving local action with tools like these in the future and for causes other than punishing criminals in the White House.

Now go out and do something.

Technorati Tags: impeachment, bush

Racist Republican Draws Hillary in Blackface

I just don't even know what to say about this cartoon by Chris Muir who's popular among the right wing bloggers and papers (h/t John Swift).It's almost like it's no longer as shocking to my system as it used to be. It's so gratuitous, racist and insulting, it's hard to know where to start breaking it down and explaining the many ways in which putting politicians in blackface and using pigeon English is not ok.

Look, white people: I would like to speak for all black people just this once and inform you that we will be happy to let you know when we think a politician or public figure is being patronizing and pandering to us racially speaking. As a group, generally we've got a pretty good handle on the whole racism thing. We don't need your help in recognizing and calling our attention to it. Your help in pushing back on that person and confirming the racism is extremely helpful once we've called it out, e.g. Don Imus. Certainly, calling out racism using blackface as a metaphor is neither welcome nor helpful. Ever. The misuse historically of that image by white entertainers and advertisers to demean and degrade us for humor and profit is still too fresh in our minds for us to feel comfortable with you using it, even if you mean well.

Do you hear any African-Americans criticizing Clinton, Obama or Edwards for pandering to the black community? It's just not a common complaint at the moment. We are eager to hear more from candidates about issues impacting us. For most of us, it feels like it's about time someone paid attention and engaged on more than a superficial level with black voters. Until we start complaining, Chris Muir and the rest of you wingnuts especially -- back it on up and check yourselves.

"Stop Snitching"? -- 60 Minutes, Stop Lying!

(Thanks Dr. Marc Lamont Hill for representin' well against Hannity & Colmes' nonsense.)

I watched 60 Minutes last Sunday making me unusual in my demographic. 60 Minutes' viewers tend to skew not just older but old. The oldest of any show on broadcast TV. Which is why they are trying to bring on some fresh new faces, like the red-hot Anderson Cooper. Hey, if he's good enough to do stories on CNN and Oprah, he must be good enough for 60 Minutes!

Cooper became a hero during Katrina for his passionate, unflinching coverage. Since he hooked up with Oprah, he's got supposed cred with the colored folks, especially the poor ones.

"I think you are the new breed of reporter ... it's so interesting to me that you are the most feeling reporter on TV today." — Oprah

Yet his Stop Snitching story which purported to be a compassionate look at the black underclass and its pathological anti-police culture was so distorted as to be nauseating. It's a false anti-hero credo pumped up by record labels looking to make money through the systematic degradation of the black community. If you really want to hear what everyday black people think about "Stop Snitching", check out the comments here about Cam'ron such as:

I heard about this IGNORANCE….He wasnt even aware of how bad he made black ppl look, not just hip hop artists…They knew who to pick to interview n he fell for the trap… Normally I would say that ‘’he doesnt represent all black ppl, thats just him'’ but this no snitchin foolishness has to stop! *Smh*

And yea, he should be the last person talking about bein ‘’Gangsta!'’

Davey D on MySpace has a good analysis of how wrong 60 Minutes and CBS got this story:

Cooper and the 60 Minutes crew interviewed NY Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and somehow forgot to ask him about the 'No Snitching' ethos that exists within the police department. We didn't hear about the infamous Blue Wall of silence. Nor did we hear about the unsavory practices used by police to get confessions and flip informants. Torture, Blackmail and other manipulations are commonplace. We didn't hear how oftentimes its the police themselves who will snitch on snitches. As we learned in the Atlanta conference that far too often its the police who will dime you out when you try to do the right thing and be a witness to a dangerous criminal. The other irony is that often times its those dangerous criminals who will dime out their crew after the police apply illegal tactics.

Also we didn't hear about the No Snitching ethos that seems to be practiced by our very secretive Vice President Dick Cheney and Presidential aid Karl Rove. We can talk about the lack of snitching around important issues like the War in Iraq, the firing of Federal Judges. Hell let's look at 9-11. Also we shouldn't forget how Cheney went into Stop Snitching mode after he shot his homeboy in the face. The Cheney bunch are the epitome of 'Stop Snitching' . They hold that position much harder then Cam'ron or any other rapper. And yeah try getting too deep into some of these guy's illegal business and you might wind up missing like anyone else.

During the 60 Minutes interview we heard conversation about how big corpora