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The arrest of Professor Gates by a Cambridge police officer has been viewed by many as simply the latest incident in a long history of racial profiling by law enforcement officers. But rendering this episode as a case of racial profiling obscures more than it illuminates.
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There is no question that the officer overreacted. Professor Gates should never have been handcuffed and taken to jail. But if we are to understand not only this disturbing incident but more tragic interactions as well, we need to look beyond the question of racial profiling. We need to appreciate the myriad historical and contemporary factors that too often poison relations between African Americans and law enforcement agencies.
We would all benefit if law enforcement officers were better trained to de-escalate such volatile encounters and defuse the understandable anger of those citizens whom they are pledged to serve.
Other publications by this author
- Sidestepping Land Mines
- (How) Does Unconscious Bias Matter? Law, Politics, and Racial Inequality
- Beyond Colorblindness: Neo-Racialism and the Future of Race and Law Scholarship
- Beyond Common-sense Understandings of Sex and Race Discrimination
- Race, Crime, and Antidiscrimination
- The Aftermath of Loving v. Virginia: Sex Asymmetry in African American Intermarriage
- Discrimination and Implicit Bias in a Racially Unequal Society
- African American Intimacy : The Racial Gap in Marriage
- The Story of Brown v. City of Oneonta: The Uncertain Meaning of Racially Discriminatory Policing Under the Equal Protection Clause
- Brown v. Board of Education: 50 Years Later [Panel discussion]
Author
- Ralph Richard Banks
- Stanford Law School
- rbanks@stanford.edu
- 650 723.6591