LIBERAL MEDIA STOKE UNPROVEN ASSUMPTIONS BEHIND ‘DRIVING WHILE BLACK’

By: Michael P. Tremoglie
Human Events
3/12/2004 03:00 AM

A recent article in the Charlotte Observer reported, “Researchers at N.C. State and N.C. Central universities say an exhaustive study shows there is ‘no systemic bias’ at work when state Highway Patrol troopers stop motorists along North Carolina’s roadsides. . . researchers also note that black drivers are slightly more likely to be stopped and given citations than white or other drivers–perhaps the result of individual trooper bias or possibly reasons unrelated to racial bias.”

This study confirms the findings of previous inquiries which fail to corroborate the claim that Driving While Black (DWB) is a real phenomenon. It has never been more than an allegation–one that required more study. Yet, the media and “civil rights” organizations treat DWB as an absolute fact in order to exploit it as a racial issue.

The report continues, “The findings are encouraging because they suggest the Highway Patrol has succeeded in training its officers to avoid racial profiling . . . . In 1999 the General Assembly passed a law requiring Highway Patrol troopers to document the race and gender of motorists they pull over. It was part of a legislative effort to determine whether the patrol was stopping black motorists more often than whites–for ‘driving while black,’ some call it.” 

This is the sophistry of the DWB/racial profiling claim. While the study congratulates law enforcement for training their personnel to not engage in racial profiling, the fact is there was no proof that it was ever practiced. Inexplicably, the Observer article states that there was such evidence. The Observer makes the incredible claim, “. †¦The legislature acted after the Observer and other newspapers reviewed data on traffic stops and concluded that black drivers were much more likely to be stopped and cited than white drivers” (italics mine).

Now that is truly incredible. According to the Charlotte Observer, the legislature required traffic stop data documenting race and gender of motorists to be collected, after the Observer and other newspapers reviewed data on traffic stops about race. Yet such data did not exist!

What the North Carolina study proved is that when it comes to the racial profiling/DWB wars truth is the first casualty. This has always been the case. There has never been definitive evidence of racial profiling by law enforcement only allegations that treat unproven assumptions as gospel. More study about this alleged phenomenon was always needed and scholars have said so. 

A February 2003 study by Ohio State University sociology professors Richard J. Lundman and Robert L. Kaufman titled, “Driving While Black: Effects of Race, Ethnicity, And Gender on Citizen Self-Reports of Traffic Stops and Police Actions,” was published in Criminology, a journal of the American Society of Criminology. 

The purpose of the study was to learn: Are African-American men more likely to be stopped by cops for traffic violations? Are African-American men and Hispanic drivers less likely to report that cops stopped them for legitimate reasons? Are they less likely to report that cops acted appropriately? The study used citizen self-reported data. The conclusions were consistent with other recent studies and books that question the existence of DWB and racial profiling.

Professors Lundman and Kaufman deduced that, “First, citizens report that police nationally make traffic stops more frequently of African-American male drivers†¦there is an identical pattern of stops by race/ethnicity. Second, African-American drivers (both men and women), as well as Hispanic male drivers, are significantly less likely than white men to report that police had a legitimate reason for making the traffic stop, thereby suggesting either police recourse to pretext when stopping drivers of color or varying situational definitions between whites and citizens of color, or both (italics mine). Third, African-American men and Hispanic men are significantly less likely than white men to report that police acted properly during the traffic stop encounter (as are African-American women compared to white women). . . . Most importantly, there is a. . . need. . . for additional research on Driving While Black using triangulated police-reported, citizen-reported, and observer-reported data“(italics mine).

Could it be that DWB is more perception than reality?

This is not the impression the Washington Post furnished in a November 1996 article, “Driving While Black on 95,” or the impression conveyed by the San Diego Union-Tribune‘s December 1997, “Driving While Black Examined in San Diego.”

Certainly it is not the impression the ACLU furnishes. University of Toledo law professor David Harris–the nation’s putative leading authority on racial profiling–prepared a national report on “Driving While Black” for the ACLU. He conducted the first statewide research into racial profiling in Ohio. This report concluded that the phenomenon of racial profiling /DWB existed. 

However, Harris wrote a book, published in 2002, about racial profiling in which he said, “. . . whatever their (cops) motivation . . . pretextual stops will be used against African-Americans and Hispanics. . . out of proportion to their numbers in the driving population. . . . It may seem bold that I make this assertion as a fact. In fact, I lack the kind of systematically gathered and analyzed data anyone making such a statement would prefer to have. This is because virtually no one. . . has ever kept comprehensive statistics on who police stop. . . there may be race-neutral explanations for the statistical pattern (racial disparity in traffic stops). . . . At the very least, further study is needed” (italics mine).

Harris admits that racial profiling/DWB is unproven. He unequivocally states more study is needed. Yet, the proponents of DWB not only continue to spread this allegation as fact, but by furthering this reckless accusation they continue to indict and convict innocent law enforcement officers. 

Allegations and anecdotal accusations, rather than proof, are all that is required of “Civil rights” advocates to falsely indict cops as racists.

Police Give Preferential Treatment - to BlacksBy: Michael Tremoglie  FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, May 19, 2003

Race is not a factor in the attitude of cops toward suspects according to a recent study. In fact, in at least one city, the cops show more regard for blacks than they do for whites.
The research was conducted by three criminologists, and published in the August 2002 edition of Criminology, the Journal of the American Society of Criminology. This study is the academic equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction for the race-baiting, cop-hating, social activist/trial lawyer complex. Yet, not one word about it was mentioned in the media-not even the putatively "conservative" media of talk radio or Fox News Channel.
The authors of the study were Professor Stephen D. Mastrofski of George Mason University, Michael Reisig, and John D.McCluskey (both of Michigan State University). Mastrofski is the Director of the Administration of Justice Program at George Mason University. Reisig is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice and McCluskey is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice. The study consisted of observing the encounters with citizens by police departments in St. Petersburg, Florida and Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1996 and 1997. 
The study was a part of a larger project about community policing. Professor Mastrofski told me, during a phone interview, that he and his colleagues were attempting to determine how cops interact with community. Mastrofski said he and the other researchers believed that they would find that race was a predictor of how cops behaved towards citizens they interacted with either during routine calls, investigations or arrests. However, the conclusions by Mastrofski, et. al. were contrary to their own preconceived notions and the beliefs of most Americans. They learned that race was not a factor. 
The researchers defined abusive behavior by cops as that which referred to the "citizen’s identity are unambiguously gratuitous, and illegitimate. Such things as derogatory statements, slurs, or ignoring the citizens questions." The professors determined that the attitude of the suspects, the environment of the encounter, and the age of the suspect were a better indicator of the attitude of the cops toward the suspect than race. As Professor Mastrofski told me "…in general if a suspect is nasty, then he will be treated nastily." 
In the case of the Saint Petersburg (Florida) Police Department, the researchers determined that the cops were more "nasty" towards white than black suspects. This is even more astounding in that it not only disproves conventional wisdom but stands it on its head. Professor Mastrofski qualified those findings by saying he and his colleagues determined that in St. Petersburg, the deferential treatment of blacks could be accounted for by the " St. Petersburg’s chief’s effort to promote better treatment of minorities." Regardless of the city, however, the study provided unexpected and unconventional data when considering race. 
These results according to Mastrofski confirmed the results of a prior study, published in the early 1970s, by Professor Al Reiss, who evaluated interaction by cops in departments in Washington D.C., Boston and Chicago. Although Mastrofski told me this study did not evaluate all variables and therefore was not quite as comprehensive. 
Yet, despite the potential to debunk the conventional wisdom that cops mistreat blacks, this study received no major media reference. The race hustlers, academicians, and the mainstream media-especially the mainstream media- have propagated this myth of preferential treatment of whites - a myth that says all cops are the proverbial Southern sheriff. 
After the Rodney king incident TV talk show host Phil Donahue devoted an entire show to examining the King incident specifically and the behavior of cops with minorities in general. During that program, which featured several "civil rights attorneys" I can recall Donahue saying that while he cannot prove it, he believes that white people are treated very gingerly by cops, and "people of color," (as he referred to blacks) are treated the exact opposite.
Mastrofski insisted that he did not want the study to be construed to mean it proves that cops do not abuse blacks in other departments or that there are no racist cops. However, this study certainly disproves the presumption that policemen as a class are guilty of racism. This presumption of cops being guilty of racism is the media standard for all controversial incidents involving cops and minorities. This is the perception routinely propagated by the liberal chatterati. This perception is so ingrained in our modern culture that it virtually guarantees an accusation of mistreatment of minorities by cops is accepted as fact.
Liberals and "civil rights" advocates portray every cop as a Bull Connors, the Alabama sheriff whose department abused those blacks arrested for protesting segregation. It is in their interest to maintain this image with the American public. It helps them obtain funding, it helps them obtain favorable verdicts in civil suits, and it helps politically. Any scholarly research that portrays white cops as treating blacks better or the same as whites will adversely affect these objectives. 
By perpetuating this fraud, "civil rights" advocates and liberals prevent black criminals from being arrested. This has a deleterious effect on African-American communities. Liberals become the African-American communities worst nightmare. 
Just as unfortunate is the complicity of the mainstream media in this deception. I would suggest that readers write Howell Raines of the New York Times and his counterpart with the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and other publications and media, both liberal and conservative, and demand that they report about this study.

As a registered Democrat I am appalled by the hypocrisy manifested by the outrage of Democrats and the media over Rep. Scalise giving a speech about taxes before an organization that unbeknownst to him was considered racist – but ignoring its own recent racism.

These same people dismissed completely the fact that, in 2008, the Phila Democratic Party had armed poll watchers who were members of a racist anti-Semitic hate group. Indeed, one of the members of this group, deemed a racist anti-Semitic hate group by no less than the Southern Poverty Law Center, was a Phila. Democratic Party committeeman.

It is unfortunate that Democrats choose to worry about a speck in the Republican’s eye when they have a log in their own.

It is even more unfortunate that some conservatives are so insecure about their attitudes concerning race that the mere allegation of racism sends them hiding. Scalise is not a racist – a black Democrat Congressional colleague said so. He should know.

Until Republicans and conservatives recall their proud heritage of racial equality – and I will be happy to remind them – and stop becoming weak in the knees whenever a politically motivated allegation of racism is made conservatives will never make inroads among African-Americans.

Calls for Scalise's resignation are all too characteristic of those who may harbor racist feelings and feel the need to prove they are not racist. I do not have - as many other conservatives of whatever party - do not have racist beliefs and do not need to be judged by higher standards.

Let the Democrats purge the racists - black, brown, yellow, red, and white - from their own party before trying to purge others.