| Feingold and Conyers introduce the End Racial Profiling Act Unfinished business |
By Jonathan Gramling Back in the 1990s, Madison’s Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) took on the issue of racial profiling and held several public hearings on the topic. Racial profiling — often referred to as ‘Driving While Black’ — is when law enforcement officials use racial indicators — and racial stereotypes — to apprehend suspected offenders or to look for crimes that may have or may not have happened. The EOC’s efforts were a part of nationwide movement to study racial profiling and end its causes. “An awful lot of work was done across the country, said Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP Washington Bureau, during a telephone interview with The Capital City Hues. “Hearings were held by organizations like the NAACP. Even our friends like the ACLU and other organizations collected the data that was necessary. In a lot of local communities, there was concern about the issue and as such, they began to collect the data as well. We found that most Americans believed that racial profiling occurred and it shouldn’t. And they believed that something should be done to stop it. As a matter of fact, the Harris Poll and the Gallup Poll and the CNN Poll all found that right around 80-85 percent of the American people of all races, genders and ethnicities believed that racial profiling was a problem in America and needed to be addressed. And there was a movement to do that.” The NAACP and its allies also found that racial profiling wasn’t an issue solely restricted to the African American community. “We found out here in the east coast and the Washington, D.C. area, in particular the area around Maryland, there are issues of Asians being stopped with the assumption that if there are 3-4 Asian males in the car together, there is some kind of Asian gang or tong if you happen to be Chinese,” Shelton said. “If we looked at the west coast, we saw complaints coming from California that it became ‘Driving While Brown.’ Then as we talked to our friends in the Native American community, we found that in areas around Native American reservations, it became a ‘Driving While Red’ issue. They pulled someone over because of the assumption that if you happened to be Black or Asian in certain areas or Hispanic in certain areas that you were more likely to be a suspect in a crime, even if no crime had been committed.” Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) introduced companion legislation in the U.S. House and Senate respectively. The End Racial Profiling movement was picking up a lot of momentum and was becoming a bi-partisan issue when Attorney General John Ashcroft took measures to prevent racial profiling in law enforcement agencies under his jurisdiction. And then September 11, 2001 happened and the bottom fell out of the movement. The NAACP has found that racial profiling is still occurring on a national basis. And in some areas, it has been proliferated through some measures taken post-9/11, especially as it related to the Arab American community. “As we looked across the country, we continued to see that even after 9/11, people complained across the country of the same problems with law enforcement that we had before September 11,” Shelton said. “So we began working from that point to try to build a coalition working with law enforcement, working with other agencies, working with other groups and other people to try to make sure that as we moved to address this problem, that if legislation is what was needed — and we do believe that legislation is desperately needed — that it would capture the post-9/11 world of the United States We have gotten to a point now where it is clear that something needs to be done through a coalition effort.” What also helped improve the climate for End Racial Profiling legislation was the recapturing of both houses of Congress by the Democrats in 2006. The previous effort’s most ardent congressional supporters, Rep. Conyers and Sen. Feingold, were now in key leadership positions with Conyers chairing the House Judiciary Committee and Feingold chairing the Constitutional Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Shelton feels that especially in a post-9/11 environment, that this bill will aid law enforcement in using their finite resources wisely. “This act will make homeland security stronger and more efficient,” Shelton said. “What we have been experiencing is such a broad net gets cast when at times law enforcement feels the necessity to track down a suspect, especially if that suspect happens to be someone of color. And what ends up happening is that you cast such a broad net that the bad guy slips through. In the case of homeland security, if what you are worried about is terrorists — and they should be worried about terrorists — then knowing that the last terrorist may have been Saudi Arabian and if I go after every Saudi Arabian makes no sense because the next terrorist attempt was done by someone who happened to be Hispanic. And then the next terrorism attempt was done by someone who was White. And don’t forget before September 11, there was Oklahoma City. And domestic terrorism is equally as deadly if not more challenging for law enforcement to address. And we’re talking about finite resources available to work to prevent these terrorist attacks form occurring, you have to be very smart in how you utilize those resources if you want to be effective. You can’t afford to throw such a broad net. A broad net means you have big holes and big holes are where the smart terrorist goes through with the intention of inflicting harm on our country.” Dealing with reality and not the stereotypes of someone’s imagination is the real way to stop crime and terrorism. And the End Racial Profiling Act may be the vehicle to give law enforcement the right focus and resources to get the job done right. |
| NAACP's Hilary Shelton |