African-Americans in peril under the Patriot Act

by Tammy Johnson

Myths about the Patriot Act and how it affects the Black 
community are downright deadly. A potent myth is that the Patriot 
Act only affects a tiny number of Arabs and Muslims who were 
rounded up immediately after September 11. Some lament that 
immigrants are grabbing attention away from the problems of civil 
rights abuses and police violence against Blacks. In reality, 
however, the Patriot Act is not a shift, but a dangerous 
extension of unjust policies and practices that put all people of 
colour in jeopardy, even Blacks, in the USA.

We are not talking about a handful of highly scrutinised suspects 
here, but whole communities that have been victimised in the name 
of "national security". Eighty-two thousand men from 24 Muslim 
countries were required to register with the Bureau of 
Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Some 13,000 were detained 
and face deportation for minor or technical violations, such as 
failure to report a change of address.

Thousands more have become targets of hate crimes, fired from 
their jobs, interrogated by the FBI without a lawyer present, and 
jailed or deported due to INS bureaucratic snafus. Blacks know 
that you don't have to be a "foreigner" to be labelled an enemy 
of the state. So laws that imprison individuals without stating a 
clear charge or providing access to an attorney send up red 
flags.

Lost in this debate is the plight of Black immigrants, who also 
suffer from unjustified detention and deportation. For example, 
US Attorney General John Ashcroft used the "national security" 
rationale to justify the indefinite detention of Haitian 
immigrants seeking asylum. His order had nothing to do with 
whether the immigrants themselves are dangerous.

Ashcroft's twisted logic is that detaining Haitians would 
discourage others from coming to America, thus preventing the 
diversion of Coast Guard resources from homeland security 
initiatives.

When I step a bit closer to the situation, as a Black woman I am 
alarmed to see familiar abuses taken to a whole new level. The 
story of Abraham, a Sudanese refugee in San Jose, California, 
illustrates the chilling link between the Patriot Act and racial 
profiling as we know it.

Ironically, he was on the way to the Immigration and 
Naturalisation Service (INS) office to collect papers that would 
prove to his employer that he was in the country legally, when he 
was stopped for "driving while Black". Facing the barrel of drawn 
police guns, he realised, "they thought I was Black American". 
Police did not give Abraham a ticket for speeding, but 
extensively questioned him about his immigration status.

Most important, the atmosphere in which the government has 
expanded its powers makes cops even bolder about racial 
profiling. Kenny Dukes, a young African American man, was killed 
by Chicago police officers in August. Dukes had returned home 
from a picnic with his girlfriend and was walking to the front 
door when the officers yelled at him to stop. Not realising that 
they were calling him, he continued walking with his back to the 
street. Although there was no warrant for his arrest and Dukes 
was not carrying a weapon, they shot him seven times in the back.

The good news is that communities across the country are 
exploding myths around the Patriot Act and making these 
connections. At public hearings in places like Los Angeles, 
Chicago, San Jose and Alameda, California, immigrant and Black 
leaders are standing together to take on government-sanctioned 
racial profiling.

This is not a new struggle. The Black community knows that the 
same racist fervour that inspired the recent shootings of Sikh 
cab drivers in Richmond, California, also led to the dragging 
death of James Byrd in Jasper, Texas.

The system that proposed asking people to turn in their 
neighbours using vague definitions of a "suspect" though the TIPS 
program (Terrorist Information Prevention System) is the same one 
that targeted African American leaders through COINTELPRO.

The targeting of whole communities through the Patriot Act is not 
just an "Arab thing" or a "Muslim thing". It's also a "Black 
thing".

* * *

Tammy Johnson is director of the Race and Public Policy 
Program
at the Applied Research Center. ColourLines Magazine.