What 'driving while black' really means for black Americans in two charts

Daily Kos Staff

Monday October 26, 2015 · 2:01 PM PDT

2015/10/26 · 14:01

Police take a mug shot of a protester who was detained in Ferguson, Missouri, August 10, 2015.  Protesters regrouped in Ferguson, Missouri, on Monday evening after a state of emergency was declared, aimed at preventing a repeat of violence the night befor

The fact that black Americans are more routinely pulled over for minor and even bogus traffic violations than white Americans is something people of color have lived with for years despite efforts to discount it. Now the New York Times has a long and damning piece out titled "The Disproportionate Risks of Driving While Black" that was the result of combing through tens of thousands of traffic stops and arrest data over a period of years. Here was one finding from its examination of stops in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Officers pulled over African-American drivers for traffic violations at a rate far out of proportion with their share of the local driving population. They used their discretion to search black drivers or their cars more than twice as often as white motorists — even though they found drugs and weapons significantly more often when the driver was white.
Officers were more likely to stop black drivers for no discernible reason. And they were more likely to use force if the driver was black, even when they did not encounter physical resistance.

Similar patterns were found in the other places after the Times mined data from four states that keep the best records on traffic stops and searches by consent. That data was used to produce these two charts demonstrating that blacks were far more likely to be searched during a stop, even though those searches were considerably less likely to turn up any illegal contraband.

Two charts showing that in 14 cities, blacks were disproportionately searched during traffic stops even though police were more likely to find contraband while searching the cars of whites

What 'driving while black' really means for black Americans in two charts

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