Bonita Gooch, editor-in-chief and publisher of the Black newspaper The Community Voice, remembers a time in northeast Wichita when Black drivers couldn’t move freely without fear of police surveillance.
“Can I go anywhere and not get stopped? It was just aggressive. The perception was, if you were a black man, and you were driving late at night, just get ready to be followed,” Gooch said. “They would follow you until the point that you did something illegal, you didn’t quite stop right, those kinds of things.”
In many Kansas cities, Black drivers are disproportionately ticketed for traffic violations, though the extent of the problem is unknown as statewide data on racial bias in traffic stops isn’t collected. Gooch remembers being stopped at least three times. On one occasion, she had left her office late at night wearing a hoodie.
“Hoodie on, it’s cold, bundled up with my daughter in the car, they couldn’t tell who I was,” Gooch said. “So I’m prime. … A lot of people want to say, ‘Well, you guys must drive bad.’ No, we don’t drive any worse. We’re just being targeted.”
Race-based conversations have been ongoing in Kansas’ largest city. In early April, the Wichita City Council settled a lawsuit over the police department’s use of a “gang list” that for decades allowed officers to scrutinize and harass young Black and Latino residents. Before the settlement, Wichita police could use a broad criteria to put people on the list, such as wearing bandanas or visiting neighborhoods that police deemed “gang associated.” There was no requirement that individuals commit, be charged with or even be suspected of a criminal offense.
Black residents accounted for more than 50% of the individuals on the gang list but only 7.5% of Wichita’s population, according to the ACLU’s analysis of 2022 data. White residents, 68% of Wichita’s population, accounted for only 6% of those on the gang list.
During a Kansas Reflector podcast, Gooch, along with Michael Birzer, a Wichita State University professor specializing in racial profiling and police reform, discussed discrimination in traffic policing. Birzer, who worked in law enforcement for 18 years before turning to academia, conducted a five-year research project exploring statewide racial profiling, including both community and police perspectives.
Birzer said more statewide studies could help with reform.
“Now we have a chance to really begin to dive into the data,” Birzer said. “We have a lot of work to do yet, but I think that there is more awareness. And I think you have police chiefs now that are beginning to understand the issue a little bit better.”
Birzer advocates for more extensive police training on racial profiling.
“Recruits need to be trained on the history of policing in communities of color in this country from slavery to the modern times,” Birzer said. “Because we know that modern=day policing in America was founded on the idea of slave patrols. … There’s a history there. And what I tell law enforcement populations when I’m doing some training for them on this issue, is that every single stop you make of a person of color, particularly an African-American, there’s history there. And I think you need to be sensitive to that.”
This podcast is one of four podcasts the Kansas Reflector is doing in conjunction with the YWCA Northeast Kansas’ Racial Justice Challenge, a monthlong series focusing on different topics.