Teaser: What do you do when you know: WHEN YOU KNOW! 100% for a fact that something will happen in the future, but you don’t have the power or sway to study it early while it happens. You know things will change, will forever change and you have an idea that will save lives, could create a generation of the loyalist of customers, and get a glimpse into how the future of the mass incarnation prison industrial complex will take shape – but you are not getting any responses in your efforts to get in on the ground floor.

 

Today’s podcast is on Autonomous Vehicles, and the future of Pre-textual Crime Stops for People of Color

 

Welcome back to the podcast! It has been a minute since I have been able to podcast, and as of next week my one shot podcasts will be empty, so I am sincerely hoping you enjoyed how to enhance your heroic response… With that I am very excited to get into today’s topic because I don’t know that someone has gotten to this in any published way as of yet.

 

Also yesterday I was talking with my partner, since the voicemail line is pretty quiet right now about the podcast and she was telling me so far she is appreciating the one topic deep dives the most. I have about 3 more interviews ready to go, and honestly the interviews are SO much easier to set up and do. I find myself needing to write the deep dives ahead of time in order to ensure that quality content. Her opinion is that is easier to hold focus, and that she feels like she gets better quality reflections from the one off’s. Is this the case?? Please remember you can email me at inclusiveactivism@cox.net or leave me a voicemail at 860-576-9393. I would love to hear your thoughts!

 

Also remember to rate and review us on iTunes, or Stitcher, or if you could please share the podcast on social media, All these things go a long way to making a significant difference for us here at the inclusive activism podcast. Also please subscribe to our podcasts on iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play as these are great ways for me to show “proof of work to potential sponsors”. It would also go a long way in getting my producer Sara paid for her work someday too!

 

So checking in on my Activism:

Activism has been good!

Full Week at Anytown! Great experience: expond a bit here

http://www.anytownleadershipcamp.org/

Then part of MSCO task force meeting at CNL (more info about great group go to CNL Facebook) http://azcnl.org/

Went to do service at Andre House – they are in need of help Mon-Thurs. good stuff get out there! http://andrehouse.org/volunteer-information/

 

 

Self Care:

Back from Vacation now so its good to be back into the routine

Have a lifting partner now, so the Lifting is so much better! This has been of exponential benefit!

BUT it has come at the cost of good cardio, only got 1 day of solid cardio in

Got in 3 good days of Meditation though, and now know I will have 5 solid swings

But I need help too – personally and professionally please send me your prayers and positive thoughts I am on the precipice of several bad and potentially good things I really need your help!

 

So on to the podcast for today! Autonomous Vehicles, and the future of Pre-textual Crime Stops for People of Color   .

 

 

First thing: So I love diversity this is well known. What isn’t so well known is my love for the potential future of tech and thinking about how our lives will be changed. So let me first tell you about some of the thoughts I have had about Autonomous (self-driving) Vehicles.

First the future in my estimation looks great. Being I love the idea of looking at myself through a critical lens I recognize I am not the best driver, I am probably below average. I get distracted easily and my focus really suffers when I am driving with someone else in conversation. Also I want to do several things at the same time when I am driving. Just driving isn’t enough for me, I like you potentially want to text or get email done at the same time. I think most drivers at times are bad drivers, just like when I get distracted am a bad driver too! I think having a constantly looking hardware on a car, with the ability for a car to get downloadable updates will make for a better driving experience for all of us. I KNOW I don’t check my mirrors enough and I may check more than most due to the fact that riding a motorcycle mean I need to drive like the goal of other drivers is to kill me. The constantly looking and responding cameras as well as radar means that I will be in a car where the main goal is the safety of myself and all other drivers on the road – rather than my honest goal of getting done driving as quickly as possible – needless to say I am not a fan of driving.

Since though as more and more Autonomous (self-driving) Vehicles will be on the road many things are going to change. One of the first being is what will be insured, you or your car, and will there be a need for car insurance? Also will there be traffic? Since all cars will be networked with one another the speed of traffic will slow, but grid lock should become a thing of the past as people being cut off, merging, and rerouting will all get done by a computer which knows what is happening ten miles down the road. Also in the future driving yourself will only be done by the rich, as they will be the only ones who can afford the insurance. The thing I am not sure about will be motorcycles! They are a big and powerful lobby, (which is why they get to not wear helmets in most states) but I think they will be soon the only variables on the road over time. Rv’s will be a train likely mode of transport in the future for the wealthy, BUT OTR truckers will very, very soon be a thing of the past. (expect more taking our jobs rhetoric from poor whites, as they are the demographic highest in this job area, but for some reason don’t see rich folks maximizing profits are the source of this problem and not poorer immigrants) Additionally for a time gas station attendants or charging attendant jobs might be a thing but even if so only until this process gets automated. Also very soon there will be no more valet parking, why does one need it when one’s car parks itself.

Expect insurance, passenger safety, and fewer accidents to be immediate outcomes as more and more Autonomous Self Driving Vehicles are on the road. Here is some footage of these cars in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp0vQBwmaX0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–xITOqlBCM

Clearly this will result in a huge economic shift. One of those shifts I will analyze here.

 

 

 

Second: This part of the podcast will look at the idea of Pre-Textual Crime stops, The prison industrial complex, and how people of obvious color are targeted for crime.

 

First let’s define Pretext: In US law, a pretext usually describes false reasons that hide the true intentions or motivations for a legal action. … A “pretextual” arrest by law enforcement officers is one carried out for illegal purposes such as to conduct an unjustified search and seizure.

 

Currently historical crime data is used to target crime for policing. Which means when police look for crime they look for it where they expect to find it. Which means it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. If you look for drugs you only count the times you “find” them rather than the people you hassle on the way to look for them. The only counted “hit” is a find, not a stop, check and a miss. Now we know that there is actually more drug use in middle to upper class neighborhoods than there are in diverse lower class neighborhoods. BUT if “looks” don’t count only “finds”, and there are more attempts at “looks” in diverse lower class neighborhoods it would make a world which seems like there are more drugs in one neighborhood vs another. However this is not the case.

For example I got pulled over in my middle class neighborhood once last year. Philando Castile was pulled over 49 times in 13 years….  That is 3.75 times per year. Many years I don’t get pulled over at all! 49 times in a lifetime, if I were to guess and I am a minority (albeit one who passes for white) I would guess I have been pulled over 10 times in my life 26 years that is .38 times pulled over a year. He was pulled over enough in his life to be killed, and his perceived threat level is much different than mine because of the reality that I pass…

No lets take into account that certain neighborhoods rely on a certain amount of money coming in from traffic stops to help support their city or police departments. There is no reason for giving an Autonomous (self-driving) Vehicle a ticket, the car will not speed, it will not run red lights, it will not perform illegal lane changes – it can’t it is programmed NOT to. What will happen?

As it stands right now many Pretextual Stops are made for many minor traffic violations – with the final purpose of the stop being for drug search and seizure. These will be for speeding, failure to fully stop, illegal lane change, taillight out, many many different reasons. Soon the car just will not do those things. And at first the officers will pull over people in self driving cars – Until eventually they have egg on their face enough to know the cannot ticket a car doing a thing they believe they see – that the car is simply not programmed to do!

 

 

Lastly – It will happen anyway! Even with the onset of Autonomous (self-driving) Vehicles, the stops are still going to occur. There are already a variety of excuses which can be used.

 

First the driver fits the description: No matter how vague the match is, the officer still gets the nod in regards to discretion if a potential “suspect” meets the description of a reported crime. They just a times need people to be “roughly’ the same height, presented gender, and race. They could be in a place where people are pulling over people who are the wrong race as many people misidentify “brown” people as all different types of races. This again will target people of color in ways white folks just riding down the road do not.

 

Now this is further complicated by the fact that Police get calls from racist scared people about random people of color just going about their day to day business. One brother working for Safelite was replacing a window on a car in the front yard, in a Safelite shirt, arriving in Safelite Car, had the police called on him. Another brother working for the power company doing a meter reading – same thing, Power company truck, power company shirt, just doing a routine meter reading. These “reports” could get people killed if things go wrong situationally.

 

Second the next method I think which will still be used for Pretextual Stops will be License plates from other states. There are a variety of reasons they use currently – drug trafficking, gun running, etc. This reason will still be a reason to pull over cars pretextually – EVEN THOUGH the smartest way to do this would be to send the car with the illegal things without anyone in it!!

 

Now what is fascinating to me is as of yet, I don’t know how else these things will come or manifest as of yet. The unknown part of this that could be studied right now! I have reached out in Phoenix to get ahold of Waymo (a subsidiary of Google) who has started to offer free rides for passengers on an experimental basis for with their fleet of Lexus RX450h or Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivan. I have reached out to Waymo several times to conduct a study to see if in fact these Autonomous Self Driving Vehicles with passengers who are obvious people of color pulled over more often or not, and I have not received any response.

 

This is in my opinion very very short sighted. If you go onto Waymo’s site all you see are either white people (mostly white people). A few token mixed people or very light skinned minorities (Asians or Latinx folks). They are just marketing to Whiteness, and given Google’s current issues with Diversity there is little shock if gender is still such an issue then Whiteness must be almost ubitiqous.

 

This opportunity to build a strong, loyal, customer base long known for their dedication to brands who are willing to show they understand the needs and wants of their customer base. GM hired tons of Blacks in Ohio, MI, etc once they fleed the Jim Crow south. They became a large loyal customer base because they wanted to support the company that supported them. So you would see in the black community many Chevy’s – Cadillac’s. There is a high need for safe transportation given the sheer amount of interactions forced on People of Color by law enforcement. And did you know you can arrest someone for simply having drug paraphernalia (and did you know that a straw is considered drug paraphernalia?) These are common occurrences for people of color targeted by law enforcement with Pretextual stops.

 

It is so frustrating to see such a forward-thinking idea and notion MISS such a need. Waymo needs people willing to try out their ride service. People of color in economically distressed communities need safe transportation where subject traffic stops are not the order of the day. They need riders, dedicated riders who need the vehicles to work perfectly and obey all traffic laws. This makes too much sense – but again we see a default to whiteness – even though they are not the area of need or space where consistency will come from!

 

But this will happen – people in cars built to obey all traffic laws perfectly will still get pulled over for suspicion of wrong doing. And somehow there will be no outrage, it will just be accepted. Unless we take action NOW before these systems are in place!!

 

 

So in review major points of this podcast were:

1. Self Driving cars are going to dramatically change the world
2. Pretextual Stops are a part of day to day life for People of Color
3. As its stand right now there is an opportunity to make this more far as self-driving cars

 

SO if this made you think something, if you have a question or even more shocking a critique let me know. You can call me at 860-576-9393

 

This space is a place to talk back ask me questions, hit me with scenarios of how to react to situations real time. Depending on how good your stuff is I will give it my “first take response” or if it’s good it might be a future podcast!

 

Also as always if you’re interested in booking me to bring the power of inclusive activism to your organization you can always do so at inclusiveactivism@cox.net or you can learn more about this organization at www.inclusiveactivism.com