Introduction

Between 2004 and 2012, New York City policemen stopped and frisked millions of completely innocent young black and Latino males. According to the Police Commissioner, the goal of these random encounters was “to instill fear in them, every time they leave their home, they could be stopped by the police.” This policy, rather than an aberration, was the logical culmination of a modern form of racially targeted policing. Today’s racial profiling is unlike the barbarism of Jim Crow. It is characterized not by an iron fist, but by politely framed requests and even light banter. However, this occurs in a context in which only one of the parties is armed with a gun and legally authorized to use physical force. Modern-day racial profiling originated in Detroit Metropolitan Airport in 1974. It then quickly spread to the targeting of minority passengers on long-distance buses and trains in Florida, then to motorists on highways, and finally pedestrians on city streets. In each of these four stages, law enforcement leaders publicly defended targeting minorities because they considered race to be a justifiable criterion of suspicion. In each of the four stages, lower courts overwhelmingly ruled such policies are unconstitutional because “it is morally incongruous,” as one court noted, “for the State to flout constitutional protections and at the same time demand that its citizens obey the law.” However, by forging a form of “colorblind” jurisprudence, the Supreme Court overturned the lower courts’ decisions and sanctioned all four programs. Although in America political questions are almost always turned into judicial disputes, the Supreme Court upheld these police tactics while avoiding almost any mention of the underlying racial issues. The goal of this book is to uncover the history behind this moral incongruity and reveal the Supreme Court’s “colorblind” approach to adjudication.