The late comedian Godfrey Cambridge used to complain that he just couldn't win for losing.
"If I'm running, the cops say I'm escaping," he said. "If I'm walking, they charge me with being defiant. If I'm lounging, they insist I'm a vagrant."
Now a North Carolina study of motorists undertaken last summer may add substance to Cambridge's complaint. This study, paid for by the state police, is studying whether a person's driving speed is directly related to his or her race.
Studies of the issue have become a craze in the law enforcement community. Such a study has been under consideration in New Jersey since at least 1997, and about 400 law enforcement agencies (compared to only five a few years ago) across the nation are now performing similar studies.
This whole question seems to lack a reasonable basis in fact. Will the study determine that the greater amount of melanin in the skin of blacks pushes them to exceed the highway speed limit? For the life of me, I can't imagine what the color of a person's skin could have to do with his or her speed of movement.
The data are to be released later this year, and some believe it should help determine whether blacks in North Carolina indeed do drive faster than whites. If the data are conclusive, it may be that police in that state are not engaging in racial profiling, but responding to the fact that minorities exceed the state's speed limits more often than other drivers.
Police in North Carolina, like those in other jurisdictions (including New Jersey), insist they do not engage in racial profiling but believe that minority motorists exceed speed limits to a greater extent than do white drivers. But nobody up until now has offered an explanation for this alleged behavior.
This study is not being lost on the state police in New Jersey, where racial profiling by police has been well established. Even though former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman acknowledged that racial profiling goes on in the state, police continue to insist they do not arbitrarily single out blacks as lawbreakers.
Eight researchers armed with stopwatches, clipboards and two rental vans conducted the N.C. study. The researchers drove the highways of the state in search of the answer to the delicate sociological question of whether a driver's speed is related to his or her race.
The Rev. George Allison, executive director of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP, said he was concerned that the study would be used to justify or excuse unfair treatment of minorities.
"I think they'll probably find there are many speeders on the road, and there's enough of that to go around for everybody," Allison said. Either way, he added, "that still does not justify the fact that African-Americans have been unfairly targeted on the highways."
Lead researcher Matt Zingraff, associate dean for research at North Carolina State's College of the Humanities and Social Science, acknowledged that he had entered a potential minefield for political incorrectness.
Zingraff said he was told he would "run the risk of being accused of trying to whitewash illegal behavior on the part of law enforcement."
Still, Zingraff thinks studying the driving behavior of different races is necessary to provide a complete picture of the situation.
Naturally, there are many down sides to this entire issue, but for blacks there could be an upside to it as well.
If North Carolina's data support the race/speed contention, maybe there ought to be two sets of speed signs on our highways, one for whites and another for minorities. We've had a lot of experience at this sort of thing if you think back to the days when there were separate restaurants, water fountains and waiting rooms for blacks and whites. Blacks may be legally allowed to drive 10 mph faster than whites since blacks' skin pigment and genetic disposition dictate that they move around faster.
If a cop ever stops me for speeding, I won't willingly accept the ticket. "I wasn't speeding, officer," I'll say. "It's just that I am predisposed to driving faster than whites. It goes with my skin color, and there's nothing I can do about it. So let me be on my way."
I may not get away with it, but if the cop happens to be a college man, he may understand my position. And I'll have the North Carolina study in my glove box to prove I have a right to move along at a quicker pace than white drivers.
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