White Fragility Digest #16: 5 June 2018

[MrScorpio]

WorkingWhileBlack: Police question Black lawmakers right to enter Statehouse ‘You don’t look like a legislator’

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By Angela Burt-Murray

Black legislators in Ohio report that security is cherry-picking who they allow in and if you’re black that means you’ll more often than not get stopped at the Statehouse doors.

It’s a discriminatory culture that State Rep. Emilia Sykes said she’s had to deal with several times, reports USA Today. Last year, she said a security officer searched her bag, but not the belongings of the 65-year-old white colleague she was with.

The junior Democratic state representative from Akron said she was told by a security officer:

“You don’t look like a legislator.” Then the trooper tried to clear up his tongue slip: “You look too young.”

The 32-year-old believes she is being targeted because she’s black. The profiling happened again on Wednesday when she had an issue gaining access to the Riffe Center for a meeting. Sykes said she showed her badge but security kept saying they couldn’t see it and then proceeded to closely examine it.

Sykes said these situations make her uneasy because not every lawmaker faces the same scrutiny, Sykes said.

“It’s just hard to find out what is the security rule,” Sykes said. “They seem to be a moving target for different people.”

An African-American Rep. Alicia Reece, D-Roselawn, said it happened to her too.

https://thegrio.com/2018/06/04/workingwhileblack-police-question-black-lawmakers-right-to-enter-statehouse-you-dont-look-like-a-legislator/

"White people in North America live in a social environment that protects and insulates them from race-based stress. This insulated environment of racial protection builds white expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering the ability to tolerate racial stress, leading to what I refer to as White Fragility. White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium."

Robin DiAngelo, Ph.D

The next Digest will be published as needed.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210609305

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210612268

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210616002

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210620209

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210623832

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210627625

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210636806

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210639960

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210642814

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210646721

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210650802

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210655685

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210668608

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210681365

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210691591

[MrScorpio]

1. Missouri isn't the the only state with a "driving while black" problem

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Racial disparities in traffic stops are a national issue.

By P.R. Lockhart Jun 4, 2018, 4:30pm EDT

A new report on traffic stops in Missouri is drawing attention for an eye-popping statistic: Black drivers in the state are 85 percent more likely than whites to be stopped by police. It’s a 10 percent increase from the year before and the largest disparity since 2000, the year the state started tracking the race of the people it pulled over.

The figure comes from an annual report on vehicle stops compiled by the state attorney general. That report also found that black drivers were 51 percent more likely than whites to be searched after they were stopped. Yet the report found that white people were more likely to be found with contraband.

“Quite frankly, it’s really deplorable,” John Gaskin, a spokesperson for the St. Louis County chapter of the NAACP, told the Associated Press.

The report suggests that four years after the police shooting and death of Michael Brown drew national attention to the Black Lives Matter movement and made Missouri a flashpoint in national conversations about race and policing, little has changed. In 2015, the Department of Justice released a report on policing in Ferguson that showed that while black people made up roughly 67 percent of residents, 85 percent of drivers stopped by police were black; black people also accounted for 90 percent of those issued a citation and 93 percent of those arrested.

While the new numbers from Missouri are noteworthy, particularly given prior incidents in the state, they speak to a much broader issue: a racial disparity in police stops across the country. It’s a disparity that can have particularly negative impacts on people of color, trapping them in the criminal justice system and increasing their chances of facing police violence.

https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/6/4/17426260/missouri-traffic-stops-report-racial-disparities

[MrScorpio]

2. #LivingWhileBlack victims want congressional hearing on racial profiling

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By Cleve R. Wootson Jr.

When Darren Martin found himself facing a half-dozen armed police officers summoned by a new neighbor who thought he was an armed robber, his dominant emotion was fear — of not being able to explain himself in time, of making the wrong move, of getting shot while doing absolutely nothing wrong.

A month later, the former Obama White House staffer has a different concern: that his widely shared #MovingInWhileBlack experience will be a largely meaningless blip in history.

Trying to turn their bad moments into a national call for action, Martin and several other black people who’ve had police sicced on them while they’ve been doing innocuous things — a meme-able phenomenon hashtagged #LivingWhileBlack — are asking for a congressional hearing on the issue.

On Monday, they sent a letter to the leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary committees, asking for a hearing on racial profiling before the August recess.

“These egregious affronts on human rights, eerily reminiscent of some of the darkest chapters in our nation’s history, are the sad reality for Black people in America,” the letter says. “We would request that this new hearing widen the focus from just the police, as in previous hearings, to addressing prejudice and profiling from public companies to private citizens, as well.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/06/04/they-were-harassed-for-livingwhileblack-now-they-want-congressional-hearings-on-profiling/?utm_term=.c3e30422b70b

[MrScorpio]

3. Robin DiAngelo, author of 'White Fragility' on implicit bias and racism

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https://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/2018/05/30/robin-diangelo-author-white-fragility-implicit-bias-and-racism/35516157/