Art by Patrick Zircher
In the opening pages of issue 41 of DC’s New 52 Green Arrow comic book, a young biracial couple board the Ferris Wheel at Seattle’s Pier 57. Once they reach the top of the circular arc, the black man is suddenly pulled into the air. The white woman apparently meets the same fate as she is likewise missing by the time the car completes its circle. It’s not long before Green Arrow is on the case, but what he uncovers goes beyond the traditional comic book as the narrative highlights the real-world issue of racial profiling as opposed to a more traditional supervillain.
As Alison Marie Behnke explains in her 2017 book Racial Profiling: Everyday Inequity, racial profiling is different from criminal profiling. While the latter is used to narrow the search for suspects after a crime has been committed, the former is employed before a crime has actually taken place. Instead of asking “Who committed this particular crime?” racial profiling essentially asks, “Who might commit a crime at some point in the future?”
As a result, police have historically targeted people of color when employing racial profiling. “Racial profiling has led countless people to live in fear,” the American Civil Liberties Association notes, “casting entire communities as suspect simply because of what they look like, where they come from, or what religion they adhere.”
Racial profiling has also led to tragic repercussions. On November 22, 2014, for instance, a Cleveland resident called 911 to report “a guy with a pistol” in a local park. The caller added that the “pistol” was “probably fake” and the “guy” was “probably a juvenile.” He was then asked by the 911 dispatcher if the person was black or white. The answer was “black” and the dispatcher issued a Code 1 – the highest emergency level – without relaying that the suspect was potentially a youth and the weapon might not be real. Because of this misinformation, twelve-year-old Tamir Rice, carrying a BB gun, was shot dead within seconds of police arriving on the scene.
The day after remnants of the couple from the Ferris wheel are found in Green Arrow, six additional dead bodies are discovered as well, with all but one of them being African American. During his subsequent search for clues, Green Arrow ends up in the predominantly black Pennytown, a fictional neighborhood of Seattle.
“Every morning, there’s less of us,” he is told. “Some dead in the street, some just gone. Ghost-gone. Been happening for months.” When Green Arrow asks why he hasn’t heard about the disappearances, the African American woman replies, “Whether good news or bad news, it’s no news here in Pennytown. We’re invisible.”
In another part of the city, meanwhile, Police Chief Westberg is introducing Aaron Zimm – inventor of the Panopticon, a large floating machine with long mechanical tentacles and claws – to the rest of the force. “We know to fear the snake not only for its diamondback patterns, but for the way in which it coils and rattles,” Zimm begins. “The human body and its behaviors are similarly mappable. We have programmed the drone to identify the dangerous among us. The Panopticon scans facial expressions, posture, apparel, manner of speech, geographical location, and more. All of which can quantify the likelihood of criminal intent.”
An African American police officer objects, saying that it sounds like racial profiling. Zimm merely replies, “The good guys have nothing to worry about. But the scum? The refuse? The smears of human waste? They should be very worried indeed.”
A 2015 poll commissioned by the National Bar Association found that 88 percent of African Americans believed the police treated them unfairly as opposed to 59 percent of white Americans. “The perception that a police force is biased against people of color can create an atmosphere of tension, fear, and hostility, particularly in communities of color with high rates of crime,” Alison Marie Behnke writes in Racial Profiling. “And racial profiling incidents leave lingering psychological scars on those who are targeted, deepening this sense of distrust.”
The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 further aggravated the situation by granting law enforcement officers the right to enter private homes unannounced to search for drugs. These “no-knock warrants” were overwhelmingly used in African American communities. As a result, a higher percentage of African Americans were arrested on drug charges and sentenced to state penitentiaries.
Statistics released in 2009 by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency reported that African Americans comprised thirteen percent of the country’s population and a proportional fourteen percent of the nation’s drug users. Thirty-seven percent of those arrested for drug use in the United States, however, were African American, while 56 percent of those serving time on drug charges were also black.
“Stop and frisk” procedures – in which police stop, interrogate, and search people suspected of criminal behavior – also add to the problem. The practice became official policy during the 1930s in Los Angeles and enshrined into law in New York City in 1964. In 2013, the New York State Office of the Attorney General reported that out of the 4.4 million “stop and frisks” that took place between January 2004 and June 2012, eighty-three percent involved blacks and Latinos while just ten percent were white.
Furthermore, only 0.2 percent of the searches resulted in the finding of any guns, while 1.5 percent uncovered knives and illegal drugs. Not only were “stop and frisks” geared primarily to people of color, but few actually resulted in arrests (1.5 percent) or convictions (0.1 percent).
As the African American body count increases in Green Arrow, hundreds of protesters take to the streets of Pennytown, carrying signs that declare, “Penny Town Matters,” “We R Not Invisible,” and “This Is What the 99% Sounds Like.” One of Aaron Zimm’s minions tells the crowd, “Everyone who wants to live, leave.” Someone shouts back, “You can’t silence us!” but the Panopticon suddenly appears to prove them wrong. The police label what happens next a full-scale riot, with a five-alarm fire laying waste to the neighborhood and twenty African Americans dead as a result.
“Throughout the United States, numerous people of color – many of whom are unarmed – die at the hands of police officers, who often do not face legal consequences,” Alison Marie Behnke explains in Racial Profiling. “A report by the Washington Post found between January 1, 2015, and July 10, 2016, 24 percent of the people fatally shot by police officers were African Americans. Because African Americans make up just 13 percent of the total US population, this data indicates they are 2.5 times more likely than white people to die by police shooting.”
Green Arrow is ultimately able to defeat Aaron Zimm and his Panopticon, but African Americans continue to be the targets of racial profiling and unwarranted violence from law enforcement in the real world. Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of two counts of murder and one count of manslaughter for the death of George Floyd in 2020, suggesting that change may finally be on the horizon – although it will no doubt be a long journey before justice is truly served.
Anthony Letizia