San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Darker the skin, greater the suspicion
The darker the skin, the greater the suspicion.
The darker the skin, the lighter the benefit of the doubt.
This isn’t rhetoric, it’s reality. It’s not hyperbole, but history. Not just in the United States, but throughout the world, and for centuries.
The darker the skin, the easier to sketch the outline of a scapegoat and color in stereotypes.
This past week, Texas’ controversial immigration law, SB 4, pingponged between courts and briefly became law.
Passed by Texas lawmakers last year, the bill would usurp federal authority by empowering state and local law enforcement agencies to arrest people suspected of illegally crossing the Mexico border.
The legislation created a new state crime, “illegal entry,” a misdemeanor with a sentence of up to six months in jail. A judge could offer a defendant the option of voluntarily returning to Mexico in place of prosecution. Those convicted of illegal entry would be ordered to return to
Mexico. Failure to do so could result in stiff penalties, including up to 20 years in prison.
Neither the officers nor the judges need be versed in immigration law in any step of the process, from “identifying” people accused of crossing illegally to deporting them to Mexico, even if they’re not from Mexico. Also problematic is that Mexico has said it won’t accept the people Texas might deport.
But what the bill never states clearly is, absent seeing a migrant cross the U.S.-Mexico border, what would make an officer believe that someone is here illegally?
There is only one answer: racial profiling. Judging people by the skin they’re in.
That was the reason why, last fall, state Rep. Armando Walle, D-Houston, confronted colleagues who supported a House version of SB 4.
“Y’all don’t understand the (expletive) that y’all do hurts our community. It hurts us personally, bro. It hurts us to our (expletive) core,” said Walle, who is Latino. “Y’all don’t understand that. Y’all don’t live in our (expletive) skin, and that’s what pisses me off.”
State Rep. David Spiller, a Republican from Jacksboro who co-authored the law, was one of the members Walle confronted.
This past week, Spiller told the Texas Tribune he expected “95%” of SB 4’s enforcement to be within 50 miles of the border, adding he would be shocked if major metropolitan police forces such as San Antonio’s had more than a few cases.
He then added, “They shouldn’t be going out interrogating people, otherwise saying, hey, you look like a migrant — when did you cross and where did you cross? Those conversations should not be happening.”
Well, that’s kind of Walle’s point. Those kind of conversations and interrogations do happen.
If someone can be stopped for driving while Black or driving while brown, they can also be detained while brown because they fit someone’s prejudiced idea of what a migrant who’s entered illegally looks like.
Even pre-SB 4, a July 2021 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found immigration agents have arrested 674, detained 121 and removed 70 potential U.S. citizens between 2015 and 2020.
Spiller’s comment about interrogations is a remarkable combination of naivete and lack of awareness of the real-life experiences of people of color.
Something different happens when Black and Latino males and white males glance in their rearview mirror and see a police car.
If you’re white, you may check your speed and then think nothing more of it.
But if you’re Black or Latino, your heart beats faster than the speed you’re driving as you expect flashing red and blue lights to signal you to pull over.
It’s not that you’ve done anything wrong, but history — your history, your father’s history, your nation’s history — tells you that doing something wrong isn’t a prerequisite for being pulled over.
People who look like Spiller or Texas Gov. Greg Abbott don’t have to worry about their citizenship status being questioned. People who look like Walle do.
The darker the skin, the greater the suspicion.
The darker the skin, the lighter the benefit of the doubt.