Cops Are Missing the Bad Guys While Profiling the Black Guys

David A. Love

Executive Editor, BlackCommentator.com

Posted: February 17, 2011 10:55 AM

The history of African Americans is one of great accomplishments amidst the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. That legacy follows black people, and particularly black men, to this day. And it is enough to make you red-hot burning mad. Although some are ready to usher in a new post-racial era of colorblindness, it is clear that their efforts are grossly premature.

In America, race is a proxy for violence. Black men are regarded as a criminal element, and racial profiling is a practice that goes far beyond the justice system. It is culturally ingrained and normalized. In the days of old, when black people were not allowed to roam about unattended or without permission, slave patrols policed the plantations and hunted down fugitives.

Similarly, today, police sweep through communities of color, searching for criminals. Any black man will do. And cops are searching for drugs, not because black or Latino people use the most drugs, but because of preference, of policy. Drug use among white youth is greater than among youth of color, but you will never see the police descend upon the nation's college campuses, round up those who "fit the description" and force them to endure a demeaning arrest. After all, society views them as the victims. Society has already decided who should be designated as its criminals, even if the "suspects" are as innocuous and upstanding as Henry Louis Gates -- a Harvard professor who was arrested for standing on his front porch and attempting to enter his own home. But status is not what counts; it's all about race.

Twelve Angry Men: True Stories of Being a Black Man in America Today is a new book which tells the first-person accounts of black men who, like Professor Gates, have been there. These twelve men were victims of racial profiling, at the wrong place at the wrong time -- which for a black man could mean anywhere. Edited by Gregory S. Parks and Matthew W. Hughey, Twelve Angry Mencontains a powerful introduction by Harvard law professor Lani Guinier.

A diverse group of people shares their encounters with the police, including a New York Timesreporter who was detained while on assignment; Joe Morgan, a baseball legend who was racially profiled at LAX; Joshua T. Wiley, a hip hop artist who is constantly harassed by police, and Paul Butler, a law professor and former federal prosecutor who was stopped by the cops for living in a nice neighborhood. Meanwhile, Byron Bain, a Harvard Law student, was told by his arresting officer that he must attend the school on a "ball scholarship." Bain compiled a tragically comical "Bill of Rights for Black Men," which includes as its first and second amendments, "Congress can make no law altering the established fact that a black man is a n****r," and "The right of any white person to apprehend a n****r will not be infringed." Newly arrived, foreign-born black men with British accents are not immune from profiling and arrest. Even lawmakers are not exempt, as Congressman Danny Davis recounts his experience of racial profiling by the Chicago police while driving home from his weekly radio show.

Throughout the book, which is factual yet reads like a novel, these twelve men share the humiliation of being told that you are not allowed in a certain neighborhood, and the terror that comes with having a gun pointed to your head. Told where they can and cannot go and forced to produce their identification, they compare their experiences to antebellum slaves, black South Africans under apartheid, and Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. One man, who was stopped at least once a month and as many as three times, had to leave home early enough in order to account for the possibility of being stopped. Perhaps one of the more appalling cases was of a boy in Prince George's County, Maryland, who was accused of shoplifting by a police officer moonlighting as a department store security guard. The guard made the youth take off his shirt, go home and return with his sales receipt to prove that he purchased it. The young man was awarded$850,000 in damages by a federal jury.

Although much of Twelve Angry Men deals with the anecdotal and the personal, the book also delves into the statistical, including a report on racial profiling as practiced by the New York Police Department. According to the report, which was released by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), race, not crime, drives police stops and frisks. This is what blacks and Latinos have been saying for years. And no matter what the neighborhood -- low crime or high crime, black, Latino, white or mixed, the results are always the same.

For example, 80 percent of the stops made by the NYPD between 2005 and 2008 were of African Americans, who are only 25 percent of the city's population. Whites, who make up 44 percent of the city's population, were stopped only 10 percent of the time. Over the past six years, nearly half of all stops were made on the basis of a vague category called "furtive movements," while only 15 percent cited "fits relevant description." In over half of the stops, the officers noted "high crime area" as an "additional circumstance," even in low crime areas.

"CCR has been litigating against the NYPD's racial profiling and suspicionless stops-and-frisks since 1999. For its part, during all this time, the police have claimed that they stop people based upon reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed, based upon a description of a perpetrator, and as an effective tool to get guns off the street," Vincent Warren, CCR's executive director, recently told me. "The significance of this report is that New York City must finally come to grips with its racial profiling problem. There are hundreds of thousands of innocent Black and Brown New Yorkers who daily suffer the indignities of these illegal police tactics. And the police department should be protecting them and not harassing them."

Reading Twelve Angry Men made me angry, not because the subject matter was brand new to me, but because it was far too familiar -- not only as a black man, but also as a human rights advocate who worked with police brutality victims and their families back in the 1990s and decided to go to law school as a result. Whether or not racial profiling is a new subject for you, this book should spark some discussions. And bringing this problem into the light is the only way we can begin to fight it. Black folks are not the only victims of racial profiling, to be sure. But examining America's badge of slavery is a good place to start.

David A. Love is the Executive Editor of BlackCommentator.com, and a contributor to the Progressive Media Project, theGrio and McClatchy-Tribune News Service. He is based in Philadelphia and is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. His blog is davidalove.com.

 

Follow David A. Love on Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidalove

Not surprised about black migration to burbs

© Copyright 2010 Sun-Times Media, LLC
BY MARY MITCHELL marym@suntimes.com Feb 17, 2011 2:08AM

It doesn’t surprise me that Chicago lost 200,418 people over the last decade.

I moved out of the city in the early ’80s because I couldn’t afford an apartment in a decent neighborhood. So I get why the city lost nearly 17 percent of its black population between 2000 and 2010.

Black people want the same thing white people want. They want to feel safe. They want to send their children to decent schools. They want to look outside their windows and see grass or Lake Michigan.

Like every other group, the more money black people make, the less tolerant they are of conditions that result in a lower standard of living.

The Census data is positive for the African-American community because it suggests that a lot more blacks are moving on up.

But just as there was a downside to the end of segregation, which ultimately led to the shutdown of a lot of black-owned businesses in black communities, there is a downside to this trend.

Because of the city’s continued pattern of segregated housing, Chicago stands the chance of becoming a city further polarized by both race and class. The data also suggest that the Chicago Housing Authority’s Plan for Transformation may have reshaped the south suburbs.

For instance, a Sun-Times analysis of tract- level Census estimates shows that some of the south suburbs, where many of the dislocated residents moved, saw the greatest decreases in population.

Ford Heights, Robbins, Harvey, Riverdale, Hodgkins, Bensenville and Riverdale experienced double-digit decreases in population.

Meanwhile, neighborhoods located on the Near South Side and along the lakefront that were once populated by African Americans have switched from black to white.

Interestingly, two black luminaries who have passed on warned us about the political ramifications of African Americans abandoning the city for the suburbs.

Until her death last year, Margaret Burroughs, co-founder of the DuSable Museum, lived in the mansion where she founded the museum at 38th and Michigan despite the crime associated with nearby public housing.

During my first interview with Burroughs, she expressed concern that so many middle-class blacks were moving to the suburbs. She warned that the exodus would not only dilute African-American voting strength, but would also leave historic Bronzeville housing stock up for grabs.

And Dempsey J. Travis, who was a prolific writer, thinker, businessman and civil rights activist, never passed up the opportunity to chide those of us who had fled the city for the suburbs looking for greener pastures.

In a 2001 interview about the 2000 Census, which showed Chicago still had all-black blocks even in middle-class neighborhoods like Chatham, Travis exploded.

“We’ve been sending black folks to all the other communities. Send some white folks out here,” he said. “It certainly has nothing to do with economics and education because people who live here make $200,000 a year, and some are multimillionaires. It’s not culture or money; it’s plain racism.”

A decade later, Chatham is battling serious crime, and more middle-class blacks are opting for the ’burbs.

Space concerns pushed Sharon Evans, and her husband, Ernest, from the South Loop to Matteson.

Sharon has big-city girl written all over her. When she told me she had moved way out to the far south suburb, I was curious.

“We had a two-bedroom town house and we needed more space. We also factored in that we have parents that are old and [South Loop] was not a senior-friendly place,” she said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

Although Evans looked for housing in “The Gap,” a trendy area on South King Drive, the price wasn’t right, and a drive through the area after dark led to some concerns.

“We would have loved to be somewhere in “The Gap,” but Ernest, who travels a lot, didn’t feel comfortable leaving me and my aging mother there in a house alone,” she said.

“We are happy in the ’burbs. But if you had asked us about moving out here five years ago, I would have laughed like crazy.”

The migration of blacks from city to suburbs is no different than the migration of other groups. Still, this population shift might hurt blacks here a great deal more.

Unfortunately, it suggests that the dire warnings of a past generation have come to pass.

Not surprised about black migration to burbs

© Copyright 2010 Sun-Times Media, LLC
BY MARY MITCHELL marym@suntimes.com Feb 17, 2011 2:08AM

It doesn’t surprise me that Chicago lost 200,418 people over the last decade.

I moved out of the city in the early ’80s because I couldn’t afford an apartment in a decent neighborhood. So I get why the city lost nearly 17 percent of its black population between 2000 and 2010.

Black people want the same thing white people want. They want to feel safe. They want to send their children to decent schools. They want to look outside their windows and see grass or Lake Michigan.

Like every other group, the more money black people make, the less tolerant they are of conditions that result in a lower standard of living.

The Census data is positive for the African-American community because it suggests that a lot more blacks are moving on up.

But just as there was a downside to the end of segregation, which ultimately led to the shutdown of a lot of black-owned businesses in black communities, there is a downside to this trend.

Because of the city’s continued pattern of segregated housing, Chicago stands the chance of becoming a city further polarized by both race and class. The data also suggest that the Chicago Housing Authority’s Plan for Transformation may have reshaped the south suburbs.

For instance, a Sun-Times analysis of tract- level Census estimates shows that some of the south suburbs, where many of the dislocated residents moved, saw the greatest decreases in population.

Ford Heights, Robbins, Harvey, Riverdale, Hodgkins, Bensenville and Riverdale experienced double-digit decreases in population.

Meanwhile, neighborhoods located on the Near South Side and along the lakefront that were once populated by African Americans have switched from black to white.

Interestingly, two black luminaries who have passed on warned us about the political ramifications of African Americans abandoning the city for the suburbs.

Until her death last year, Margaret Burroughs, co-founder of the DuSable Museum, lived in the mansion where she founded the museum at 38th and Michigan despite the crime associated with nearby public housing.

During my first interview with Burroughs, she expressed concern that so many middle-class blacks were moving to the suburbs. She warned that the exodus would not only dilute African-American voting strength, but would also leave historic Bronzeville housing stock up for grabs.

And Dempsey J. Travis, who was a prolific writer, thinker, businessman and civil rights activist, never passed up the opportunity to chide those of us who had fled the city for the suburbs looking for greener pastures.

In a 2001 interview about the 2000 Census, which showed Chicago still had all-black blocks even in middle-class neighborhoods like Chatham, Travis exploded.

“We’ve been sending black folks to all the other communities. Send some white folks out here,” he said. “It certainly has nothing to do with economics and education because people who live here make $200,000 a year, and some are multimillionaires. It’s not culture or money; it’s plain racism.”

A decade later, Chatham is battling serious crime, and more middle-class blacks are opting for the ’burbs.

Space concerns pushed Sharon Evans, and her husband, Ernest, from the South Loop to Matteson.

Sharon has big-city girl written all over her. When she told me she had moved way out to the far south suburb, I was curious.

“We had a two-bedroom town house and we needed more space. We also factored in that we have parents that are old and [South Loop] was not a senior-friendly place,” she said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

Although Evans looked for housing in “The Gap,” a trendy area on South King Drive, the price wasn’t right, and a drive through the area after dark led to some concerns.

“We would have loved to be somewhere in “The Gap,” but Ernest, who travels a lot, didn’t feel comfortable leaving me and my aging mother there in a house alone,” she said.

“We are happy in the ’burbs. But if you had asked us about moving out here five years ago, I would have laughed like crazy.”

The migration of blacks from city to suburbs is no different than the migration of other groups. Still, this population shift might hurt blacks here a great deal more.

Unfortunately, it suggests that the dire warnings of a past generation have come to pass.

Black filmmakers discouraged by lack of Oscar-nominated African-Americans

By Stephen Whitty/The Star-Ledger 

LEE CELANO/AFP/Getty ImagesOscar winners, Denzel Washington and Halle Berry hold their awards in this 2002 file photo.

The Oscars can sometimes be predictable, and sometimes only seem to be. But there is one person you definitely will not see picking up a major award on Feb. 27.

A famous African-American.

Any famous African-American.

For the first time since the 2000 Oscars — the year of "Gladiator" — it’s an all-white race. Director, actor, actress — even the supporting-performance categories are monochromatic. (The closest you might come is Hailee Steinfeld, of "True Grit," whose mother is reportedly of white, Asian and African-American descent.)

"I don’t want to make this just another whine," says Warrington Hudlin, head of New York’s Black Filmmaker Foundation (and veteran producer of projects like "Boomerang" and TV’s "Bebe’s Kids"). "There are ebbs and flows, I know. But I was very disappointed this year."

"It’s really discouraging," agrees Tim Gordon, a Washington, D.C., film journalist and chief of the Foundation for the Advancement of African-Americans in Film. "I don’t want to be a conspiracy theorist, though; There are probably a lot of factors."

There are certainly a number of theories. That, with the Obama election won, Hollywood has forgotten about race. That plenty of Oscar-caliber talents (Will Smith, Spike Lee) weren’t very active this year. That most of the films blacks did make were, in Gordon’s words, simply "gosh-darn awful."

But the most obvious explanation? Look at the best-picture list. And even with the expanded roster of 10 nominees, not one had a single, sizable role for an African-American. How can black actors be nominated if they’re not being cast?

EMPOWERING IMAGINATIONS

The problem, the numbers suggest, begins behind the camera.

According to the Directors Guild of America — which doesn’t track employment — only about 10 percent of its membership isn’t white. At the Writer’s Guild of America, all minorities, combined, account for about 6 percent of screenplays, a figure that hasn’t changed in years.

"Actually, I’m working on a new report on that now," says Darnell M. Hunt, director of UCLA’s Ralph Bunche Center for African-American Studies. "And it has changed. It’s gone down to about 5 percent."

It’s an old-boy situation and hardly new (women, taken separately, are even more underrepresented), but it leads to an obvious problem. If people tend to write what they know, then that overwhelmingly white majority of screenwriters aren’t going to write black characters.

"Actually, I’m beginning to like it better when they just leave us out," says Miriam J. Petty, an assistant professor of visual and performing arts at Rutgers and a member of the Newark Black Film Festival’s selection committee. "Because they so often get it wrong."

Unless they’re there to specifically talk about prejudice ("You never have white people sitting around in a movie talking about race," Petty says), black characters generally fill one of a few stereotypes. The "sassy" friend. The selfless caregiver. The villain. The whore. The clown.

"It’s unfortunate that there aren’t a variety of roles, and a lot of our members express that conflict," says Rebecca Yee, the Screen Actors Guild’s National Director of Diversity and Affirmative Action. "They don’t want to have to play to a stereotype. But they feel they should be able to play anything. And, you know, a paycheck is a paycheck."

Not only do writers rarely write for African-Americans, directors rarely use black performers in parts that aren’t defined by race — vastly limiting access to Oscar-ready material. A few superstars — Denzel Washington, Will Smith — occasionally get roles a white actor could play. But most casting agents aren’t color-blind.

"I understand the theory that we’re not seeing a lot of African-American actors because the roles aren’t being written," Yee says. "But a lot of roles aren’t race-specific, and members tell us they’re never considered for those. The default seems to be, well, if it’s not specified in the script, than it’s a Caucasian male. And that’s who gets cast."

EMPOWERING FILMMAKERS

So, if studios simply hired a wider variety of people, we’d see more diverse movies — and a more diverse group of Oscar winners?

Not necessarily.

First, there has to be a pool to draw from. Although activists like Hudlin have pioneered resources such as castandcrewofcolor.org, a network for minority talent, the pool is going to be shallow until film schools attract a more diverse student body. While evidence is anecdotal, many graduates recount a nearly all-white environment and, says Hunt, "a very alienating experience."

Second, filmmakers who do get an opportunity have to be brave enough to risk making something different, instead of the same-old, same-old.

"Until we get a more diversified studio system, we’re going to see a lot of the same regurgitated stories," Gordon says. "I mean, Tyler Perry’s got another ‘Madea’ film. Martin Lawrence has a new ‘Big Momma’ film. Great — two more movies about guys dressed up like women!"

Some are hopeful that now that he has some Hollywood leverage, Perry will move from broad comedies to drama — see last year’s "Precious," which he helped produce, and this year’s "For Colored Girls," which he directed.

"That movie shows him getting out of his comfort zone — like the R&B guy who one day says, ‘You know, I can do jazz, too,’" Hudlin says. "I’m still hopeful about Tyler Perry. Actually, I thought there was an extraordinary set of performances in ‘Colored Girls’ — Kimberly Elise, Phylicia Rashad, Thandie Newton — that was overlooked by the Academy."

But the studio behind "For Colored Girls" didn’t buy big ads touting its actresses for awards. A push by Halle Berry for her own passion project, "Frankie and Alice," resulted in a Golden Globe nomination but nothing else — not even a firm, wide-release opening date.

Other 2010 movies — "Mother and Child," with Samuel L. Jackson and Kerry Washington, "Night Catches Us" with Anthony Mackie, "Brooklyn’s Finest" with Don Cheadle — were ignored, too. There were some potential nominees there. But who saw them? And how can filmmakers make sure more people do?

EMPOWERING AUDIENCES

One option is film festivals, where a particular genre or interest can be nurtured. The Newark Black Film Festival, an annual summertime event, is beginning its 37th year.

"There’s a hunger for more than what Hollywood offers," says Petty. "And there are filmmakers who continue to give us unexpected, interesting works. But you have to seek them out. And what we really try to do here is focus on the conversation afterward, too."

Another option for fans is to look beyond theaters. Hudlin recently had a film project shot on cell phones and uploaded to YouTube; he imagines a near future when filmmakers deal directly with audiences.

"If you stay with the same gatekeepers, you should expect the same results," he says of the old system. "You know, to use a historical analogy, post-slavery there were people who stayed, and people who took a risk and ran, and set up new communities. … Well, I think the internet could be our new community."

Others, though, still have hope for Hollywood — "There’s something to be said for the big tent, and access to that mass market," says Hunt. And while few observers seem convinced the system is ever going to be perfect, they still see an opportunity worth seizing.

"It’s not just black folks," says Petty. "The big studios aren’t terribly interested in nuanced pictures of anyone. But what we can do is make use of this moment when studios have to compete for our attention and show them there’s a market they’re not serving. Because, in the end, the only thing that ever really sways Hollywood is dollars and cents."

Powell questions handling of Iraqi defector

By Dugald McConnell and Brian Todd, CNN

February 17, 2011 12:02 p.m. EST

Iraq informant lied about intelligence

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Colin Powell says U.S. intelligence officials should be questioned over their handling of "Curveball"
• Curveball was an Iraqi defector whose claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction have been discredited
• Curveball's claims helped bolster the Bush administration's case for going to war in Iraq
• Curveball now admits he lied, but says he doesn't regret his actions

(CNN) -- Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday that U.S. intelligence officials should be questioned over their handling of "Curveball," an Iraqi defector whose now discredited claims on weapons of mass destruction helped fuel the Bush administration's drive to war in 2003.

It has become clear over the years that "the source called Curveball was totally unreliable," Powell said in a statement to CNN.

"The question should be put to the CIA and the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) as to why this wasn't known before the false information was put into (a key intelligence estimate) sent to Congress, the president's State of the Union address and my February 5 presentation to the U.N."

Powell, in an address to members of the United Nations Security Council in February 2003, said the U.S. government had "first-hand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels."

"The source was an eyewitness, an Iraqi chemical engineer who supervised one of these facilities," Powell said at the time. "He actually was present during biological agent production runs. He was also at the site when an accident occurred in 1998. Twelve technicians died."

Two months later, the invasion of Iraq began. No biological weapons, no germ labs, and no weapons of mass destruction were found.

The defector, Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, has admitted in an interview with Britain's Guardian newspaper that he lied to help bring down Saddam Hussein's regime.

"I had the chance to fabricate something, to topple the regime," he said. "I did this, and I am satisfied, because there is no dictator in Iraq anymore."

When Alwan spoke to CNN in 2008, he said, "I never told anyone Saddam Hussein was producing weapons of mass destruction."

At the time, intelligence sources told CNN that Alwan had claimed that Iraq had a secret bioweapons program. But now, Alwan admits that after he was granted asylum in Germany in 2000, he used his training as a chemical engineer to concoct for his debriefers a story of Iraqi WMD production.

Although the CIA was not given a chance to interview Alwan directly, and German officials had questioned some aspects of Alwan's story, his assertions were included in the material provided to Powell for his U.N. presentation.

Tyler Drumheller, who was the CIA's chief of European operations at the time, agrees that the "Curveball" information was not well-enough vetted. He says he had reservations at the time about relying on it, but that when he asked for direct CIA access to Alwan through the German intelligence service, he was rebuffed.

A representative of Germany's intelligence service declined to comment.

Drumheller claims top Bush administration officials were too willing to believe Alwan's story "because that was the only piece of intelligence they had that really fit what the administration was looking at."

Former President George W. Bush declined through a spokesman to comment. Representatives for former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and the DIA did not reply to CNN's inquiries.

Former CIA director George Tenet, who was Drumheller's boss, wrote in his memoirs that "perhaps some people's recollections of 'if only someone had listened to me' have become sharper than reality." Without naming names, Tenet said that "concerns about Curveball did not get disseminated far and wide through the agency as they should have been."

Former Homeland Security adviser Frances Townsend says that the U.S. government should seek Alwan's extradition and prosecution, for "intentionally lying and deceiving the U.S. government."

"It absolutely makes my blood boil," she told CNN.

Not all observers are accepting Alwan's claim that his goal in spinning his WMD tale was to free the people of Iraq from Hussein.

"He told the story because he wanted to get out of a refugee camp in Germany," said Bob Drogin, author of a book about the episode. "He wanted to get his wife out and bring her to Germany, he wanted to get citizenship, and he wanted a Mercedes Benz. And he got all of those things."

But in his interview with the Guardian, Alwan said he had already won asylum before he spoke to German intelligence about weapons programs in Iraq, and that telling them his story did not win him a life of ease.

Alwan insisted he is proud of the role he played in the toppling of Hussein. In the video of the interview posted online, he said that if he had it all to do over again, he would say the same thing "because I wouldn't want that regime to continue in our country."

CNN's Frederik Pleitgen and Pam Benson contributed to this report