Time and again in this medi­um, I have made the point that American polic­ing, or the con­cept of some­thing known as polic­ing, came from or (evolved) from evolved slave catch­ing. I want­ed to use the term evolve but *came from* works bet­ter as the very point of this short essay is that it [has not] evolved.
Over the last sev­er­al years, look­ing at the American body politic, I have ven­tured to opine to some friends and fam­i­ly mem­bers that it would not be too dif­fi­cult if African-Americans lose focus to find them­selves back on plan­ta­tions as enslaved people.
I have been chas­tised by some who argue that could nev­er hap­pen as this gen­er­a­tion would nev­er stand for it.
Today, I am here to admit that I was wrong. My state­ment that Blacks could find them­selves back on plan­ta­tions was com­plete­ly incor­rect because, accord­ing to the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution, the igno­ble prac­tice of slav­ery has not been entire­ly abolished.
Now, if you are won­der­ing if I just came upon the word­ing of the 13^th Amendment to the con­sti­tu­tion, I want to set the record straight and clar­i­fy a few points.

THEN…

Thirteenth Amendment

Section 1
Neither slav­ery nor invol­un­tary servi­tude, except as a pun­ish­ment for crime where­of the par­ty shall have been duly con­vict­ed, shall exist with­in the United States or any place sub­ject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2
Congress shall have the pow­er to enforce this arti­cle by appro­pri­ate legislation.
»»»»»»»»»»»»»»>

After the so-called abo­li­tion of slav­ery on December 6^th, 1865, lit­er­al­ly every state imme­di­ate­ly began the process of cre­at­ing anoth­er form of slavery.
Remember that the 13^th amend­ment to the con­sti­tu­tion was writ­ten by men, many of whom believed that Blacks were not human beings and that it was their God-giv­en right to enslave oth­er human beings.
The word­ing of the 13^th amend­ment speaks specif­i­cal­ly to the fact that they were not done with the issue of slav­ery, so they wrote into the amend­ment a clause that would keep slav­ery intact to this very day.
(Neither slav­ery nor invol­un­tary servi­tude, except as a pun­ish­ment for crime where­of the par­ty shall have been duly con­vict­ed.)
Reconstruction, the peri­od of rel­a­tive free­dom expe­ri­enced by the once-enslaved pop­u­la­tion, was trun­cat­ed when the Republicans sold blacks out to the Democrats after the bit­ter­ly con­test­ed pres­i­den­tial elec­tions of 1876.

The Compromise of 1877 was an infor­mal agree­ment between south­ern Democrats and allies of the Republican Rutherford Hayes to set­tle the result of the 1876 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion and marked the end of the Reconstruction era.
Immediately after the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion of 1876, it became clear that the race’s out­come hinged large­ly on dis­put­ed returns from Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina – the only three states in the South with Reconstruction-era Republican gov­ern­ments still in pow­er. As a bipar­ti­san con­gres­sion­al com­mis­sion debat­ed over the out­come ear­ly in 1877, allies of the Republican Party can­di­date Rutherford Hayes met in secret with mod­er­ate south­ern Democrats to nego­ti­ate accep­tance of Hayes’ elec­tion. (History)
It was the death knell for Reconstruction.
The Democrats agreed not to block Hayes’ vic­to­ry on the con­di­tion that Republicans with­draw all fed­er­al troops from the South, thus con­sol­i­dat­ing Democratic con­trol over the region. As a result of the so-called Compromise of 1877 (or Compromise of 1876), Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina became Democratic again, effec­tive­ly end­ing the Reconstruction era.

The Republican Rutherford B Hayes became pres­i­dent, and with­in two years, all Federal troops sta­tioned in the South to pro­tect and look after the rights and wel­fare of the new­ly freed Blacks were removed.
The treach­ery between the two polit­i­cal par­ties against Blacks result­ed in a sec­ond form of slav­ery known as Jim Crow that last­ed from Hayes took office until the civ­il rights fights of the ear­ly nine­teen six­ties and to some degree to the present day.
Jim Crowe-era laws are still on the books in some south­ern states and arguably across the country.
Laws like loi­ter­ing made exist­ing in Black skin then a crime; it is the same today.
Hundreds of thou­sands of Black men who were scooped up by police and thrown in prison to join what was called the chain gangs died there and were nev­er seen by their loved ones ever again.
Historical record­ings said most end­ed up right back on the plan­ta­tions they were freed from and were mur­dered by their white for­mer owners.

It was no crime to mur­der Blacks because black peo­ple were not con­sid­ered human beings, and accord­ing to the laws, they had no rights that a white man must respect.
When mur­dered, the prisons/​states would send fresh bod­ies to work for free.
The few Blacks who could pur­chase their free­dom dur­ing their slav­ery had to car­ry their free­dom papers to show to any white man who demand­ed to see them.
I hope you are see­ing the nexus now.
Many of those sup­pos­ed­ly free Blacks had their free­dom papers ripped up and were returned to slav­ery by any boun­ty hunter, slave catch­er, or any oth­er white male who felt like it.

NOW…

It is today as it was dur­ing slav­ery and after the recon­struc­tion peri­od end­ed. More and more, we see video evi­dence of mil­i­ta­rized white police dressed like they are going to war, pulling up on peo­ple, most­ly Black Americans, and imme­di­ate­ly demand­ing Identification.
You look sus­pi­cious; show me your ID.
We were called, and some­one said they saw you stand­ing around; show me your ID.
You are tak­ing pic­tures, show me your ID.
You are video­tap­ing; show me your ID.
You are talk­ing back to me; show me your ID.
There is no end to the irra­tional and unlaw­ful demands cops make today; they demand ID from cit­i­zens even though, in most states, police can­not law­ful­ly demand iden­ti­fi­ca­tion from some­one who has­n’t com­mit­ted a crime, is about to com­mit, or is sus­pect­ed of com­mit­ting a crime.
Yet they do so even when they know they are being video and audio record­ed with threats of arrest for non-compliance.
This is what they are trained and instruct­ed to do. It is; show me your papers, plain and simple.
The American Civil Liberties Union issued the fol­low­ing release to min­i­mize the threat to cit­i­zens police pose (usu­al­ly to peo­ple of color).

Know rights.
Stopped by Police.
Being stopped by police is a stress­ful expe­ri­ence that can go bad quick­ly. Here we describe what the law requires and also offer strate­gies for han­dling police encoun­ters. We want to be clear: The bur­den of de-esca­la­tion does not fall on pri­vate cit­i­zens but on police offi­cers. However, you can­not assume offi­cers will behave in a way that pro­tects your safe­ty or that they will respect your rights even after you assert them. You may be able to reduce risk to your­self by stay­ing calm and not exhibit­ing hos­til­i­ty toward the offi­cers. The truth is that there are sit­u­a­tions where peo­ple have done every­thing they could to put an offi­cer at ease yet still end­ed up injured or killed by the police.
It is a sad and sear­ing indict­ment of the qual­i­ty of polic­ing that obtains in the United States when cit­i­zens need to be cau­tioned about how to stay alive dur­ing encoun­ters with police.
The ques­tion one must ask as we are con­front­ed with this exis­ten­tial threat to life and limb is whether these are the actions of police offi­cers whose job is to serve and pro­tect or that of race sol­diers out to maim and kill.
The police now unlaw­ful­ly demand peo­ple’s iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, as a crack addict demands crack. So what is behind this stepped up demands for iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, even when the laws do not autho­rize it?

The short answer is fill­ing jail cells in the for-prof­it prison sys­tem. You will recall that accord­ing to the 13^th amend­ment to the US con­sti­tu­tion, Slavery is abol­ished, except as a pun­ish­ment for crime where­of the par­ty shall have been duly con­vict­ed, shall exist with­in the United States or any place sub­ject to their juris­dic­tion.
It gen­er­al­ly has pre­cious lit­tle to do with crimes but minor infrac­tions issued to poor dri­vers, bro­ken tail­light, missed a court date on that, and a war­rant is issued for the motorist.…usually poor and Black.
Cannot afford to pay the exor­bi­tant fines, and it’s prison for the poor offender.
That’s what the demand for iden­ti­fi­ca­tion is about. Additionally, they demand iden­ti­fi­ca­tion so that each encounter is logged in their data­base to be used against the per­son at a lat­er date in any future encounter with police, even though the indi­vid­ual had com­mit­ted no crime.
It is the very def­i­n­i­tion of a police state, but it is being felt by black Americans in ways their white coun­ter­parts can­not imag­ine because it is not exe­cut­ed on whites in the same way. 

Your rights

• You have the right to remain silent. For exam­ple, you do not have to answer any ques­tions about where you are going, where you are trav­el­ing from, what you are doing, or where you live. If you wish to exer­cise your right to remain silent, say so out loud. (In some states, you may be required to pro­vide your name if asked to iden­ti­fy your­self, and an offi­cer may arrest you for refus­ing to do so.)
• You do not have to con­sent to a search of your­self or your belong­ings, but police may pat down your cloth­ing if they sus­pect a weapon. Note that refus­ing con­sent may not stop the offi­cer from car­ry­ing out the search against your will, but mak­ing a time­ly objec­tion before or dur­ing the search can help pre­serve your rights in any lat­er legal proceeding.
• If you are arrest­ed by police, you have the right to a gov­ern­ment-appoint­ed lawyer if you can­not afford one.
• You do not have to answer ques­tions about where you were born, whether you are a U.S. cit­i­zen, or how you entered the coun­try. (Separate rules apply at inter­na­tion­al bor­ders and air­ports as well as for indi­vid­u­als on cer­tain non­im­mi­grant visas, includ­ing tourists and busi­ness trav­el­ers. For more spe­cif­ic guid­ance about how to deal with immi­gra­tion-relat­ed ques­tions, see our immi­grants’ rights sec­tion.)

ID on Demand

March 2010 — By Eric Barker

Recently, on talk radio, the issue as to whether or not a police offi­cer could just walk up to any­body and demand that the per­son present some iden­ti­fi­ca­tion was debat­ed. Some thought that cit­i­zens must show iden­ti­fi­ca­tion to police when asked and that it may even be a crime not to have iden­ti­fi­ca­tion on you at all times. Others felt the police could­n’t ask us for iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and that we don’t have to iden­ti­fy our­selves to law enforce­ment at any time for any rea­son. After all, we have the right to remain silent and not tell the police any­thing, includ­ing our names, don’t we?

The answer to this ques­tion is a def­i­nite maybe and depends on the cir­cum­stances. Generally speak­ing, the courts rec­og­nize that there are three lev­els of encoun­ters between police and cit­i­zens. The first and least obtru­sive is the “con­sen­su­al encounter”. This is where an offi­cer approach­es a cit­i­zen and makes a request, i.e., “Can I see your ID?”. The offi­cer in this sit­u­a­tion has no rea­son­able sus­pi­cion that the per­son is com­mit­ting a crime but, for what­ev­er rea­son, wants to ini­ti­ate con­tact with the per­son. The cit­i­zen is free to com­ply with the offi­cer’s request, ignore the offi­cer and walk away, or tell the offi­cer there is no way on earth he is giv­ing the offi­cer his or her ID. The offi­cer has the right to ask; the cit­i­zen has the right to walk away.

The sec­ond lev­el of inter­ac­tion between cit­i­zens and police offi­cers is called an “inves­ti­ga­to­ry stop”. This is when an offi­cer actu­al­ly detains a cit­i­zen, and that cit­i­zen does not have a legal right to walk away. For an offi­cer to make an inves­ti­ga­to­ry stop, the offi­cer must have a well-found­ed, rea­son­able, artic­u­la­ble sus­pi­cion that the per­son they are detain­ing has just com­mit­ted, is in the process of com­mit­ting, or is about to com­mit a crime. In this instance, if the offi­cer does indeed have this “rea­son­able sus­pi­cion” that the per­son is involved in a crime, the offi­cer can detain the per­son and demand that the per­son iden­ti­fy them­selves. However, since there is no law that cur­rent­ly man­dates that we car­ry per­son­al iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with us at all times (not yet any­way, but I won’t be shocked when that law pass­es), iden­ti­fi­ca­tion some­times can sim­ply be accom­plished by pro­vid­ing a name and date of birth. However, cit­i­zens should not give a false name as many offi­cers have lap­tops in their patrol cars and can quick­ly pull the dri­ver’s license pho­to of the name giv­en. If the pho­to on the lap­top does not match the name giv­en, under cer­tain cir­cum­stances, the per­son could be arrest­ed for giv­ing a false name or resist­ing arrest with­out vio­lence. This is true even if it is deter­mined that the offi­cer’s “rea­son­able sus­pi­cion” that the per­son was com­mit­ting a crime end­ed up being not true.

The third and final lev­el of inter­ac­tion is when the offi­cer is mak­ing an arrest. As in the “inves­ti­ga­to­ry stop”, the cit­i­zen is required to iden­ti­fy themselves.

So, if you’re approached by an offi­cer who wants to ask you ques­tions and you don’t real­ly want to strike up a new friend­ship at that moment, sim­ply ask the offi­cer if you are free to leave. If he says yes, you may leave and go about your busi­ness (or con­tin­ue on in your slack­ing off) and walk away. If you are told that you are not free to leave, ask the offi­cer what rea­son he thinks he has to detain you. Make sure you let him know that you know your rights and you’re not acqui­esc­ing to his unrea­son­able and uncon­sti­tu­tion­al demands. Then, when you pick your­self off of the ground and dust your­self off, don’t for­get to ask the offi­cer if you can have your ID back.

.

.

.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.