How To Stop Racial Profiling?

Last week our police chief resigned in a flurry of controversy and media disapproval - after she stated at a community meeting that she had directed her officers to stop African American men in a "congenial" and "consensual" way to find out what they were doing in Palo Alto. The meeting had been called because of citizen concerns in the wake of 19 recent assaults and robberies - most of which had been perpetrated by African American men. Only about 3% of Palo Alto's population is Black. Needless to say, this blatant directive for racial profiling did not sit well for African American men who live here, or the many African American men who work in town. Nor for the many African Americans in neighboring East Palo Alto who come here to shop. There's not a single large grocery store in East Palo Alto, and Palo Alto is the destination for a lot of hard-earned dollars by minority neighbors.

Civic leaders in East Palo Alto organized a march to the Palo Alto City Hall and also spoke out at a Palo Alto city council meeting and a Human Relations commission meeting. Many recounted frivolous traffic stops by Palo Alto police over the years and many said they try to stay out of Palo Alto to avoid problems. The Palo Alto officials were extremely apologetic for the wayward remarks and policy, expressing a zero tolerance for racial profiling. All parties expressed the need to keep a dialogue going.

It's not easy to find concrete guidelines for police practices that avoid racial profiling, though they are desperately needed. The Palo Alto city manager needs to to hire a new chief who is fluent in methods that eliminate or greatly limit profiling, but do such chiefs exist? If you are familiar with any leaders and practices in this area, it would be great to hear from you.

How can police avoid it? The police are expected to keep residents feeling safe and when a crime wave hits they are under greater pressure to be proactive. When most of the suspects are Black, in a largely White and Asian community, it's easy to see how cops might multiply their traffic stops of minority persons in the hopes of turning away or maybe even catching the few criminals they are after. The cops are like industrial fishing outfits that cast a large net even if they end up throwing away many of the fish they capture. Only, in this case the practice leaves a trail of humiliation, resentment and inequity for a lot of innocent people.

It's similar to the way police will park outside of bars at closing time and stop drivers who emerge from the parking lot with a faulty taillight or an expired tag in the hope of netting a drunk driver before they hit the road. They are playing the odds; using their powers strategically. But these are not the rules of the game we want them to play by. These are Orwellian rules that make many law abiding folks feel that Big Brother is watching them.

Recognizing and talking regularly (not just at an annual diversity workshop) about our prejudices and biases is a valuable start for any police force (and community). Keeping stats of every traffic stop and who was in the car is also good as a starter. But without training in clear-cut procedures and practices that are alternatives to profiling, those statistics and dialogues don't change much. Palo Alto instituted the statistics-gathering a few years back after the"Driving while Black or Brown" movement made a convincing case for them. The stats became a hard-to-interpret footnote of quarterly Human Relations Commission meetings and no actions followed those reports. In fact, the Chief had successfully lobbied for fewer reports and fewer stats to collect.

The City Manager has proposed a $20,000 contract to a police auditor firm to review our department's practices and suggest better ones where appropriate. At $200 an hour, that will buy a week of evaluation of Palo Alto practices, study of alternative practices, and a report. Hopefully those alternative practices are more prevalent and easy to find than I imagine them to be.

Israel - Palestine through a Lerner's Eyes

Palo Alto's First Presbyterian Church hosted a weekend with Rabbi Michael Lerner, the editor/founder of the progressive magazine, Tikkun, and a co-founder with Cornel West of a movement of Spiritual Progressives. Deborah and I went on Friday night and this morning (Sunday) to hear him speak for the first time.

It was great for me to hear someone voice the feelings/opinions I hold about Israel-Palestine, but rarely articulate. In my immediate family with its divide between ultra-religious Zionists and non-observant, culturally proud Jews the easiest course has been to avoid any discussion on the issue, not get deeply involved in any movements, and just not respond to my father's mailings of pro-Israel, pro-Orthodoxy articles. I have a friend who is a progressive Cuban American whose extended family is divided between rabid anti-Castro folks (mostly in Miami) and pro-Cuba folks. He reports a similar dynamic where he just keeps quiet to avoid the deep family rift that would otherwise occur.

As a spiritual progressive, Lerner says we must start with the "I-Thou" perspective rather than the "Evil Other" perspective of those with whom we are at odds.

He talked about the need for Israeli and Palestinian leaders to model a real "intention" for peace and generosity and seeing the humanity and goodness in "the other side." When the Oslo Peace Accords were signed he encouraged Israeli President Rabin to use it as an opportunity to travel to Palestine, initiate new bonds between the two peoples, express sorrow for all the killing Israel has done, etc. Instead Rabin went back to Israel and proclaimed he signed the agreement but doesn't trust the Palestinians and would take each step very slowly and cautiously. When Lerner subsequently asked him about it, Rabin said that first he had to build trust among his own people and after re-election he could move forward with more initiatives for real and lasting peace. Instead he was murdered by Israeli right-wingers before serving another term. Be careful because "the mask becomes the face," Lerner said.

It also felt good to hear him say to those who would promote total divestment from Israel that there is a big difference between selective divestment from companies that fuel the occupation such as Caterpillar Tractors and total divestment. He said that when the left would promote divestment from at least 15 human rights violators including the U.S., then he would be fine with adding Israel to that list and joining the cause. Too often it feels to me that people on the left demonize Israel on an emotional level that goes beyond the attention they give and express about places where torture, repression, and ethnic cleansing are practiced at least as vigorously. That gets very uncomfortable.

Is Anybody Going to Vote In East Palo Alto?

For many years I have helped to organize and televise candidate forums and debates on community cable TV. This year, our agency received a grant to collaborate on a number of forums with several nearby League of Women Voter branches. In addition to televising the forums, the past few years we've been putting them online, indexing them into different segments to make them very user-friendly for the busy voters looking for some resources deeper than the tsunami of slick one-sided ads and mailers they get hit with.

Last week we had two of our forums. The first was for city council candidates of Menlo Park, CA, held at the Menlo Park City Council Chamber. Over 100 audience members attended the 90 minute forum in the upscale town. On Saturday we had a doubleheader forum in East Palo Alto, a neighboring town in demographic and economic transition. First were the elementary school district candidates followed by the city council candidates. At 10 AM when it was time to begin, there was one person in the audience and only one out of six of the candidates present. All but one of the candidates dribbled in, but not as many audience members showed up. By the time we got to the City Council Candidate forum there were about a dozen in the audience.

East Palo Alto is now majority Hispanic. This year we hired Spanish translators to provide real time translation into Spanish that could be heard via headphones. We sent a letter in Spanish to 133 households that had requested a ballot in Spanish, encouraging them to attend. Not a single headset was needed. I don't mean to single out one particular demographic as not a single one you could name was well represented unless folding chairs count as a group.

I'll report back what kind of traffic the online versions get before Election Day. There will be an English version and a Spanish version.