By Johanna Steinberg
Thousands of law-abiding New Yorkers are unfairly and unlawfully subjected to stops-and-frisks because New York City Police Department officers routinely make unfounded assumptions of criminality based on race or ethnicity

By TaRessa Stovall
Thanks to changing laws, there may soon be fewer videos of police actions to post online or contribute to television news stories. The blog Gizmodo.com, reports that, “in at least three states, it is now illegal to record any on-duty police officer … even if the encounter involves you and may be necessary to your defense, and even if the recording is on a public street where no expectation of privacy exists.”

By The Editors
The investigation into incidents of murderous violence by the New Orleans police department in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina received another jolt late last week when a federal grand jury there indicted five city current and former officers in connection with the gruesome death of Henry Glover.

By George Alexander
Black is sometimes black, and that’s that. Well, maybe. Recent news events have pulled the focus from the economy, healthcare and Iran to the horrible practice of racial profiling. On the positive side, this forces us to examine the notion of black privilege. Just what is it anyway? Does it exist at all?

By John Payton
On Thursday, July 16, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., professor and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Studies at Harvard University, was arrested outside of his Cambridge home for “disorderly conduct,” after several police officers confronted him for trying to open a door to his home. A neighbor had called the police when she saw Gates trying to open his front door, which was jammed shut. Gates was held for four hours then released. Here John Payton, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) shares his expert opinion.–The Editors

By TaRessa Stovall
On New Year’s Day, as much of America was still enjoying the exhilaration of Barack Obama’s victorious presidential campaign and anticipating the Inauguration festivities, young black men were still being murdered – by police officers and by each other.

By the Associated Press and Diverse: Issues in Higher Education: [A] study showed that race affected police decisions to shoot. That led the department to change firearms training … Nov 26, 2008, 13:32 The Denver Police Department is relying on a social psychologist associated with theories on “racism without racists” for advice on whether it [...]

Despite repeated efforts at reform, police departments continue to target communities of color and subject them to dramatically higher rates of stops, search, and arrest. Recent studies show that after three decades of increasing incarceration rates, more than one in every 100 adults in the nation is now behind bars. The numbers for African Americans [...]