This article in the Portland Press Herald made me pause... for a long time. The tone of the article perpetuates a negative idea that civil rights advocates or victims of racial profiling are pitted against law enforcement. Not only is this negative idea unhelpful, it's remarkably dangerous.
To be clear, racial profiling happens when perceived race, ethnicity, religion or national origin are used as reasonable suspicion that a crime has happened or is about to happen. Using race as part of what describes a person seen committing a crime is not racial profiling. As an example, if a purple person driving a green car robs a bank, alerting all police to stop purple people driving green cars within a 10 mile radius of the bank that was robbed is probably a good idea. Racial profiling would happen if after the purple person responsible for robbing the bank was apprehended, cops decided to stop all purple people always because purple people must like robbing banks, since one purple person did so. That doesn't make sense, and the ACLU isn't the only one that thinks so.
Last spring, I co-authored an op-ed with Westbrook Chief of Police Bill Baker on the ineffectiveness of racial profiling. In the PPH article today, President of the Maine State Troopers Association noted that "you cannot be a good cop in Maine or anywhere else in the U.S. and not be against racial profiling." So it would seem that we all agree that racial profiling is wrong and doesn't work. Why then do I sense tension around the issue? What exactly do we disagree about?
We disagree that racial profiling happens. Well, how do you prove racial profiling? How do you prove that a person's heart and mind motivated them to stop a person just because of the color of her skin? I'm not sure that can be proven.
I'd like to think that as members of communities, we would hear our neighbors accounts of racial profiling and take them to heart. Participating in this work for years now has taught me that anecdotal stories like the ones shared in June at the Face the Truth Hearing won't convince everyone. So what else can we do?
What is easier to prove and what cities like Los Angeles have proven is whether or not a disproportionate number of stops involve people of color that don't get ticketed or booked. That means more people of color are stopped and not found to be doing anything illegal. Maine's taskforce looking into racial profiling in the state may decide to initiate tracking in a few cities to concretely identify a problem where one exists.
How is denying racial profiling exists remarkably dangerous? When wrongs like racial profiling aren't righted, communities lose trust in law enforcement. When no trust exists between a community and law enforcement, crimes go unreported, criminals wander without anyone turning them in, and people live in the shadows.
We may not agree on the extent of racial profiling in Maine, or how to address it, but we can all agree that racial profiling is wrong and when it isn't addressed, communities suffer. I urge Mainers to consider this sensitive issue with open hearts and minds, to listen to your neighbors with a discerning ear, and to support one another in a positive path forward.