"Driving while black" (DWB) is a sardonic description of racial profiling of African American motorized vehicle drivers. It implies that a motorist may be stopped by a police officer largely because of racial bias rather than any visible violation of traffic law.
"Driving while black" is word play on driving while intoxicated, or DWI, the legal designation used in some US jurisdictions for the crime of driving while under the intoxicating effect of alcohol.
Origins
The phrase "driving while black" has been used in both the public and private discourse relating to the racial profiling of black motorists.
The term rose to prominence during the 1990s, when it was brought to
public knowledge that American police officers were intentionally
targeting racial minorities to curb the trafficking of drugs.
For example, New Jersey released state documents in 2000 which showed
police training memos instructing officers to make racial judgments in
order to identify "Occupant Identifiers for a possible Drug Courier" on
the highway.
The phrase was magnified after the ruling of Whren v. United States (1996), when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that police officers may stop any motor vehicle operator if any traffic violation has been observed.
Subsequent media coverage of the phrase "driving while black" since the 1990s has been expansive and more common. The phrase is often used in anecdotal accounts of racial profiling of
motor vehicle operators as well as statistical and legal analyses of
racial profiling, a notable example being the case of Tolan v. Cotton.
In 2014 Portland lawyers Melvin Oden-Orr and Marianne Hyland
created an app named "Driving While Black" in which users can record
police and alert people when they are stopped by police on the road. It also supplies users with information on how to handle a traffic
stop, including their legal rights and "best practices" for "how to be
safe". The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a similar app called "Mobile Justice" in which users can record and upload videos to the ACLU office.
The phrase DWB was amplified through social media by which
African Americans can record police encounters and disseminate them to a
large audience. The phrase was used in the media after the deaths of African Americans Sandra Bland (2015) and Philando Castile (2016), both of whom were stopped by police while driving.
Studies
Nationwide
In 2019, as reported by NBC, the Stanford Open Policing Project
found that "police stopped and searched black and Latino drivers on the
basis of less evidence than used in stopping white drivers, who are
searched less often but are more likely to be found with illegal items."
The finding emerged from data-mining
nearly 100 million traffic stops dating from 2011 to 2017 and recorded
by 21 state patrol agencies, including California, Illinois, New York,
and Texas, and 29 municipal police departments, including New Orleans,
Philadelphia, San Francisco and St. Paul, Minnesota.
Florida
The
American Civil Liberties Union reported that in 2014, Florida-resident
black drivers received nearly 22 percent of all seat belt citations even
though they made up only 13.5 percent of that state's drivers. Seat
belt compliance was 91.5 percent for white drivers versus 85.8 percent
for black drivers, a difference too small to explain the different rate
of ticketing between black and white drivers. The ACLU analysis showed
that black drivers would have had over 14,000 fewer seat belt citations
if they were ticketed proportionally to total drivers in Florida. The
rate that black drivers are ticketed more often than white drivers is
four times more in Escambia County, three times more in Palm Beach
County and 2.8 times more in Orange County. In Tampa, black drivers
received 575 seat belt citations versus 549 for white drivers even
though black people make up only 23 percent of Tampa’s population.
Illinois
On
April 18, 2003, the Illinois State Senate passed a bill that mandates
Illinois law enforcement to maintain racial statistics regarding traffic
stops. The bill originally mandated the statistics-keeping to continue
until 2007, but the bill was extended and traffic stop statistics will
continue to be maintained indefinitely.
An ACLU analysis of the 2013 Illinois traffic stop report found that
African Americans and Latinos are "twice as likely" to be pulled over by
police even though whites were more likely to have been discovered with
contraband in their car.
Maryland
In Robert L. Wilkins, et al. v. Maryland State Police, et al.
(1993), the ACLU sued the Maryland State Police for racial profiling of
then defense attorney Robert L. Wilkins. Part of the settlement
agreement between the parties held that the state of Maryland had to
maintain racial statistics regarding its traffic stops, making Maryland
the first to do so. The case started a "national conversation on racial profiling" and was seen as a large victory by the ACLU.
Dr. Lamberth conducted a study again in the state of Maryland, once
again finding evidence of racial discrimination in traffic stops,
although the scope of his study was more limited.
New Jersey
In New Jersey v. Soto
(1996), a case where Superior Court Justice Robert E. Francis
consolidated 17 claims of racial profiling in traffic stops, Dr. John
Lamberth of Temple University conducted a study to determine the level
to which racial discrimination occurred on the highway in the state of
New Jersey.
Dr. Lamberth found that cars driven by African Americans accounted for
about 42% of the total drivers pulled over out of a total 43,000 cars.
However, cars operated for African Americans accounted only for 13.5% of
the total cars on the road.
New Jersey later received public attention for its racial
profiling on the highway in 1998 when police wounded three men during a
traffic stop, all of whom were either black or Hispanic, prompting then
New Jersey Governor Christine Whitman
to let a federal judge monitor the NJ police. As a result, thousands of
documents were released to the public, displaying ample evidence that
police were instructed to use race-based tactics to identify and stop
possible drug couriers on the highway.
Kentucky
The
Louisville Metro Police Department has received negative public
attention for "hyper-policing" to fight violent crime in the West End of
Louisville. In 2016, Jefferson County Circuit Judge Brian Edwards
throughout evidence obtained in a traffic stop saying he is "well aware
of the troubling levels of gun and drug-related violence in west
Louisville." Edward added, "this does not mean that citizens driving in
west Louisville should be subjected to a lesser degree of constitutional
protection than citizens driving in other parts our community."
In 2019, Tae-Ahn Lea sued LMPD claiming that his civil rights were
violated when he was pulled over, searched and handcuffed by officers,
after he allegedly made a wide turn.
Examples
A
number of well-known African Americans have described experiences they
characterize as of being racially profiled in their cars and some have
related it to the phenomenon of DWB.
In his memoir, The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist, prominent astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson
recounts his many encounters with police on the road and their
ambiguous reasons for pulling him over. After learning about other
African American physicists who have had similar encounters, he writes,
"we were guilty not of DWI (driving while intoxicated), but of other
violations none of us knew were on the books: DWB (driving while black),
WWB (walking while black), and of course, JBB (just being black)."
Senator Tim Scott
of South Carolina, the only African American Republican in the Senate,
spoke on the Senate floor in 2016 about how he experienced racial
profiling while driving in his car, adding "I do not know many
African-American men who do not have a very similar story to tell – no
matter their profession, no matter their income, no matter their
disposition in life."
In 2015 comedian Chris Rock
posted a series of different pictures on Twitter of himself in the
driver's seat of his car while being pulled over by police, captioning
one of his posts, "Stopped by the cops again wish me luck." The posts
came just a year after racial profiling in the U.S. had become a salient
topic in the public following the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. CNN's Don Lemon stipulated that "Chris Rock may be in the middle of a case of Driving While Black."
In 2016, tennis player Serena Williams made a public Facebook post in which she spoke about the fears she had for her nephew after he had driven her to her matches. Likely referring to the death of Sandra Bland,
she spoke about her worries that her nephew might be harmed by a police
officer after being pulled over. The NYTimes documented her post in an
article titled "'I Won't Be Silent': Serena Williams on the Fear of Driving While Black".
Other prominent African Americans who have recounted their
personal experiences of racial profiling include but are not limited to Barack Obama, Johnnie Cochran, Will Smith, Gary Sheffield, and Eric Holder.
There have also been accusations of excessive force by police
officers against black drivers. In this example, a police officer tries
to explain a fear of blacks: Breaion King, an African-American
elementary school teacher, was stopped for speeding in June 2015 in
Austin, Texas. Officer Bryan Richter ordered King out of her car, and
then threw her violently to the ground while arresting her in a parking
lot. King felt the officer's reaction was because she was responding too
slowly to the officer's orders. She was charged with resisting arrest
as well as speeding. When another officer, Patrick Spradlin, was driving
King to jail, he answered the question of "why are so many people
afraid of black people". Spradlin's answer was because of "violent
tendencies" adding "I don’t blame" white people for being afraid of
blacks "because of their appearance and whatnot, some of them are very
intimidating". Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo found the incident
disturbing and put both officers involved under investigation.
Prosecutors dropped the charge of resisting arrest, but King still had
to pay a $165 fine for speeding.
Biking while black
The phrase cycling while black or biking while black
refers to reportedly discriminatory treatment experienced by black
cyclists at the hands of police officers. Such apparent discrimination
has been the subject of media investigations in cities of the US such as
Tampa and Chicago, and the subject of lawsuits elsewhere.
Criticism of the concept
On October 31, 2007, African-American economist Thomas Sowell devoted an editorial column to arguing against the common claim that police officers stop black drivers because of their race. He cites data from the book Are Cops Racist?
by Heather MacDonald which proposes that a close analysis of data
reveals that driving while black incidents are not a widespread problem.
In a 2016 report, Vice News and a group from the Seton Hall Law School
found that 70 percent of all police traffic stops in Bloomfield New
Jersey were against black and Latino drivers even though 60 percent of
the residents were white. According to Bloomfield's police director,
Samuel A DeMaio, violations were 576 against Hispanics, 574 against
blacks and 573 against whites from a recent period. In explaining why
blacks and Hispanics had disproportionately more violations than whites,
DeMaio said it was not racial profiling nor was it a case of blacks and
Latinos being worse drivers. Rather it was because police were
concentrated much more in "high-crime" areas, inhabited
disproportionally by black and Latino residents, rather than in
low-crime areas where whites largely reside. Vice News noticed a heavy
police presence in the "high-crime" area where police vigorously pursue
misdemeanor violations using tactics such as tailing drivers until they
make a mistake, or searching a stopped vehicle for violations that may
be unrelated to the reason for the police stop. The Seton Hall group
concluded the police were effectively raising revenue for the
municipality from people living in or driving through the "high-crime"
area.
Police-Public Contact Surveys by the US Bureau of Justice
Statistics found that white, black, and Hispanic drivers were stopped by
police at similar rates in 2002, 2005, and 2008.
Pretextual stop
In
a pretextual stop (also called an investigatory stop), officers pull
over people citing a minor issue, then start asking unrelated questions.
University of Kansas professor Charles Epp in a study found that black
drivers were three times more likely than whites to be subjected to
"pretextual" stops, and five times more likely to be searched during
them. However, Epp found no difference in the frequency and treatment
with which black and white drivers were stopped for serious violations
like speeding. The bias, however, was significant for stops over minor
issues such as a broken tail light, a missing front plate or a failure
to signal a lane change.
For example, Philando Castile
had 52 police stops in 14 years prior to the last fatal stop. Half his
charges were dismissed, and none of his convictions were for dangerous
offences. The pretext for the fatal stop was a broken tail light, but
the real reason was that the police officer thought Castile resembled a
robbery suspect.
The Supreme Court ruled in Whren v. United States
(1996) that any minor traffic violation is a legitimate justification
for a stop, even if the real reason is some other crime-fighting
objective. Police chiefs consider pretextual stops as an essential
tactic and train their officers to conduct them.
According to an October 2015 article in the New York Times, many
police departments use traffic stops as a tool to make contact with the
community often in higher crime areas where more African-Americans live.
Police hope that by being proactive, criminals will avoid the area.
However, criminologists argue that such police stops alienate
law-abiding residents and undermine their trust in the police. Traffic
stops often lead to searches, arrests and convictions often for minor
offences, with a police record that can lead to lifelong difficulties.
This makes it difficult for police to obtain community cooperation in
preventing and solving crimes. Criminologists doubt that performing more
traffic stops leads to reduced crime. Ronald L. Davis, of the Justice
Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services said: "There
is no evidence that just increasing stops reduces crime."
Variations on the phrase
Variations on the phrase ("snowclones") include "walking while black" for pedestrian offenses, "learning while black" for students in schools, "shopping while black" for browsing in stores, and "eating while black" for restaurants. Actor Danny Glover held a press conference in 1999 because cab drivers in New York City were not stopping for him; this was called "hailing while black". The phenomenon was investigated further on Michael Moore's television series TV Nation.
In 2001, the American Civil Liberties Union convinced the United States Drug Enforcement Administration to repay $7,000 that it had seized from a black businessman in the Omaha, Nebraska airport on the false theory that it was drug money; the ACLU called it "flying while black".
A pain specialist who treats sickle-cell disease patients at Manhattan's Beth Israel Medical Center
reported that for many years doctors forced African American
sickle-cell sufferers to endure pain because they assumed that blacks
would become addicted to medication; Time magazine labeled this "ailing while black".
In late 2013 the phrase "seeking help while black" or "asking for help while black" was coined in response to the deaths of Jonathan Farrell and Renisha McBride.
In separate incidents, Farrell and McBride, both African-American, were
shot and killed after they experienced a motor vehicle accident and
went to the nearby home of a white stranger to ask for help.
The phrase is also used with other racial, ethnic and cultural (minority) groups. An example is "flying while Muslim",
referring to the scrutiny that Arabs and Muslims face as airline
passengers. Variants on "⟨verb⟩ing while female" are also encountered,
as are phrases like "walking/traveling/etc. while trans".
Following the Boston Marathon bombing, the phrase Running while Arab has come up on social media (although the bombers in question were not Arab, but Chechen)
in response to the interrogation of a Saudi student who, allegedly,
acted suspiciously in the vicinity of the attacks. Said suspicious
behavior consisted of running away from the area of the blast, something
many other people did at the time. His house was searched, but he would
later be cleared by law enforcement officials.
In May 2018, after a black Yale student, napping in her common
room, was reported to police without justification by a white Yale
student, a Washington Post reporter compiled a list of recent,
separate incidents in which black people in North America appear to have
been racially profiled while performing innocent activities, and
proposed coining corresponding terms such as "napping while black",
"couponing while black", "waiting for a school bus while black", and
"waiting at Starbucks while black".
In August 2018, 61-year-old Marine veteran Karle Robinson was
detained at gunpoint by Kansas police for carrying his television into
the house he had bought and was moving into. The ACLU described the
incident as "moving while black".
In September 2018, an incident in which a black actuary was shot and killed
at his home in Dallas, Texas, by an off-duty police officer who later
claimed she mistook his home for her own, was described as a case of
"being at home while black".
In November 2018, security guard Jemel Roberson was killed by police in Illinois while Roberson was restraining a suspected active shooter. An ACLU
spokesperson condemned the incident, saying "Working as a security
guard while black should not be a death sentence. In this case, police
were more dangerous to him than an active shooter who he apparently
subdued."
Also in November 2018, good samaritan Emantic Bradford Jr. was killed by Alabama police while he was attempting to stop a different active shooter. The tragedy was later described as "helping while black".
In December 2018, a bank teller in Ohio denied service to a black
customer, and instead called the police, having wrongly concluded that
the customer was attempting to cash a fraudulent check. The incident was
later described as "banking while black".
In May 2020, The Nation coined the analogous phrase "birding while black" in reference to an incident involving African-American birdwatcher Christian Cooper at the Ramble in New York City's Central Park.
In Canada
In July 2009, a black Canadian named Joel Debellefeuille was pulled over (for the fourth time in several days) by Longueuil police because, according to documents, "his Quebecois name did not match his skin tone".
He refused to provide identification or car insurance documents when
requested by the officer, and was accordingly fined by a municipal
court. Debellefeuille filed complaints with the Human Rights Commission and the police, seeking $30,000 in damages.
Crown prosecutor Valérie Cohen defending the police claimed that
officers were in their rights to check the ownership of the car on a
reasonable suspicion: "the officers' actions were comparable to stopping
a man for driving a car registered to a woman called 'Claudine'."
In December 2012, his tickets were dismissed and the officers were
suspended without pay. The judge wrote that the mentioned rationale for
pulling over demonstrated flagrant ignorance of Quebec society.
Debellefeuille's provincial human rights complaint could not be pursued
because it had been filed too long a time after receiving the initial
ticket.
Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Toronto, and Anthony Morgan, a civil rights lawyer, said that in the 1980s and 1990s the RCMP introduced Operation Pipeline, a drug interdiction strategy developed by the Los Angeles Police Department.
However, the strategy came under criticism because it directed police
officers to allow racial profiling to motivate police stops.
A 2002 analysis by the Toronto Star found that police were more likely to stop black drivers than white drivers in Toronto
without evidence of an offence. The Star looked at "out-of-sight"
offences such as failing to update a driver's licence or driving without
insurance when no other offence was found. "Out-of-sight" offences
could only be discovered if police had some other reason to stop the
driver, thus suggesting racial profiling.
