Black Men Find That Success Does Not End Racial Profiling

by Frederick H. Lowe

Despite their achievements, professional African-American men are routinely racially profiled, and they are more likely to protest their treatment to inform other black men about their experiences, Dr. Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., professor at Harvard Law School, told attendees on Friday at a reception for the National Summit on Black Male Achievement: Toward a Definition of Black Manhood.

The conference, which was sponsored by Third World Press Foundation, the charitable arm of Chicago-based book publisher and bookseller, Third World Press, was held on June 14-June 16 in Chicago.

Black attorneys, physicians, and other African- American men who are professionals are stopped by the police for being in the "wrong" neighborhood, driving a nice car or just because the police consider the men suspicious, Ogletree said.

He noted that Los Angeles Police stopped attorney Johnny L. Cochran, Jr., for driving his Rolls Royce. The cops pulled their guns on Cochran and his children who were passengers in the car. The police demanded Cochran get out of the car. When Cochran showed his Los Angeles County assistant district attorney badge to the police, they let him go.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder also was a victim of racial profiling as an undergraduate student at Columbia University in the 1970s. He was driving to Washington, D.C. from New York when a police officer stopped his car on the expressway. The cop demanded that Holder open his car's trunk because he believed Holder was carrying weapons.

Racial profiling of black men, however, is not confined solely to the police, Ogletree said. He added that employees of retail outlets profile black men as thieves or potential criminals when they walk into a store. Black men also are profiled for just doing their job, said Ogletree.

He cites an incident involving Philadelphia physician Walter Lomax. Shortly after Dr. Lomax opened his medical office in 1958, the Philadelphia County Medical Society put his name on a list of physicians who make emergency house calls.

At 3 a.m. one morning, he responded to a request for a house call. With his black medical bag in hand, Dr. Lomax rang the patient's door bell. A white woman answered the door. When she saw Dr. Lomax standing there, she slammed the door in his face.

Professional black men discuss being racially profiled because they want other black men to know about their experiences. They also want to expose hidden racial incidents, Ogletree said.

Cochran's, Holder's and Lomax's experiences and those of others are written about in Ogletree's 2010 book, "The Presumption of Guilt: The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. And Race, Class, and Crime in America."

A portion of the book is devoted to the Gates, who was arrested by Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley on July 16, 2009, on the porch of Gates' home. Gates had just returned from China. The front door was jammed and Gates and his taxi driver forced it open. A neighborhood woman called the police.

Crowley assumed that Gates had broken into the home, although Gates produced his Massachusetts driver's license and his Harvard faculty identification card to prove that he lived there.

Ogletree's conclusion was that "Crowley saw Gates' face, not his pedigree."

Gates' arrest drew worldwide attention because he is an internationally known Harvard University professor. He also is a friend of President Barack Obama, and the president commented on Gates' arrest.

Gates' arrest became a national barometer on race when President Obama said, "The police acted stupidly for arresting a man in his own home after he produced two pieces of identification to show that he lived there."

Most of the press, however, reported that the president said, "The police acted stupidly." Many media outlets deleted the last part of the sentence, Ogletree said.