Black = Terrorist = Thug: The New Racial Profile? Three Days in NYC Jails

[wellst0nev0ter]

by Bryonn Bain
September 24 - 30, 2003

Saturday night, November 23, 2002, I was pulled over on the Bruckner Expressway because of a broken taillight. The police officer who ran my license claimed I had multiple warrants out for my arrest, and I was thrown in jail to begin a weekend I will not soon forget.

During the next three days, I was interrogated about "terrorist activity"—whether I was involved with a terrorist group or knew anyone else who was—without an attorney present. My Legal Aid lawyer claimed she was also a medical professional and diagnosed me as mentally ill when I told her I teach poetry at New York University. After my bail was posted, I was held behind bars another night because central booking ran out of the receipts required for my release. On my third day in jail, accused of two misdemeanors and a felony I knew nothing about, I was finally found innocent, and allowed to go home.

These events are not in themselves that extraordinary. Black men and women in this country have for centuries experienced far worse episodes with law enforcement. This incident is striking because it occurred at a time when I have been working to expose the injustice and inhumanity of the prison crisis in America, and because it was not the first time I was unjustly jailed.

Six months after I was racially profiled in 1999, The Village Voice published a story I wrote entitled "Walking While Black," recounting the wrongful arrest I experienced with my brother and cousin outside the now defunct Latin Quarter nightclub in Manhattan. The story was read by several hundred thousand people and received a response unprecedented in the paper's history. The 400 pages of mail sent to me in the following weeks indicated how widespread the epidemic of police misconduct is across the nation.

By May 2000, months after my initial arrest, the organization my family founded to empower communities of color using the arts, education, and activism began developing a national campaign to raise awareness about the prison-industrial complex. Months later, Blackout Arts Collective launched the Lyrics on Lockdown Tour—an annual road trip that brings hip-hop and spoken-word poetry to correctional facilities and community venues around the country. In November 2002, Blackout received the Union Square Award for our grassroots organizing efforts. The next day, I was arrested, strip-searched, and thrown into jail. (As a result of events detailed here, a notice of claim has been filed reserving the right to sue the culpable parties involved with the second case.)

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0339/bain.php

[RedSox02]

1. I have also heard stories

from other blacks. The whole "Driving while black" and "Walking while Black" are real problems. Police do racially profile, and until somethign is done to hold them accountable it will keep on happening. I am white, so I lack perspective, but all it took was one story about how a coworker of mine was pulled over in his own neighborhood and forced to keep his hands on the hood of the car in the pouring rain. As I said, this was his own neighborhood, but it also happened to be a "white neighborhood". The officer never gave a reason for pulling him over or forcing him to stand in the pouring rain as opposed to staying in his car.

[DuctapeFatwa]

2. This policy is popular with the voting classes

Increased ethnic populations have brought about increased enthusiasm for incarcerating as many non-white individuals as possible, which has the added bonus of strengthening the prison industry.

[roughsatori]

3. What a nightmare

It reminded me of a male friend who threw a kiss to an police officer in Philly after the cop used the word "faggot" while asking other men to leave Rittenhouse Square. He was arrested and jailed for 3 days before being released with no charges. Our system can rival Kafka.

[cprise]

4. You know, I don't think it matters

...whether its the NYPD on the beat, or the self-appointed world police.

It's racist fear and the thousand conspiracy theories per day (Cuba's bioweapons, Iraq's WMD, Venezuela's "communist" problem) that are so pervasive, that even the most credible people illuminating this pattern are reduced to nothing more than "conspiracy nuts".

Problem children.

If AMERICA doesn't have a huge problem with racism, then what makes the police so un-American? (I have news for you: They're us.)

[Voltaire99]

7. Nice post

I don't think we'd qualify under Erich Fromme's definition of a "sane" society.

[cprise]

8. Bain aptly mentions madness

I almost cried before finishing this article.

[roguevalley]

5. god. what country are we again?!

I will NEVER understand this. Never.

RV, who remembers 'whites only' shit with loathing.

[cprise]

9. No longer "whites only", but now "these things happen"

The mendacious and the afraid are hiding their bigotry even from themselves. Racism has become nearly mute, and reflexive.

We liberals better get very good at dealing with the powerful based on their actions; conservatives and 'security-firsters' constantly get a pass because of their stated intentions. I'm sorry, that's not good enough. They need be to held accountable for their pattern of behavior, whether they are self-aware or not. If they have deceived themselves, then too bad.

We need to call "bleeding-heart" conservatives on their results, and dump them.

[Don_G]

6. Have You Seen "Men In Black II"

Remember Eddie Murphy showing Tommy Lee Jones the new Mercedes with the autopilot?

"He used to be black but kept getting pulled over."

Unfortunately, it's all too common nowdays.

[rocktivity]

10. Look who's talking about alternative realities

I told (Bronx Legal Aid attorney Alison Webster) I was a graduate of Columbia University, where I had been president of my class all four years, before earning a master's from NYU, and then studying law at Harvard...I (also) told her...I had been out of the country for the past month..."In India. Writing and doing research. I teach downtown at NYU."

..."In addition to being an attorney," she said, "I am also a registered nurse specializing in mental illness. And it is my professional obligation to inform you that you may have a bipolar disorder...You probably don't teach at NYU...You probably never went to India last month. Frankly, I'm not sure anything you've told me is the truth...Sometimes people create alternate realities for themselves as a coping mechanism for dealing with stress."

In my professional opinion (I'm a professional music writer), Webster probably never went to nursing school. Sometimes attorneys create alternative realities for themselves to cope with being in the employ of such less-than-prestigious establishments as Legal Aid!

P.S. After she was faxed a privacy waiver required for her to answer questions, Webster failed to respond to at least six Voice calls.


rocknation

[rocktivity]

11. Wil Smith was in the Men In Black movies

unless Murphy did a cameo.

Too bad this story is true--it would have made a great Living Colour sketch!