Tag: Racial profiling

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At Large Opinion

Driving While Brown

(Photo: Photo: Fibobjects | Dreamstime.com)

In Nashville last week, Tennessee State Highway Patrol troopers conducted around 500 traffic stops in a sweep coordinated with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in order to find undocumented immigrants. The troopers made 12 arrests and detained more than 100 people for “reasons related to immigration.”

How do you conduct 500 traffic stops designed to detain undocumented immigrants? One can only assume the troopers looked for brown people and pulled them over. That’s 500 contrived stops conducted via racial profiling. The operation was performed under the auspices of a law Governor Bill Lee proudly signed during a recent special legislative session.

The new law creates a Centralized Immigration Enforcement division (“CIE,” get it? It’s like ICE, only different) at the state level, to be led by a Chief Immigration Enforcement Officer (CIEO) appointed by the governor. The CIEO (who should be named Old McDonald) will coordinate directly with the Trump Administration on federal immigration policies.

The law also establishes a new driver’s license that distinguishes U.S. citizens from legal permanent residents; makes it a felony for local officials to adopt sanctuary city policies; encourages local governments to participate in enforcing federal immigration policies; and establishes penalties for local officials who do not comply with enforcement mandates.

The ICE and THP operation caused considerable anxiety in Nashville, and residents raised questions about whether local officials knew about it in advance. The short answer is “no.”

“I want to be clear. We did not request this approach to safety. We do not support it,” said Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell. “It’s important for us to get this right and it’s very frustrating to see a failure in the process.” O’Connell then issued an executive order aimed at tracking and reporting any future interactions with federal immigration authorities.

If they’ve not done so already, it would be a good idea for Memphis’ elected officials to get ahead of this kind of operation before it happens here. And it will happen here. Republicans have control of the legislative trifecta in Tennessee and they love nothing better than sticking it to the two blue voting areas in the state.

It’s been nearly a month now since the Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia — who was deported to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison with no due process — to the United States. If he is ever returned, he would presumably be given a chance to argue his case in court. But the administration has thus far managed to just ignore the Supreme Court, a clear violation of the Constitution.

Here’s the thing: We tend to focus on the individual cases that make the news, like Garcia’s and that of Rumeysa Ozturk, the Tufts University doctoral student and Turkish national who was seized on the street by ICE agents in March and sent to a detention facility (read, prison) in Louisiana. She was released from custody last week, upon the order of a federal judge, but the horrifying fact remains that she was abducted on a street in Boston and spent six weeks in prison with no due process for the “crime” of writing an editorial the Trump administration didn’t like.

But what about the “more than 100 people” who were detained in Nashville? Who are they? Where are they? Who’s going to track their cases? And what about the thousands more who are being picked up and held in for-profit detention centers around the country? What about those who fall through the cracks, like the two-year-old girl born in the U.S. and detained in foster care here after her mother and father were deported?

There is no way the media can keep up with everyone who’s being picked up or report on what happens to them. And that’s part of the administration’s plan: overwhelm the system with mass detentions. It’s why Trump aide Stephen Miller is now calling for the suspension of Habeas Corpus, which constitutionally shields people from unlawful imprisonment and ensures them a day in court.

Joint operations like the one in Nashville are happening all over the country now, and Memphis is unlikely to be left out. What are we going to do when it happens to the people who work and live in our city, our friends and neighbors? Who will tell their stories? 

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Opinion The Last Word

Culture-Blind: Racial Profiling Hurts Us All

If a new anti-immigration bill passes in Tennessee, local officers will have the authority to enforce federal immigration laws and will be required to ask for documentation during routine traffic stops. Undocumented immigrants, many of whom have only known life in this country, will face the fear of being uprooted from their home and deported because of the bill.

If I’m being honest, it’s already a little scary, sometimes, being a person of color in America these days. Standing in your own backyard, waiting for a friend at a coffee shop, or disputing paying for plastic utensils at a diner — these are just a few things black or brown people have done recently and have been threatened, harassed, or even killed because of.

This is not okay. A black man getting pulled over by a cop shouldn’t have to worry if a traffic stop will cost him his life. A Latino man walking in his neighborhood for exercise shouldn’t have to worry about being approached by a cop asking for his documentation.

It’s an injustice.

I know by now some of you are probably tired of hearing the same sad song over and over, because it’s not your sad song — it’s someone else’s. It’s a song you’ll never know or relate to or have to sing. But it’s the song of your neighbor who lives on the other side of the tracks. It’s their reality.

The reality is that there is a real problem in this country. People are being profiled, mistreated, and sometimes physically harmed because of how they talk, how they dress, or how their skin looks.

It’s out of hand, and everyone has a part to play in breaking this cycle that colors America’s history and is slowly bleeding into its future. If you have never been on the receiving side of prejudice or racism, then maybe it’s time to acknowledge that for some people, unfortunately, it’s a normal occurrence. Listen, be compassionate, and seek to be understanding. Stop judging.

Maybe next time someone feels uncomfortable around or threatened by a person who doesn’t look like them, they should stop and ask themselves why they feel that way. They should stop and ask themselves: Is this person really a threat, or am I just unfamiliar with their culture? That’s probably what the employee in that Philadelphia Starbucks should have done before calling the cops on two black men sitting in the cafe waiting for a business meeting.

And perhaps dozens of young black men would still be alive if people would have reconsidered the so-called threat of their presence before alerting the authorities or before the authorities came and neutralized the “threat.”

Still, it wouldn’t be fair to put the ball completely in the court of non-black and brown people when it comes to changing the narrative of this country. As people of color, we must decide to rise up, move on, and do our part in changing that narrative. The sad song that’s been repeated for years and years can turn into something new.

But, the tune will never change and the wounds of the past will never heal if they’re not tended to in the right way. Sulking and pointing fingers is like reopening those wounds again and again. It’s time we forgive the past and forgive the system that for years deemed people of color as inferior. It’s time to move forward.

Challenges are still present. That goes without saying. Racism, stereotyping, and hatred will always exist in society; it’s just a symptom of the human condition. The justice system still needs work, lots of our neighborhoods need care, and public education in low-income areas needs a revamp.

But none of those factors stop us from taking pride and responsibility in our communities and doing what we can with what we have. We can start with lending a hand in our own neighborhoods, and filling in where needed so that children don’t grow up without role models and mentors. We have to encourage our youth to stay in school, stay off the streets, and seek a better life.

As people of color, we can work our way out of the disadvantages that were years in the making. But it will take intentionality and a resolve to never give up.

Maya Smith is a Flyer staff writer.

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News The Fly-By

Proposal Could Prohibit Racial Profiling in Tennessee

The decisions by two separate grand juries to not indict the officers responsible for the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner have inspired a bill that would prohibit all Tennessee law enforcement agencies from racially profiling citizens.

Sen. Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown), who is co-sponsoring the bill with Rep. John DeBerry (D-Memphis), said the precise details of the policies would be left to each police and sheriff’s department as long as they prohibit the detention, interdiction, or other disparate treatment of individuals based on race.

“Six in 10 white Americans have quite a lot of confidence in the police, but only three in 10 African Americans do,” Kelsey said. “The Racial Profiling Prevention Act is not intended as an attack on law enforcement but rather an attack on discrimination. Having a clearly written policy prohibiting racial profiling will help officers do their jobs better and have confidence that they are following the law.”

If passed, each law enforcement agency would be required to adopt a written policy by January 1, 2016.

The proposed bill comes on the heels of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement of recently enforced anti-profiling guidelines that ban federal law enforcement agencies from using race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation as a factor during investigations, unless deemed relevant to a particular case.

Holder was in Memphis on December 9th to participate in the My Brother’s Keeper local summit — an event inspired by President Barack Obama’s new initiative of the same name that seeks to increase the country’s number of successful black men.

The five-hour summit took place at the Hattiloo Theatre and brought together representatives from the city, Memphis Police Department, Shelby County Schools, and various nonprofit agencies.

Attendees participated in sessions about education, community outreach, employment, health care and justice.

The summit’s moderator, Douglas Scarboro, said it’s extremely important to place more focus on establishing ways to help young minority males overcome systemic barriers that could hinder success.

“Over the years, we haven’t had enough intentional effort around men and boys of color and helping them be all that they can be,” said Scarboro, the city’s executive director of talent and human capital. “I think it’s extremely sad that we’ve had the instances that we’ve had with Michael Brown and more recently with a number of individuals across the nation. I think what’s the saddest is regardless of the standard of life, I think every African-American male has a story about some kind of interaction, whether correct or incorrect, [with the police].”

During the summit’s final session, Holder condemned racial profiling, reflected on personal encounters with law enforcement, and discussed the new anti-trafficking guidelines.

Afterward, Holder traveled to the National Civil Rights Museum, where he encountered a crowd of people protesting police brutality and racial profiling.

As he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, the same place where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April 1968, Holder was questioned through a bullhorn by Paul Garner, the organizing coordinator for the Mid-South Peace & Justice Center.

Garner inquired about several things including state and local officers being required to adhere to the new anti-profiling guidelines and officers wearing body cameras.

“We’re waiting to see what kind of concrete steps are going to be taken by this administration, and how these new ideas and these new concepts about community-police relations will be applied here in Memphis,” Garner said. “If we’re going to talk about solutions, we also have to talk about history. We have to take into consideration a whole history of racism.”

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News News Blog

Attorney General Eric Holder Addresses Racial Profiling by Law Enforcement

Eric Holder

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder spoke about newly established guidelines that prohibit federal law enforcement from racially profiling citizens during the “My Brother’s Keeper” summit this afternoon.

The five-hour event was held at the Hattiloo Theatre and featured representatives from the city, local law enforcement, Shelby County Schools, and many other agencies.

Holder spoke during the event’s closing session.

After introductory remarks from both Memphis Police director Toney Armstrong and Mayor A C Wharton, Holder shared details of the new anti-profiling guidelines, which ban federal law enforcement agencies from using race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation as a factor during investigations, unless deemed relevant to a particular case.

Holder said the new guidelines will add to previous ones established by the Bush Administration in 2003. 

“It’s time to institute new protections for those who come into contact with federal authorities,” Holder said. “And it’s time to bring enhanced training, oversight, and accountability to this process, so that anyone responsible for isolated incidents of profiling can be held responsible, and singular acts of discrimination do not tarnish the exemplary work that’s performed by the overwhelming majority of America’s federal law enforcement officials each and every day.”

Holder’s visit to Memphis comes on the heels of a Missouri grand jury’s decision to not indict former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the death of unarmed teen Michael Brown, as well as a New York City grand jury’s decision to not indict Daniel Pantaleo, the officer responsible for fatally choking unarmed 43-year-old Eric Garner. 

During his speech, Holder condemned racial profiling committed by law enforcement. And he reflected on two personal experiences where he was profiled by cops.

“I will never forget the frustration I felt at being pulled over twice, and my car searched, on the New Jersey Turnpike, even though I’m sure I wasn’t speeding,” Holder said. “Or the humiliation of being stopped by a police officer while simply running to a catch a movie – at night, in Georgetown, in Washington, D.C. – even though I was a federal prosecutor at the time.”

Holder is currently embarked on a nationwide tour, speaking in different cities about the country’s new anti-profiling guidelines. He’s also talking about My Brother’s Keeper, an initiative launched by President Barack Obama in February that seeks to increase the success rates of young men of color and bridge the opportunity gaps that many of them encounter.