White Snitches

President Obama is doing the brave and right thing by instructing the U.S. Department of Justice to sue the State of Arizona over its thinly-veiled attempt to legalize race-based profiling. For decades African-Americans have suffered the indignity of being pulled over and searched (in some stops drug-sniffing dogs are utilized) merely because of the color of our skin. So prevalent is the practice it has a name: “driving while black.”

The Arizona Legislature’s attempt to go back and narrowed the scope and reach of the initial controversial law speaks volumes about the nature of said lawmakers’ true intents and purposes. The softening of the language came about — in part — after one white Phoenix police officer sued, contending the law, as initially framed, would have forced him to determine the immigration status of everyone he encountered on the streets, even a schoolchild simply asking for directions.

A spokesperson for the governor said the action by the Legislature to make the cosmetic changes in what is still an onerous bill “… absolutely clarifies what the intent was, it's undeniable now that this bill will not lead to racial profiling.” Most blacks know otherwise. Overwhelming evidence developed by analyzing tons of data relating to the race of drivers pulled over by police officers leads to the concrete and irrefutable conclusion police officers nationwide routinely engage in racial profiling … but now Arizona wants to make such behavior legal.

The problem bigoted whites have is that some other whites (and, yes, even some police officers) are snitching them out. The pejorative and racially loaded comments white reactionaries make in tight circles where they feel everyone agrees with them have, for years, been filtering back to the ears of minorities. Racists are sometimes so comfortable in their bigotry they casually make the mistake of thinking everyone in earshot is in agreement with their prejudices. However, everyone is not, and some whites are telling. Bigots mistakenly take silence for comradeship, and a lack of challenge to their racist notions as consent, as they spew forth their prejudiced positions. And such conversations are engaged in on the floors and back rooms of State Houses and Legislatures all across America … not just in barrooms, back alleys and white supremacist rallies.

Many of these white snitches find themselves in situations where their stomachs are turned by the vitriolic level of racial enmity and sick rhetorical cant given voice in private conversations, but they remain mute for fear of being ostracized; for fear that if they raise an objection to the derogatory comments they will be called by the dreaded phrase, which, for centuries, has caused good people in America to remain mute: “nigger-lover.” In the current case, substitute the term “wetback lover.”

Nonetheless, these whites come back and tell us persons of color the tone, tenor and fact of the racist remarks they hear … as if by doing so they achieve some kind of unburdening, a confession that’s tantamount to a washing away of the sins of racism their ears have been privy and subjected to.

While some other whites might call it racial snitching, these closeted white progressives simply want some form of absolution and relief from the guilt of being in possession of the knowledge that the half-truths and racial code words used to hide and justify bigoted behaviors are just what they are: Racism. Their pricked consciences make them give voice to the fact racial discrimination is still very much alive and well in some powerful circles in America — in spite of loud and persistent denials to the contrary.

For lawmakers in Arizona to audaciously maintain, in the face of decades-old evidence, that racial profiling is a thing of the ugly past in America — and that it won’t happen in this case, under this new legislation — only adds additional insult to racist injury. The notion that fairness in stops made by police officers can be insured by legislation, and racial profiling will be prevented by the cosmetic changes to the recently passed Arizona bill is ridiculous. As long as the racial climate in Arizona is allowed to be driven by bigots Hispanics will continue to be targeted. Someone has to tell folks in that state, in no uncertain terms, that what they are attempting to do is not only illegal, but is also immoral and un-American.

Positing that a majority of whites in the state want this type of legislation enforced to protect their borders cannot, in any way, justify it. That a majority of Germans stood silently by while millions were killed under the Nazi regime should have put to rest years ago the notion that public support for a wrong policy can somehow make it right. There’s a proper way to address illegal immigration and protect our borders, but this new legislation is not the answer. The governor, the legislators, and the white citizens of Arizona who support this new law are all, totally, wrong.

From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier's From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://www.frombehindthewall.com.