Broadening the Narrative: Systemic Racism Series: Surveillance

Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes

“Did you know that the government watches some of us a lot more than others, depending on where we come from? That as recently as 2011 the NYPD was exposed for targeting their surveillance specifically at what they called ‘ancestries of interest’? That they’ve been using our tax dollars to spy on these peoples’ everyday lives just going to the barber shop and the bookstore and singling them out for constant invasion of privacy for no other reason than where their ancestors were born?” (Race Forward, 2015). In the video “What Is Systemic Racism? - Government Surveillance,” the ancestries listed included Indian, Bangledeshi, Pakistani, Guyanese, Egyptian, and Lebanese.

I am continuing in the systemic racism series here on the Broadening the Narrative blog. To learn more about this series, you can read the first seven posts on the BtN blog. Today’s post addresses systemic racism in surveillance. I will include the data and history behind the current disparities in surveillance, provide action steps, and link recommended resources for further exploration and education.

Data

Let’s look at surveillance data.

According to linked research in the Ben & Jerry’s article “7 Ways We Know Systemic Racism is Real,” “More than half of all young black Americans know someone, including themselves, who has been harassed by the police. Statistics also show that black drivers are about 30% more likely than whites to be pulled over by the police. (So African Americans can expect to be monitored wherever they go—but did you know that they can’t even expect to safely cross the street? Blacks are twice as likely to die in pedestrian accidents than whites, perhaps because, according to one study, motorists are less likely to stop for blacks in the crosswalk.) And of course it’s well-known that Muslims are under increasing and often illegal surveillance.”

History

What’s the explanation for the disparities in the data? The dehumanizing answer would be something along the lines of, “Well, those people need to be watched so I can be safe.” This betrays a bias that the speaker believes those people deserve less freedom and privacy because they are less trustworthy and more dangerous than white people.

A more comprehensive and balanced answer would reach back into the past to determine how our present has been impacted. In the April 2016 article “When Surveillance Perpetuates Institutional Racism,” Angelique Carson wrote, “Last week, I finally saw surveillance not as something mildly offensive to my own sense of civil liberties, but as a tool of institutional racism. It suddenly became clear to me, and I’m so embarrassed it didn’t prior, that the people most stripped of their privacy rights in this surveillance age are the people who are the most vulnerable...But the powerful surveilling the powerless is nothing new. It existed even in the earliest days of slavery. Surveillance and power have long been closely linked to institutional racism, from slave owners branding their slaves so they couldn't move freely and privately around to planation [sic] owners building homes tall enough to surveill [sic] the entire plantation. Slavery may have been abolished, but now we see racism and oppression in a new power structure in which the powerful hold the data on the less powerful, and in that way control a whole lot of things, including access to services, freedom of movement and...dignity.”

Dr. Gary Potter wrote a six-part series titled “The History of Policing in the United States.” I referenced this series in last month’s post about the justice system. The series can be read on the Eastern Kentucky University Police Studies Online page.

- “Defining social control as crime control was accomplished by raising the specter of the ‘dangerous classes’... This underclass was easily identifiable because it consisted primarily of the poor, foreign immigrants and free blacks (Lundman 1980: 29). This isolation of the ‘dangerous classes’ as the embodiment of the crime problem created a focus in crime control that persists to today, the idea that policing should be directed toward ‘bad’ individuals, rather than social and economic conditions that are criminogenic in their social outcomes...Centralized and bureaucratic police departments, focusing on the alleged crime-producing qualities of the "dangerous classes" began to emphasize preventative crime control. The presence of police, authorized to use force, could stop crime before it started by subjecting everyone to surveillance and observation. The concept of the police patrol as a preventative control mechanism routinized the insertion of police into the normal daily events of everyone's life, a previously unknown and highly feared concept in both England and the United States (Parks 1976). Early American police departments shared two primary characteristics: they were notoriously corrupt and flagrantly brutal. This should come as no surprise in that police were under the control of local politicians...Walker goes so far as to call municipal police ‘delegated vigilantes,’ entrusted with the power to use overwhelming force against the ‘dangerous classes’ as a means of deterring criminality.” (Part 2)

- “Early police officers began carrying firearms even when this was not department policy despite widespread public fear that this gave the police and the state too much power. Police departments formally armed their officers only after officers had informally armed themselves. The use of force to effect an arrest was as controversial in the 1830s and 1840s as it is today. Because the police were primarily engaged in enforcing public order laws against gambling and drunkenness, surveilling immigrants and freed slaves, and harassing labor organizers, public opinion favored restrictions on the use of force. But the value of armed, paramilitary presence, authorized to use, indeed deadly force, served the interests of local economic elites who had wanted organized police departments in the first place... In addition to strike-breaking they frequently engaged in anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic violence, such as attacking community social events on horseback, under the pretense of enforcing public order laws. Similarly, the Texas Rangers were originally created as a quasi-official group of vigilantes and guerillas used to suppress Mexican communities and to drive the Commanche off their lands.” (Part 3)

- “From the beginning American policing has been intimately tied not to the problem of crime, but to exigencies and demands of the American political-economy...As we look to the 21st century, it now appears likely that a new emphasis on science and technology, particularly related to citizen surveillance; a new wave of militarization reflected in the spread of SWAT teams and other paramilitary squads; and a new emphasis on community pacification through community policing, are all destined to replay the failures of history as the policies of the future.” (Part 6)

In the article “AP Series About NYPD Surveillance Wins Pulitzer” by David Crary, Crary reported, “The catalyst was a source's cryptic hint: Ask about Ray Kelly's rakers and mosque crawlers. Their curiosity piqued, two Associated Press investigative reporters began digging. As a result, the AP won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting Monday for stories revealing that the New York Police Department — headed by Commissioner Raymond Kelly — had built an aggressive domestic intelligence program after the Sept. 11 attacks that put Muslim businesses, mosques and student groups under scrutiny...investigative reporters Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman, along with colleagues Eileen Sullivan and Chris Hawley, documented that police had systematically spied on Muslim neighborhoods, listened in on sermons, infiltrated colleges and photographed law-abiding residents as part of a broad effort to watch communities where a terror cell might operate. Individuals and groups were monitored even when there was no evidence they were linked to terrorism or crime. The investigation revealed that Kelly had brought in a CIA official to help develop an intelligence division unlike that of any other U.S. police department. It assigned ‘rakers’ to ethnic neighborhoods, infiltrating enterprises ranging from booksellers to cafes, and ‘mosque crawlers’ to Muslim houses of worship. Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended the department's actions; he was committed to preventing another terror attack, he said, even if it meant keeping a close eye on law-abiding Muslims...The tactics disclosed by the series stirred debate over whether the NYPD was infringing on the civil rights of Muslims and illegally engaging in religious and ethnic profiling...Apuzzo, Goldman and their colleagues conducted dozens of interviews and combed through hundreds of secret documents to uncover the vast surveillance operation...Even as Bloomberg dined with local imam Reda Shata, and as The New York Times chronicled Shata's efforts to reconcile Muslim traditions with American life, the NYPD had him under surveillance...A Moroccan Initiative catalogued the lives of Moroccans in the city, monitoring them at restaurants, grocery stores and barbershops. Sometimes, they were interviewed by police officers who said they were conducting criminal investigations or looking for a lost child...New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie accused the NYPD of acting like ‘masters of the universe’ by sending agents into his state. Mayor Cory Booker of Newark — New Jersey's largest city — also complained, and the FBI chief in New Jersey said the surveillance undermined the bureau's own efforts by sowing distrust of authorities among Muslims.”

This brings us to more recent developments, as described about 22 minutes into the August 25, 2017 Latino USA podcast episode “Whose Country ‘Tis of Thee?” Alvaro Bedoya, Founding Director of the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown University, explained the evolution of the technology developed under President Bush and expanded by President Obama’s administration. According to Bedoya, “Donald Trump is taking the surveillance tools that we developed for the war on terror and using those tools to find and deport immigrants.”

Throughout our nation’s history, white men have been guilty of domestic terrorism. It is rarely labeled as such. From the KKK and vigilante groups to white men bombing and shooting and armed white men “protesting” during COVID-19, white supremacists carry out acts of violence and domestic terrorism. However, these men continually escape surveillance at the same level experienced by law abiding people of color.

Action Steps

Complete additional research on the topic of systemic racism in surveillance. Read The New York Times feature "How ICE Picks Its Targets in the Surveillance Age" by McKenzie Funk to learn more about how ICE uses surveillance to find undocumented immigrants, which has led to deportation and the separating of families. I will also link additional resources at the end of the post.

Have action that follows your research and reflection.

- Support policies at every level of government that will bring reform to government surveillance. Write, email, call, and tag representatives and others in local, state, and federal political positions. S.1551 - Intelligence Oversight and Surveillance Reform Act was introduced in the Senate on September 25, 2013. It was read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. You can read more about S.1551 - Intelligence Oversight and Surveillance Reform Act here. You can also read the CNN article “House Passes Surveillance Bill After Rare Bipartisan Deal” by Jeremy Herb, Manu Raju, and Haley Byrd.

Stand with Muslims against Islamophobia.

Stand with immigrants of color against xenophobia.

Vote, show up, and engage in meaningful ways to dismantle systems of oppression. Do all of this under the leadership of people of color.

What to Expect in Future Posts

At this time, I plan to address systemic racism as seen in foster care, healthcare, the environment, media, military, politics, and the Christian church in future posts. I will give action steps for myself and readers and provide additional resources.

As I look at the Equal Justice Initiative calendar and read it to my kids, I see that every single day conveys at least one injustice, usually based on race. These are past and present injustices, spanning hundreds of years, demonstrating that racism in this country is not simply an individual problem. Rather, racism is a systemic problem, infecting institutions and structures. Further, this problem centers around justice, therefore it's a problem Godde is concerned about, which means I must be concerned. In my opinion, systemic racism is not solely a political issue but also a spiritual issue. I am called to love my neighbor, and one way I can do this is by joining the fight to dismantle systems of oppression so that all people can flourish.

(Resources are linked below.)

The Council on American-Islamic Relations

The Stanford Open Policing Project

ACLU “Racial Profiling: Definition” page

Mapping Police Violence

Black Lives Matter

Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice

Asian Americans Advancing Justice

“The Ultimate White Privilege Statistics & Data Post”

Race Forward “What is Systemic Racism” Videos

The Witness: A Black Christian Collective

Where Change Started