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Driving While Black

While driving his Mercedes in Southern California, he estimates that the police stop him five times a year for an assortment of traffic violations. However, he rarely receives any tickets, presumably because the officer eventually realizes that the black man in the Mercedes is an Assistant District Attorney for the city of Los Angeles. Darden's explanation is simple. The police are naturally "suspicious of a black man driving a Mercedes.".
             The repeated stops of Darden by the Los Angeles Police Department are an illustration of this pervasive police procedure of using traffic stops to investigate motorists for criminal activity. These officers use an alleged traffic violation as a "pretext" to stop the minority motorist when there is no evidence of any criminal conduct. The true purpose of these stops is not to enforce traffic code, but rather to investigate the motorists for potential criminal activity, typically associated with drug activity. The real problem behind this practice is that African-American and other minority motorists are being stopped for these traffic violations solely because of their race. It can be argued that African-Americans and Latino-American communities need to adopt a Racial Realist view toward solving the problem of police misconduct of race-based traffic stops. Racial Realism is a new movement that Professor Derrick Bell advocates as an alternative to the traditional "idea that the courts and the judiciary (are) the vehicle to better the social position of blacks." .
             The Supreme Court's decision in Whren vs. United States demonstrates that the courts in this country will not assist minority motorists in their struggle for equal treatment from law enforcement. In this decision, the police officers used probable cause for a traffic violation as a pretext to investigate possible drug offenses by two young black males driving through a "high crime" area. Although the stop could be based on racial profiling by the police, a unanimous Supreme Court held that such action was completely constitutional under the Fourth Amendment.


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