In this age of Obama, I have often heard people express the belief that America has finally become a “post-racial” society. I guess they mean that with the election of the first black president (technically the first bi-racial president), the United States has proven that it has finally transcended its racially stained legacy. But is that really true?
No one can deny that Obama’s election and subsequent inauguration was a significant moment in American history. For blacks, it signaled a hopeful culmination to the centuries-long struggle for equal rights. For others, Obama’s election was a symbol of how powerful and successful groups of people can be when united under one cause.
I still believe that the United States remains a country in which race is a salient factor. Fast-forward from the jubilant celebrations of Nov. 4, 2008 to July 16, 2009, when Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested in front of his home in Cambridge, Mass. by Sgt. James Crowley.
Almost immediately controversy erupted, and many complained that this was a prime example of racial profiling. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, racial profiling is “the discriminatory practice by law enforcement officials of targeting individuals for suspicion of crime based on the individual’s race, ethnicity, religion or national origin.”
This disproportionately affects black and Hispanic males. According to an ACLU news release, the Department of Justice in a 2007 report stated that “blacks and Hispanics were roughly three times as likely to be searched during a traffic stop, blacks were twice as likely to be arrested and blacks were nearly four times as likely to experience the threat or use of force during interactions with the police.”
So, it is only natural that people automatically assumed that Gates was arrested because he was a black male in a predominantly white neighborhood. On one side of the issue was the black community remembering past abuses suffered at the hands of white police officers, incidents like the brutal beating of Rodney King and the fatal shootings of Amadou Diallo and more recently Sean Bell. The other side fervently denied that race played any role in the arrest.
Eventually the charges were dropped, but this is a perfect example of the United States being far from a post-racial society. What is so fascinating about this incident is how quickly people took sides along racial lines. Regardless of your opinion on Gates’ arrest, you can’t deny that it would not have gained such prominence if not for racial tension.
Let’s face it—race has always been, is still and will probably always be a salient factor in the United States.
And don’t think that these racial incidents only occur in big cities; they can happen right here on campus. It happened last spring to my friend’s boyfriend, an undergraduate at North Carolina State University.
He had been a steady guest to our dorm for the past year. One night he was patiently waiting for his girlfriend to let him into the dorm when he followed a white student into the building and casually walked into his girlfriend’s room. I was already in this room when two Duke police officers entered the room. They asked my friend’s boyfriend if he had just arrived. Apparently the girl whom he had followed into the building had notified the police claiming that a black man forced his way into the building.
I will admit that the police officers were quite nice about the entire incident; they only checked his ID to verify his identity and then politely asked him to leave. They also cautioned him that in the future he should wait until my friend could let him into the building.
After the police officers left, my friends and I stared at each other wondering if we had just experienced our first racial profiling incident. We were shocked, angry and in total disbelief. The problems with these sorts of events are assigning blame. Should we blame the student for automatically believing that the black man behind her had to be a suspicious character when so many of our Duke Alert e-mails cite the suspect as being a black male? (Even though this is true, it does not negate the fact that not all black men are suspects). Can we blame the police for doing their job and responding to the call?
These questions are part of the endless debates about race that have permeated our country since the advent of slavery. And if we ever hope to solve racial tension, we must first admit that race matters.
Dayo Oshilaja is a Trinity junior. Her column runs every other Thursday.
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