Even other cops get racially profiled by the NYPD

[bit_pattern]

More white people are pulled over while driving fancy cars than black people are

Have you got stats on this?

 

[bit_pattern]

All he did was ask me to unravel a balled up straw wrapper to prove that's what it was.

So no banging your head against the side of the car, as happened in the article? Well that's a relief!

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

I know of at least two black students who were forced by police (in my nice little Californian college town) to prove ownership when they dared to open the trucks of their own (relatively new) cars. I know of no white student who was even questioned by the police in any way under equivalent circumstances. This paralleled similar circumstances where the two black students were repeatedly questioned by police when just walking to a restaurant in town, or approaching their own homes. I know of zero such situations with white students. Or white anybody. I would add that the black students dressed much better and more formally than I did.

No, two is not a statistically significance number, but I certainly would not dismiss any such claim as absurd use of the "race card." I feel (which I am allowed to do prior to an intellectual proof) that racial profiling by the police still persists, and in places you might never suspect.

I have been accosted by police while sitting in my car in broad daylight in a public parking lot, doing nothing suspicious, and asked to allow them to search my car and show my license and registration. I am white. The same thing has happened to at least two white friends of mine. I see no reason that this type of thing wouldn't happen to black people, too. Do you?

ETA: I live in California, so it's the same state as where you say your two black acquaintances were accosted, indicating even further that this type of thing is not uncommon. Of course, your black friends will walk around for the rest of their lives thinking that they were racially profiled, whereas I just walk around thinking that cops can be really annoying sometimes.

 

[Giordano]

I am unable to identify one white person who was stopped by police when simply opening their parked car trunk and asked to provide proof of ownership. Not one out of the hundreds who might have told me. And yet I know of 2 black people, well dressed, who were stopped by police when they did so. Out of the 4 black students who would feel secure enough to tell me. I am white, but the difference seems very suspicious to me.

Have you ever been asked for proof of ownership when simply opening your car trunk?

 

[Ammonitida]

I have been accosted by police while sitting in my car in broad daylight in a public parking lot, doing nothing suspicious, and asked to allow them to search my car and show my license and registration. I am white. The same thing has happened to at least two white friends of mine. I see no reason that this type of thing wouldn't happen to black people, too. Do you?

ETA: I live in California, so it's the same state as where you say your two black acquaintances were accosted, indicating even further that this type of thing is not uncommon. Of course, your black friends will walk around for the rest of their lives thinking that they were racially profiled, whereas I just walk around thinking that cops can be really annoying sometimes.

Would the same have happened to a white woman?

 

[Travis]

How dare these cops be anti-police!

That is how it works now, right? Any criticism of the police gets you labeled as "anti-police."

 

[Skeptic Tank]

As usual, Doghouse Reilly is making some very good points here.

I've told the story before of my very white self and my very white friends being surrounded by cop cars, including a couple K-9 units, and then screamed out of the car at gunpoint. We had the misfortune of driving past the scene of a recent assault while driving a car vaguely matching a description.

As Doghouse says, when these events happen to white people we are expected (and rightly so) to make sense of them in ways which do not center around our race. We make sense of them as either "that's just how it goes, stuff happens" or "police are out of control" or whatever. But we are not able, let alone encouraged, to view it through the prism of our race.

Blacks and other minorities, and to a great extent women as well, are encouraged to constantly have their group status at the front of their mind during their entire lives. A pretty miserable way to go through life, and the source of a massive amount of stress for them. One of the many unnecessary and completely perverse impacts of insisting on a diverse society, and pushing identity politics.

Of course, it could be greatly mitigated if we just didn't have such a thriving grievance industry working over time to get people to view themselves as eternal victims of anything and everything.

"Professor corrected my grammar and spelling in the paper I turned in? It's because I'm black, isn't it?"

"That magazine on the store shelf has a sexy, scantily clad woman on the cover... I'll just ignore the other magazines over there with shirtless, ripped men on them and decide that somehow this is all a personal attack on me, and that somehow these magazines have something to do with me because I'm female... time to be outraged, whiny, and censorious."

It's just ridiculous.

Of course, this doesn't completely explain things like racial profiling and what these officers have relayed. It likely explains 9 out of 10 cases, or maybe 8 out of 10 if I'm being generous toward the victim narratives.

The problem with these "let's train cops better and let's screen them better before hiring them" suggestions is that it is the exposure to the black community they will have AFTER becoming police, which will turn them "racist" (also known as observant) over time.

Want to stop having racist white cops? Get the black community to stop behaving in ways which completely justify those attitudes taking hold in police officers' minds over time.

 

[Wolrab]

I'll throw my totally unsupported suppositions in.

I know cops have their good ol' boy network. I have DJed at parties and bars where cops (off duty I hope) get extremely drunk and drive. I also know cops that drive every mile like they are responding to an emergency.

How many of these black cops might have been driving like a ...cop, or been drunk driving when pulled over and get unruly but not charged when it is found out they are cops? How many non black cops get pulled over?

 

[bit_pattern]

It's a bit more than being pulled over.

 

[3point14]

I've read writings from others in law enforcement about the testing that they undergo (don't have links handy); and they also tend to screen people who demonstrate too much flexibility in their thinking, which supposedly makes them less likely to obey orders, and more likely to question their superiors.

That sounds much more like one's looking for soldiers not policemen.

 

[Polaris]

The cop suspected you were in the neighborhood to buy drugs, you admit you were there for that purpose, but that's not relevant?

Cop had no reason to suspect so other than based on race, so...no. No different from pulling a black person over in a white neighborhood under suspicion that he's there to commit burglary.*

Is this supposed to prove that black people are not profiled by police?

No, it's supposed to back up eeyore1954's anecdote that there is racial profiling beyond what happens to black people.*

*Not disputing that the treatment after being pulled over can vary immensely depending on race.

 

[newyorkguy]

Cop had no reason to suspect so other than based on race, so...no. No different from pulling a black person over in a white neighborhood under suspicion that he's there to commit burglary.*

Two white men in a beat up car in a Hispanic neighborhood with a reputation for ongoing drug sales is not, for my money, racial profiling so much as proactive policing. You were there to buy drugs the cops knew that. Or at least thought they did. Cops pulling over a black accountant in a late model car going to see a client in a toney white neighborhood is racial profiling. Two young black men in a beat up van cruising a toney white neighborhood getting pulled over is not racial profiling. Most reasonable people see the difference. In addition to race there is also a class issue.

No, it's supposed to back up eeyore1954's anecdote that there is racial profiling beyond what happens to black people.*

I don't think anyone has argued or is arguing that there is no racial profiling beyond what happens to black people. In fact people -- Hispanics, Middle Easteners -- argue there is.

 

[Belz...]

Have you got stats on this?

+1.

 

[Polaris]

ETA: Nah.

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

+1.

Seriously? I don't think you realize how small the black population in the US is, or you wouldn't be asking for stats to back up the notion that more whites are pulled over while driving fancy cars than blacks. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, more whites driving fancy cars than blacks. They get pulled over.

Of course, this could lead to a relatively pointless discussion as to just what, exactly, a "fancy" car is. The point is, mathematics and percentages guarantee that more whites are being swept up in traffic enforcement actions than blacks are, in their relatively tiny pockets of the country. The difference is, they don't cry racism when it happens. For the record, not all blacks do, either. Some of them seem to realize that driving a car and living in a society makes occasional encounters with the police a likely outcome, regardless of one's race.

 

[newyorkguy]

The ironic part of this discussion is, the people who are defending the police against the assertion they sometimes racially profile blacks are rejecting the claims by black police officers that even they get racially profiled. I think most people would presume, a person who works as a police officer knows the difference between a legitimate stop and a stop primarily carried out to harass someone based on their skin color.

It sounds like the counter to that is essentially: they may be cops but they're still black! Which ironically is kind of the point.

 

[Giordano]

Seriously? I don't think you realize how small the black population in the US is, or you wouldn't be asking for stats to back up the notion that more whites are pulled over while driving fancy cars than blacks. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, more whites driving fancy cars than blacks. They get pulled over.

Of course, this could lead to a relatively pointless discussion as to just what, exactly, a "fancy" car is. The point is, mathematics and percentages guarantee that more whites are being swept up in traffic enforcement actions than blacks are, in their relatively tiny pockets of the country. The difference is, they don't cry racism when it happens. For the record, not all blacks do, either. Some of them seem to realize that driving a car and living in a society makes occasional encounters with the police a likely outcome, regardless of one's race.

Presumably you have heard of the novel statistical method of normalization? Calculating the number of people pulled over by their frequency in the population? The number of black Americans is more than enough to generate a statistically significant result by doing so. This can even be done restricted to a particular brand or price of car. As I mentioned, I don't have the numbers, even if they were already calculated, but I am very curious.

I think the real problem would be defining the basis for the pullover. No one is arguing that the police are incorrect to stop a car that is driving the wrong way on the freeway. The question is how frequently do police stop a car, or a pedestrian, with no obvious reason to do so except the race of the occupants?

As mentioned by newyorkguy, I find it interesting that you do not believe that there is racial profiling by the police when members of the police themselves see this as occurring.

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

As mentioned by newyorkguy, I find it interesting that you do not believe that there is racial profiling by the police when members of the police themselves see this as occurring.

I have seen no evidence presented indicating that black police officers are any less likely to see racism where it doesn't exist than black people in other occupations. I've seen police officers believe all kinds of stupid things. I don't see why it would be any less likely in this case, especially when it's clearly an existing phenomena for black people to imagine racism where it doesn't exist.

Ever heard of Christopher Dorner? An extreme case, but one that indicates police officers are not immune to incorrectly blaming racism for things happening to them that they don't like.

 

[Giordano]

I have seen no evidence presented indicating that black police officers are any less likely to see racism where it doesn't exist than black people in other occupations. I've seen police officers believe all kinds of stupid things. I don't see why it would be any less likely in this case, especially when it's clearly an existing phenomena for black people to imagine racism where it doesn't exist.

Ever heard of Christopher Dorner? An extreme case, but one that indicates police officers are not immune to incorrectly blaming racism for things happening to them that they don't like.

So you are proposing that you know more about if there is or isn't racial profiling than black cops? As I mentioned more than once, I honestly would like to see the statistics. But my "gut feeling" is the opposite of yours, and suggests that racial profiling by the police is likely enough to justify it being tested by obtaining the actual statistics.

I certainly know of many people who subconsciously, or consciously, form opinions of others based on race. I would be thrilled to hear that somehow this was not true of any of the people who are also police. But I doubt it.

Please note: I am not saying the racial profiling is an official policy of all police departments, or all police, or that it is always conscious. Just that enough individual police officers probably do it consciously or unconsciously to represent a problem that needs to be investigated, and if true, solved.

 

[jimbob]

What evidence is there that they were racially profiled? I'm not seeing any.

I've lost count of how many times I've been told by non-white friends or acquaintances of how they were treated a certain way because of their race, only to later be confronted by incontrovertible evidence that their treatment had absolutely NOTHING to do with their race (one is example is when a Mexican co-worker was woefully lamenting the fact that a female customer had asked him to wash his hands before preparing a drink for her, all because he was Mexican, and it was so horrible that he had to deal with this constant prejudice. Later, the same female customer came in and asked ME to wash MY hands before I prepared a drink for her, proving that her request had NOTHING to do with race, and adding one more sample to the pool of evidence that vast numbers of people cry racism when none exists).

As for black people being pulled over while driving fancy cars, cry me a river. More white people are pulled over while driving fancy cars than black people are, but they don't get to blame it on their race. They actually have to accept responsibility for whatever they're actually being pulled over for, not whine about racism.

My standard question to any acquaintance claiming that they were pulled over for being black is, how did the police officer know that they were black before they were pulled over, as generally, police cars approach from behind. I have not once received a satisfactory answer.

Yes, it is POSSIBLE for a car to drive past a stationary police officer, and for the officer to see the driver was OH MY GOD, BLACK, and then swing into hot pursuit. However, this has never been the case in any of the stories I have heard. The black drivers being horrendously persecuted for "driving while black" have always been pulled over the way any other person is pulled over: on the street or highway, and signaled to stop by a police officer from behind.

I know of at least two black students who were forced by police (in my nice little Californian college town) to prove ownership when they dared to open the trucks of their own (relatively new) cars. I know of no white student who was even questioned by the police in any way under equivalent circumstances. This paralleled similar circumstances where the two black students were repeatedly questioned by police when just walking to a restaurant in town, or approaching their own homes. I know of zero such situations with white students. Or white anybody. I would add that the black students dressed much better and more formally than I did.

No, two is not a statistically significance number, but I certainly would not dismiss any such claim as absurd use of the "race card." I feel (which I am allowed to do prior to an intellectual proof) that racial profiling by the police still persists, and in places you might never suspect.

Certainly in parts of the US, say Ferguson Missouri, blacks do seem to be stopped disproportionately more often - contraband is found more ferquently when whites are stopped, but blacks are more likely to be arrested as a result of a search, which suggests that something is tilting the playing field.