Driving While Black Meeks

Racial profiling is a hot-button issue in American society. Law enforcement agencies claim that racial profiling is an efficient use of resources because it targets resources at groups who statistically demonstrate the highest crime rates. Minorities often charge that racial profiling is nothing more than a subtle form of prejudice. As author Kenneth Meeks (5-6) writes in Driving While Black, "We must ask ourselves: Is racial profiling a subtle form of legal prejudice? Or is it a legitimate way to strop crime before it takes place?"

Meeks' book is a practical How-To guide for anyone who believes they have been a victim of racial profiling or for anyone who worries they might be one day. Meeks' main point is that racial profiling should be handled by minorities in two ways. First, minorities who are subjected to dealings with law enforcement should remain calm, cooperative, and resist the temptation to argue over legal limits of an officer's authority. Doing so, as one of the case examples in Meeks' book writes, may make "the difference between going to jail, going home, and going to the morgue" (138-9). The second way Meeks argues that individuals should handle racial profiling victimization is after-the-fact through other channels. Being stopped should not become a contest of wills between the individual and law enforcement official, instead individuals are encouraged to make relevant notes of the details surrounding the encoun

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Category: Literature - D