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March 1, 2000
Focus
An American Dilemma
encounters betw een police and
minority males escalate into violent
co n fro n tatio n s, term in atin g in
assaults that may result in serious
injury or death, such as the deaths
o f Johnny Gamage in Pittsburgh,
PA in 1995 and Tyron Lewis in St.
Petersburg, FL in 1996, both as a
result o f deadly force employed by
police who were trying to apprehend
them fo r a lle g e d sp e e d in g
violations. This problem o f“driving
while black or brown” has led to
individual or class action lawsuits
in at least eight states (Maryland,
California, Indiana, Florida, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois and
Oklahoma) and the introduction o f
legislation to monitor police stops
for racial bias in more than a dozen
states.
Legacy o f Police Misconduct and
Discrimination in the Criminal
Justice System
Most African Americans view the
police as agents o f social control
with a primary mission to punish
and oppress the community, not to
protect and serve its members. Thus,
the major institution established to
preserve law and order is perceived
by many African Americans as an
oppressive arm o f local and state
government, primarily designed to
“keep black people in their place.”
If this society is going to eliminate
inequities in the criminal justice
system, we must not only root out
police misconduct and abuse and
make police accountable to the
community; we must monitor the
m edia and insist on accuracy,
objectivity, and the elimination of
negative stereotypes and threatening
images in their portrayal o f minority
groups; and we must resist the
rhetoric o f politicians who thrive
on demagoguery and division, and,
when all else fails, will invoke the
“race card” to create fear and anxiety
in their constituents to win elections,
and then interpret their victories as
a “public mandate” for further police
repression against people o f color,
the poor, and the powerless in our
society.
As we welcome the millennium and
anticipate a nation that will have no
clear majority by the year 2050, it is
time, as President Clinton has
proposed, to confront our fears and
fantasies about race, and to develop
a balance between the legitimate
B la c k
needs for law and order in a
heterogeneous society and the basic
guarantees o f due process and equal
justice for all citizens, irrespective
o f color, culture, creed or social
class.
J e w e lle
T a ylo r
G ibbs,
Page 5
H M
istorv
onth
Ph.D.,clinical psychologist, is the
author ofRace and Justice: Rodney
King and O.J. Simpson in a House
D ivided (S.F .: J o sse y -B a ss
Publishers, ¡996). She recently
retired as a professor at the School
o f Social Welfare, University o f
California at Berkeley.
Hot Lips Pizza
Recognizes
B lack H istory M o n th
Prison from page 3
the rope and helping their brothers
and sisters up and over to join them.
But would they really sabotage
generations o f African Americans
to ensure their positions and those
o f their children?
The answer, sadly appears to be
Yes they would and are. Because it
pays w ell, all a ro u n d , and
everybody’s getting “phat” except
the ones on the losing end, who are
growing old in prisons, leaving
behind sons and daughters as well
as their w ives, girlfriends and
mothers.
Muddying up the water o f trying to
change the system o f incarceration
are some myths that have been
proliferated. It is a myth that there
are more Black men in prison than
in college in America. This is the
same sort o f solipsistic thinking and
s ta tistic a l
le g e rd e m a in
by
overzealous advocates who in the
early 1990s tried to say there are 7
million homeless people roaming
the streets o f America. It ain’t so.
Som e o f th e m ore leg itim ate
advocates have am ended their
statistics and definition thusly: there
are more Black men under court
supervision, such as probation and
parole, than there are in college.
That’s more like it. Still, its not a
good thing even with all the added
qualifications.
This also has a dark political
dimension. The voting patterns in
some urban areas are said to be out
o f whack because o f the large
numbers o f Black men who have
temporarily lost the right to vote
while being incarcerated or under
court supervision.
T h is has lo n g -te rm p o litic a l
ram ifications for urban Black/
Brown political power, it is feared,
especially w ith the US Census
coming this spring.
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