[View From Washington]
Last week President Barack Obama addressed the George Zimmerman verdict and the ugly reality of racial profiling.
He spoke through the White House press corps to the American people. He spoke forcefully and with surprising candor and empathy. He was measured in his tone and verbiage; clearly understanding that just one wrong word or improper inflection would ignite a firestorm of reaction.
For the sake of this piece I will not take issue with anything the president said. I agree with most of what was presented. In his 2,156 words the president spoke volumes of truth. He said what needed to be said and it needed to be said by him.
This was the perfect example of a president using the power of the bully pulpit to its fullest. He placed into context, informed, and educated the country about a very sensitive reality that far too many don’t understand or have chosen to ignore.
The president was correct to state, “Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.” He added: “I think it’s important to recognize that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn’t go away.”
“There are very few African American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store,” Obama added. “That includes me. There are very few African American men who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me — at least before I was a Senator. There are very few African Americans who haven’t had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often.”
What made the president’s remarks so powerful was the fact that he told America that the history of racial profiling is his history; the experience is real because it’s his experience. The community’s outrage, anger, and frustration are based in a context and reality that is shared by him and cannot be ignored.
“The African American community is also knowledgeable that there is a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws — everything from the death penalty to enforcement of our drug laws. And that ends up having an impact in terms of how people interpret the case,” President Obama said.
The president could not be more correct. That history not only impacts how the African American community has viewed the Zimmerman verdict, it impacts our everyday lives. It is not only a prism through which one interprets reality; it is reality. There has been “a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws”. An example of this recent history can be found in New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly’s “Stop-and-Frisk” policing whereby 90% of those stopped are African American and Latino.
According to the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), New York Police Department (NYPD) officers have stopped more than 4 million New Yorkers since the Department began collecting data on the program in 2004. The latest stop-and-frisk report shows that the NYPD stopped and interrogated New Yorkers 152,311 times between July 1 and Sept. 30, 2011. About 88 percent of those encounters did not result in arrests or tickets. Nearly 85 percent of those stopped were Black or Latino.
Only in one-in-10 cases is anything illegal found.
So, earlier last week while the country was grappling with the Zimmerman verdict and the president was preparing his remarks, he contradicted himself by endorsing Commissioner Kelly as a “worthy candidate” to succeed Janet Napolitano as head of the Department of Homeland Security.
The President said on Univision that “Kelly has obviously done an extraordinary job in New York,” and that the police commissioner is “one of the best there is” and an “outstanding leader in New York.” The president went on to say: “Mr. Kelly might be very happy where he is. But if he’s not I’d want to know about it. ‘Cause, you know, obviously he’d be very well qualified for the job.”
We all understand; it’s not what you say it’s what you do. Actions speak louder than words.
New York neighborhoods with the highest number of “Stop-and-Frisk” interrogations include Inwood/Washington Heights, Central Brooklyn, Far Rockaway, Eastern Queens and the North Shore of Staten Island; all low-income neighborhoods of color.
Whites, who represent 33 percent of the city’s population, accounted for less than nine percent of people stopped. During the third quarter of 2011, all five precincts with the fewest “Stop-and-Frisk” encounters were concentrated below 59th Street in Manhattan and are majority White.
A Police Department that was on pace to stop and interrogate a record number of totally innocent New Yorkers is operating outside of the moral and constitutional ideals that it was created to protect. When you have a department that during the first three quarters of 2011 stopped totally innocent New Yorkers 451,000 times, the overwhelming majority of whom were Black or Latino, as a citizenry we have a problem.
If Commissioner Raymond Kelly were empowered to implement New York style “Stop-and-Frisk” policies nationwide, coupled with the use of drones and NSA-style wiretapping, and the PRISM program, America would have a serious problem than it has today.
The president spoke very powerfully and eloquently about the history of and problems with racial profiling in America. I listened very carefully to what he said and then compared it to what he is supporting.
“How shall integrity face oppression? What should honesty do in the face of deception? What does decency do in the face of insult? How shall virtue meet brute force….” W.E.B. Du Boise raised these questions in The Ordeal of Mansant.
The actions speak louder than the words.
Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/Host of the Sirius/XM Satellite radio channel 110 call-in talk radio program “Inside the Issues with Leon” www.wilmerleon.com
or email: [email protected] www.twitter.com/drwleon and Dr. Leon’s Prescription at Facebook.com
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