ProPublica Struggles with Traffic Stops of Hispanics

In an article titled “If Everybody’s White, There Can’t Be Any Racial Bias”: The Disappearance of Hispanic Drivers From Traffic Records Richard A. Webster, Hannah Fresques and Irena Hwang complain that police departments are in the habit of listing Hispanic drivers as “white” during traffic stops. This hides any racial profiling that might be taking place:

This kind of misidentification is widespread — and not without harm. Across America, law enforcement agencies have been accused of targeting Hispanic drivers, failing to collect data on those traffic stops, and covering up potential officer misconduct and aggressive immigration enforcement by identifying people as white on tickets.

If the authors of this article are concerned about such misidentification, perhaps they should dig a bit deeper to understand WHY it occurs. The article does touch upon the reasons, barely, in a couple of places:

State Police spokesperson Lt. Melissa Matey, as an explanation for not counting Hispanics, cited the current National Crime Information Center standards, which don’t include Hispanic as a race.

“You could say the person was lazy,” del Carmen said. “You could also say, well, maybe the officer intentionally did that to be able to lower the number of individual Hispanics that he or she stopped, because they were being scrutinized.”

And there’s the rub. Hispanics are not counted as a separate category most likely to make white crime-rates seem higher than they actually are. This has been a widespread policy for a long time – and here we see the catch-22 that the Left has created for itself:

Count Hispanic offenders as “white” so that white crime-rates appear higher, and there’s no evidence of alleged racial profiling – leaving leftists unhappy.

Count Hispanic offenders in their own category, so that “evidence” of racial profiling can be conjured up, and low white crime-rates become painfully obvious, especially when compared to black crime-rates – leaving leftists unhappy.

What the authors of this article want is for traffic offenses to be exactly in proportion to each respective ethnic group, and yet they present no evidence that Hispanic/black drivers are identical to white/Asian drivers in their habits…

… Actually not. The authors of this article do NOT WANT such equality, and even if it existed, they’d find a way to make it appear that it did not. They make their living off of racial grievances, real or imagined. Here are some of the other articles they have vomited out for us:

Louisiana Deputy Who Slammed a Black Woman on the Pavement Was Named in Multiple Suits, Records Show

Three Children Attacked a Black Woman. A Sheriff’s Deputy Arrived — and Beat Her More.

In a California Desert, Sheriff’s Deputies Settle Schoolyard Disputes. Black Teens Bear the Brunt.

Black Workers Are More Likely to Be Unemployed but Less Likely to Get Unemployment Benefits

In the South, Bankruptcy Is Different, Especially for Black Debtors

How the Bankruptcy System Is Failing Black Americans

ProPublica is a perfect example of what we mean when we describe “anti-racism” as an industry. It’s a grievance mill, churning out article after article about how terrible it is to be non-white, specifically black, in America – and yet millions of black Africans risk their lives to come here, and the black proportion of the population steadily increases. If things were half as bad as they say, almost all American blacks would have died out by now.

Regarding Hispanics, and this article, the authors spill much ink describing how police officers engage in fishing operations for illegal immigrants:

Traffic stops are the most common interaction between citizens and police, and often lead to finding people who have outstanding warrants or who are in the country illegally. As a result, they present the most opportunities for abuse and misconduct, said Jeffrey Fagan, a professor at Columbia Law School…

For years, many in Jefferson Parish’s Hispanic community have accused the Sheriff’s Office of targeting them for stops with the intention of investigating their immigration status…

In a 2011 report on New Orleans, DOJ investigators noted that “Latinos in New Orleans, especially young Latino males, reported that NOPD officers stop them for unknown reasons or for minor offenses that would not ordinarily merit police attention, and then question them regarding immigration status.”

And yet they openly admit that many of these same Hispanics are, indeed, illegal immigrants:

Since 2000, the Hispanic population in Jefferson Parish has more than doubled, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, growth driven in part by Central American immigrants arriving in search of work during the rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Katrina. Many of these immigrants settled in Jefferson Parish due to affordable rents and landlords willing to accommodate undocumented people…

The Department of Homeland Security has awarded the Sheriff’s Office multiple grants since 2017 to assist in the identification and deportation of undocumented people. One of the key tactics in doing so is traffic stops, which has left many Hispanic people in Jefferson Parish afraid to drive.

“I think we just leave our houses kind of terrified,” said a local activist who asked to remain anonymous due to his immigration status. “I’m white-knuckled on the steering wheel, just making sure I’m always going the speed limit and that everything on my car is perfect. Because for any tiny thing, you just don’t know how the police might react and what could happen.”

What the authors are really saying is that such stops are an effective way to apprehend illegal immigrants, but they simply do not want our immigration laws to be enforced. Also, there can be no doubt that the authors fully support Biden’s open-border policies, which inevitably result in many more illegal aliens who are Hispanic. They want nothing less than the wholesale invasion of our country.

The vast majority of people, even in America, lack critical thinking skills. They see article after article claiming that white people are oppressing non-whites, in myriad ways, and in their minds, this amounts to “evidence.” In reality, the proliferation of such junk articles and studies is evidence only of a huge financial/ideological motive to push The Narrative. It does not amount to evidence of anything else.

If a proliferation of such articles were actually evidence of their claims, then by the same token, the proliferation of religious writings, throughout the ages, would be evidence that angels actually can dance on the head of a pin; the only question is how many at the same time. This is the 21st century, and we’re supposed to have outgrown such primitive thinking.

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4 Responses to ProPublica Struggles with Traffic Stops of Hispanics

  1. 370H55V says:

    “and the black proportion of the population steadily increases.”

    Actually, that’s not true. Their share has remained stable at 11-13% for the last fifty years. The reason they have become as militant as they are lately is because they recognize that the growth in US population has come almost entirely from other non-whites including Hispanics of various origins, and Asians, who are the fastest-growing non-white group.

    When you are losing market share to other non-whites, you have to become a lot more provocative in order to maintain your position in the pantheon of victims–especially when you can’t pull the race card on those other non-sympathetic (for the most part) non-white groups. It’s now or never for American blacks.

    • jewamongyou says:

      I wrote a post about this years ago, and now I can’t find it. I think the gist of it was that even though there are short-term ups and downs, the overall trend is for the black population to grow. It’s well established that black fertility rates exceed those of other races, so all else being equal, the black population will always grow.

    • Lon Spector says:

      It clearly is “now.” Have you seen some of the smut available in 2021
      America?

  2. 370H55V says:

    Yes, the black population has grown and is still growing, but other groups are growing faster, so the black share of the total is treading water.

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