DWNW

Excerpted from The Washington Post

Black, Hispanic, and white drivers are equally likely to be pulled over by police, but blacks and Hispanics are much more likely to be searched and arrested, a Justice Department study found. Police also were much more likely to threaten or use force against blacks and Hispanics than against whites in any encounter.

The study, released yesterday by the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, covered police contacts with the public during 2005 and was based on interviews by the Census Bureau with nearly 64,000 people age 16 or over.
...
- African Americans (9.5 percent) and Hispanics (8.8 percent) were much more likely to be searched than whites (3.6 percent).

- African Americans (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 officers were more likely to use force against or to threaten to use force against African Americans (4.4 percent) and Hispanics (2.3 percent) than against whites (1.2 percent).

I know this is probably preaching to the choir (all two of you) but I couldn't let this one go uncommented. This is a good non-gender/sex based example of continuing "subtle" bias in our culture. Sometimes I get the sense that americans in general believe bigotry is a myth so when there is evidence of it I personally think it is important to discuss it.

I've noticed there is a large number of people who are apparently "reasonable", who hold a set of unexamined principles which conform to late 20th century cultural ideals, and many of whom I think have lived lives which are in general socially, emotionally, and spiritually relatively undemanding. Let's call them "the masses" for convenience.

Members of "the masses" act as if they believe they and their ilk are not sexist, racist, anti-gay, fearful they will catch cripple cooties, or hateful of old people. Most of us like to think such attitudes do not exist in our worlds and when we do acknowledge them we ascribe them to others, to caricatures of people (who may well be people themselves but who are so extreme as to count as something other in the mass mind - e.g. "those white supremacists like the ones we saw on Jerry Springer/Jeraldo/etc."), places ("red state", rural), and times (anything before nineteen sixty something, right?).

We are so fucking wrong. Sexism, racism, hatred of homosexuals, old people, sick and disabled people all exist in vibrant diverse attitudes of our neighbors, friends, coworkers, and other community members. Yes they do. When we hear or see things in those arenas which bear the hallmarks of bigotry, we will jump through hoops to explain them away: Bigots are not from NY/NJ/DC/CA (insert state here), are not young, and smell like Strom Thurmond, therefore my friend having said "that's so ghetto" is not racist and the fact that I can't finish a full sentence without using the word "gay" to mean something disparaging or otherwise negative is not anti-gay. Can't be. I'm not a bigot.

I'm not sure why this line and style thought is so alluring. It seems like it would involve so much energy to contrive and believe such a huge lie. I'd love to think it's because people want to believe good things about themselves, others, and humanity in general but I am about 99% that isn't true.

I think it's because people don't want to acknowledge that others might not be having a great time, or that there is no "great time" to be had (you know, the one we all can get if we just try hard enough...someday you might even be president! (some restriction apply, see all white male founding fathers for details)).

As a woman, abuse survivor, and semi-professional thorn in the side, I've found members of "the masses" sincerely and deeply do not like to be told or in any way discover that some people's lives are significantly not ok. In general, I've found people of all walks show a very strong preference for refusing to see or acknowledge that many of the systems and circles they exist in rely on principles of inequity - i.e., principles which serve to exclude or limit the full participation of some set(s) of individuals who have a priori been designated as "other".

My more strictly feminist experience suggests the reason for this blindness (and anger) is that to see clearly would mean to see that what one has is not necessarily what one deserves and that threatens some part of the sense of self worth. However, it seems sometimes to be baser than that even.

And it is with this cheery attitude that I greet my Monday.