Racial Discrimination

03/06/2013

Bloomberg Businessweek’s Racist Cover Dismisses Housing Discrimination Against Communities of Color

By Robert Hunter, Legal Assistant, ACLU, Racial Justice Program at 12:38pm

To illustrate its cover story about the housing market’s recovery in Phoenix, last week’s Bloomberg Businessweek cover depicted four black and Latino caricatures with obscenely exaggerated features, celebrating in a house filled with cash. You might wonder why an article about a tentative economic upturn should be represented by such alarmingly racist stereotypes—as though it’s a problem that people of color to have access to credit. After intense blowback, Bloomberg Businessweek responded, asserting “Our cover illustration last week got strong reactions, which we regret. Our intention was not to incite or offend. If we had to do it over again we’d do it differently.” However, their “apology” and its focus on their “intention” misses the larger point: Reducing complex economic systems to a caricature, particularly when it is done with an agenda, obscures the real sources of inequality and unfairly blames the victim.

03/04/2013

FBI

NYT Reports on Hate Crimes FBI Refused to Investigate, Uncovered by ACLU Racial Mapping FOIA

By Robyn Greene, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:25pm

On Friday, The New York Times published an excellent report about the FBI's failure to investigate two 2007 hate crimes that was based on FBI documents the ACLU of Northern California, the Asian Law Caucus and the San Francisco Bay Guardian uncovered through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on the FBI's Racial Mapping program.

03/01/2013

Voting Rights Act

The State of Equality & Justice in America: The Pendulum Swings between Joy and Despair

By Laura W. Murphy, Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:26pm

Let's just take one day, February 27, 2013, as a snapshot of the state of equality and justice in America.

02/28/2013

Overincarceration

For Kids With Parents Behind Bars, The Work of Black History Month Is Incomplete

By Alex Berger, Legislative Assistant, ACLU at 4:41pm

Over the last month, people across the country have retold the stories of heroes like Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks...

02/26/2013

Trayvon Martin

The Legacy of Trayvon Martin

By Meghan Groob, Media Relations Associate, ACLU at 12:14pm

Exactly one year ago today, a 17-year-old boy named Trayvon Martin was gunned down in his quiet Florida suburb in a tragedy that left our country shocked and ashamed. The incident set off a national conversation about racial profiling and the role race played in his death and subsequent police action.

Racial profiling violates the Constitution by denying equal protection under the law, as well as freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. Furthermore, the Constitution requires treaties to be treated as the "supreme law of the land," and racial profiling runs afoul of America's human rights treaty obligations.

02/05/2013

Housing Discrimination

A Step Forward in Fair and Equal Access to Credit for Minority Borrowers

By Demelza Baer, Washington Legislative Office at 11:06am

During our nation's prolonged economic downturn, most of us have been impacted by foreclosures, unemployment, or a significant loss of savings. These hardships, however, haven't fallen equally across the backs of all Americans – minorities have borne a disproportionate share of the burden. Minority families are twice as likely to lose their home through foreclosure during the Great Recession. And, since these households relied on home equity for a greater proportion of their household wealth, the foreclosure crisis has substantially increased the wealth gap between whites and ethnic minorities. Discrimination, not neutral market forces, explains many of these disparities. Thus, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) recently issued Ability-to-Repay rule is a welcome first step towards protecting the civil rights of all Americans, so that every individual can achieve the American dream of homeownership on a fair and level playing field.

02/01/2013

Racial Discrimination

7 Year-Old Boy Handcuffed for $5 'Robbery'

By Alison Silveira, Paralegal, Racial Justice Program, ACLU at 3:01pm

Five dollars is apparently all it takes to land a 7-year-old in handcuffs in a New York City public school these days.

Parents across New York City awoke Wednesday morning to the news that Bronx third-grader Wilson Reyes was pulled out of class, handcuffed and interrogated over the course of 10 hours at his elementary school, and later, at a local precinct. Reyes was charged with robbery after someone said he grabbed $5 that a classmate had dropped on the floor, causing a scuffle among several boys.

01/22/2013

Racial Profiling

Some Real Shock and Awe: Racially Profiled and Cuffed in Detroit

By Shoshana Hebshi, ACLU Plaintiff at 11:03am

It’s been more than a year since I was pulled off that Frontier flight at the Detroit airport for reasons I can only ascribe to discrimination and racial profiling. It was the end of a long trip home for me, but the beginning of a life-altering experience that has ultimately led me to shine a light on this great injustice. We often think of racial profiling as a problem that impacts other people. I am proof that racial profiling hurts us all.

12/21/2012

Racial Profiling

Time for Obama and Holder to Truly End Racial Profiling by Law Enforcement

By Laura W. Murphy, Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:18pm

Why can’t President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder do more to ban racial profiling in the United States? Surely, more so than any of their predecessors, they can understand the injustice and humiliation racial profiling victims feel when they are treated as suspect because of the color of their skin.

Yet, after four years in office, they’ve made no revisions to the Justice Department guidance regarding the use of race in federal law enforcement issued by Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2003. Ashcroft’s guidance was deficient: though it expressly banned racial profiling by federal law enforcement agencies, it left broad exemptions for national security and border integrity investigations.

12/17/2012

Death Penalty and Race

Sweeping Ruling about Racial Bias in Capital Jury Selection Shows the Need for Sweeping Reforms

By Cassandra Stubbs, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 2:47pm

Last week, North Carolina state Judge Gregory Weeks issued a sweeping ruling setting aside the death sentences of three North Carolina prisoners...

American Civil Liberties Union