One of these years we’re going to have that race “conversation” we keep promoting and promising ourselves. You know, the one steeped in candor; the one where all the racial elephants in the room are stampeded. The one where we get to walk in another race’s shoes and talk about how those stereotypes hurt–and how, frankly, they happen.
For a number of reasons, mostly political, the first African-American president has largely skirted the issue. But Barack Obama, an accomplished orator, has shown sympathy and empathy as well as colorless context when formally speaking out after a tragic, racially-related loss of life. And he did have that beer with Henry Louis Gates and a white cop.
But race is still a touchy subject in “post-racial,” majority-white, politically polarized America. We wind up talking past each other after each high-profile crucible–from Ferguson, Cleveland and Chicago to Staten Island and Baltimore.
The issue of police abuse in minority communities is on every municipality’s radar, especially those, such as Tampa, with large African-American populations. We recently saw the formation of a citizens police review board turn into a power struggle and racial melodrama. No one was surprised.
Now we have the results from that U.S. Department of Justice report on the racial disparities in the ticketing of bicyclists around Tampa. It’s hardly a white-washing of black grievances.
There’s been a pattern with blacks, roughly a quarter of the city’s population, being disproportionately cited, it said. In 2014, for example, more than 80 percent of bike citations were given to blacks. During one three-year period, Tampa Police wrote more bike tickets–from no lights to handle-bar riders–than Jacksonville, Miami, St. Petersburg and Orlando combined.
What’s up with that?
According to the feds, racial disparities are a demonstrable fact. But no discriminatory intent was found. The intent, the report said, was to use bicycle stops to reduce crime in high-crime, often black, communities. Individuals perceived to be suspicious were targeted. They were typically black.
“The TPD burdened black bicyclists by disproportionately stopping them, with the intention of benefiting black communities by increasing their public safety,” noted the report.
The ironic upshot: Crime-reduction was negligible, according to data, but bike stops did impair police relations with the communities.
Maybe this is impetus for that Tampa conversation. The report itself even recommended “greater community engagement” over policies.
So, why were police, who don’t ticket on Davis Islands or along Bayshore Boulevard, targeting minority bicyclists in black communities? In part, because members of those communities had made the case that bikes, often without lights, were frequently pedaled by those involved in certain crimes, often of opportunity. Vulnerable residents felt preyed upon.
They wanted protection–but not heavy-handed profiling.
Good, community policing requires a professional, proactive approach. Preventing crime is better than after-the-fact arrests. It also means knowing the community you’re policing–not just in the context of crime prevention and solution. It’s called relating to people as people, without their labels–color, neighborhood or badge. It’s how trust, which is imperative, is built.
Before we get to the cherry-picking agenda of Black Lives Matter or reconsider subpoena power for the police review board, we should all be able to agree on this: The police and the community must be on the same side. That can’t happen, however, unless they know each other beyond their racial and crime-fighting identities.
And that can’t happen without talking to each other. Whether the conversations are over a beer, at a barbecue or on a front step.