Law and Race Commons^™

Unspeakable Suspicions: Challenging The Racist Consensual Encounter, Peter Schoenburg, Risa Evans

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt] "In recent years, law enforcement officials have honed a new technique for fighting the "War on Drugs:" the suspicionless police sweep of stations and vehicles involved in interstate mass transportation. Single officers or groups of officers approach unfortunate individuals in busses, trains, stations and airline terminals. A targeted traveller is requested to show identification and tickets, explain the purpose of his or her travels, and finally, at times, to consent to a luggage search. As long as "a reasonable person would understand that he or she could refuse to cooperate," the encounter between the law-enforcement official and the traveller …

Reel Time/Real Justice, Kimberlé W. Crenshaw

Faculty Scholarship

Like the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings a few months before, the Rodney King beating, the acquittal of the Los Angeles police officers who "restrained" him and the subsequent civil unrest in Los Angeles flashed Race across the national consciousness and the gaze of American culture momentarily froze there. Pieces of everyday racial dynamics briefly seemed clear, then faded from view, replaced by presidential politics and natural disasters.

This Essay examines in more depth what was exposed during the momentary national focus on Rodney King. Two main events – the acquittal of the police officers who beat King and the civil …