Watching the movie “Detroit” was like looking into a mirror reflecting the present. For me, the story didn’t show how things have improved since 1967, it demonstrated how much remains the same 50 years later.
The movie is about the killing of three unarmed teenagers at the Algiers Motel and the shooting and beating of other civilians by the police during the Detroit uprising in July 1967. It starts with an animated history lesson explaining how black Americans migrated from the South to the North and ended up restricted to a few overcrowded neighborhoods. This is the legacy of redlining and the exclusion of Blacks from home-buying assistance provided by the G.I. Bill — a legacy that still explains much of the gap in net worth that exists between white and Black families in America today. Detroit, and most of America, is as segregated today as it was in 1967.
The police in “Detroit” showed how casually they would resort to violence against Black people, the same behavior we witness time and time again in recent videos of police misconduct. The culture of policing portrayed in the movie can be seen in places like Ferguson, Chicago, Baltimore, and Madison County, Mississippi, where the ACLU of Mississippi has filed a lawsuit against the county sheriff for illegal use of force against Black “suspects.”
In “Detroit,” an officer shoots a Black man in the back while he is running away and places an open knife near his hand. I immediately thought of Walter Scott in South Carolina being shot in the back while running away, and the officer who killed him dropping a Taser near his body. An officer in the movie falsely claims that a man he killed tried to grab his gun, while another officer lies to back him up. And I was reminded of the three officers who were indicted in Chicago in June for lying about the killing of Laquan McDonald and trying to cover it up.
Just two weeks ago, President Trump suggested in a speech that he would support officers who engaged in unnecessary and unconstitutional violence again suspects. The White House later claimed he was joking, but he was talking about the kind of treatment that caused Freddie Gray’s death in Baltimore — part of a pattern of police killings of unarmed Black people that goes back long before 1967.
Near the end of the movie, a Black character says "police criminality needs to be treated the same way as any other form of criminality." Half a century later, that truth still doesn’t apply to much of America. The not-guilty verdicts for the Detroit officers echo across five decades into courtrooms in Oklahoma, Minnesota, and South Carolina where police killed Black men on videotape, and not one officer was convicted by a jury.
It turns out that members of The Dramatics were held prisoner by the police in the Algiers Motel on that horrific night. The group had a comeback hit with Snoop Dogg in 1994, and this year Snoop wrote about the police abusing people in the Black community: “Resident evil – it’s all on camera and they still don’t believe you.” Even with cameras, the results are much the same as in 1967.
I was 11 years old in 1967. People then and now relied on Martin Luther King Jr. to condemn violence. I wonder if people relying on King know that the speech he was scheduled to give on April 7, 1968, three days after he was assassinated, was "Why America May Go to Hell." I wonder if they remember something he said in 1967, the same year the rebellion in Detroit happened:
Urban riots are a special form of violence. They are not insurrections. The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community…But most of all, alienated from society and knowing society cherishes property above people, [the rioters are] shocking it by abusing property rights.
For me, the Algiers Motel, the treatment of Black Americans, and the music reminds me of another ’60s band. The Who warned: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” The police in “Detroit” looked frighteningly like the police of today. If changing policing in America is on your agenda, our work is far from done.
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Racial Justice
ACLU Statement on House AI Task Force ReportACLU Statement on House AI Task Force Report
WASHINGTON — Today, the House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence (AI) issued its final report, marking an important step in recognizing the serious risks of discrimination and bias posed by AI systems — particularly in law enforcement’s use of facial recognition technology. The report recognizes that discrimination and bias may arise in AI systems due to their design, training data, or failures by end users. The report also investigates the complex considerations around deepfakes, open AI systems, and free speech, and urges Congress to pass narrow legislation to address concrete harms. In response to the House AI Task Force final report, Cody Venzke, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, issued the following statement: “The ACLU commends the Task Force for recognizing that AI systems are harming people right now through discriminatory outcomes and supercharged surveillance. Curbing those abuses of AI is not a partisan issue, and more concrete action is needed to protect civil rights, while maintaining states’ authority to build on those protections. The Task Force is appropriately cautious when wrestling with issues around deepfakes, open-source AI, digital identity, and other issues, recognizing that legislators should consider a wide array of tailored tools to address real, not speculative, harms while respecting civil rights and civil liberties.” The House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence report can be found here. -
News & CommentaryDec 2024
Racial Justice
Human Rights
Why the Fight for Racial Justice is a Human Rights IssueWhy the Fight for Racial Justice is a Human Rights Issue
On International Human Rights Day, the ACLU is advocating for a long-sought after reparatory justice to end the continued abuses against Black and brown communities. -
Press ReleaseOct 2024
National Security
+2 Issues
ACLU Warns that Biden-Harris Administration Rules on AI in National Security Lack Key ProtectionsACLU Warns that Biden-Harris Administration Rules on AI in National Security Lack Key Protections
WASHINGTON — The Biden-Harris administration today released its National Security Memorandum on Artificial Intelligence (AI), establishing guidelines for how the U.S. government uses AI in national security programs, such as counterterrorism, intelligence, homeland security, and defense. The use of AI to automate and expand national security activities poses some of the greatest dangers to people’s lives and civil liberties. Agencies are increasingly exploring the use of AI in decisions about who to surveil, who to stop and search at the airport, who to add to government watchlists, and even who is a military target. While the government’s policy includes some important steps forward — such as requiring national security agencies to better track and assess their AI systems for risks and prohibiting a subset of dangerous AI uses — it falls far short in other critical areas, leaving glaring gaps with respect to independent oversight, transparency, notice, and redress. The policy imposes few substantive safeguards on a wide range of AI-driven activities, by and large allowing agencies to decide for themselves how to mitigate the risks posed by national security systems that have immense consequences for people’s lives and rights. As we have repeatedly seen before, this is a recipe for dangerous technologies to proliferate in secret. “Despite acknowledging the considerable risks of AI, this policy does not go nearly far enough to protect us from dangerous and unaccountable AI systems. National security agencies must not be left to police themselves as they increasingly subject people in the United States to powerful new technologies,” said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project. “If developing national security AI systems is an urgent priority for the country, then adopting critical rights and privacy safeguards is just as urgent. Without transparency, independent oversight, and built-in mechanisms for individuals to obtain accountability when AI systems err or fail, the policy’s safeguards are inadequate and place our civil rights and civil liberties at risk.” For years, the American Civil Liberties Union has been urging far stronger safeguards and transparency about the AI tools that national security agencies are deploying, the rules constraining their use, and the dangers these systems pose to fairness, privacy, and due process. -
Press ReleaseOct 2024
Racial Justice
ACLU Comment on the Department of Labor’s AI Guidelines for Employers and VendorsACLU Comment on the Department of Labor’s AI Guidelines for Employers and Vendors
WASHINGTON — Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released a roadmap for artificial intelligence (AI) best practices, designed to ensure that emerging technologies such as AI enhance job quality, benefit workers, and comply with existing employment laws when they are used in the workplace. The best practices, pursuant to President Biden’s executive order on the development and use of AI, include recommendations for AI system developers and employers that prioritize workers’ experiences and empowerment throughout the entire AI lifecycle – from design to use and oversight. These practices also call on employers and developers to create standards and processes to identify and mitigate risks from AI systems, such as threats to health and safety, civil rights, privacy, fair labor rights, and labor organizing prior to a developer marketing them or an employer deploying them, and recommend turning to different systems when sufficient mitigation is not possible. “We applaud DOL for issuing best practices for use of AI that center workers’ empowerment, civil rights, privacy, and safety protections and call on developers and employers to adopt critical guardrails in developing, procuring and using AI systems. Employers and developers should take note, as many have been burying their heads in the sand on their risk of legal liability with respect to AI tools,” said Olga Akselrod, senior staff attorney of the ACLU Racial Justice Program. “Following these best practices for AI can help employers and developers ensure that they do not violate existing civil rights and other employment laws that protect workers.” The best practices also recommend transparency measures through conducting and publishing impact assessments, notice and recourse for impacted workers, and measures to minimize worker displacement. The DOL also stated that employers should minimize electronic monitoring and avoid unnecessary collection or retention of worker data.