Meaning:
An ironic name for the non-existent crime of being a black driver.
Background:
The term came to public view in the 1990s, although the reports of the police
tactic of stopping non-white drivers for no reason date from long before
that. In May 1990 The New York Times included a piece with this line:
"We get arrested for D.W.B... You know, driving while black."
The American Civil Liberties Union, June 1999 Special Report included an
article `Driving While Black; Racial Profiling On Our Nations Highways', by
David A. Harris, University of Toledo College of Law. Harris is a prominent
public figure in the USA. The report supports the view that the proportion of
stop and search incidents of non-whites exceeded what could be expected if
the searches were made at random. It encouraged considerable public debate
and brought the phrase to wider attention.
The term is also shortened to DWB. This increases the irony by its
associating the non-existent crime DWB with another acronym - DWI (driving
while intoxicated), which is used routinely by the police for a real crime.
There is an alternative form - `driving while brown', which widens the
alleged prejudice to all non-whites.
- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]
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My Gabonese friend Jerry was a nice guy with a great sense of humor, a talented
software programmer, and fluent in French and English, besides his native
tongue. After college in Paris, he landed first in New York, followed his job to
Cal, married a lovely local girl, and had five great well-mannered kids. We
lived in the same town and used to ride together the ACE train to work and
somehow I felt the conductor check our tickets more often than when I was alone.
I didn't give it much thought but we were sure riding while black and brown and
worse, he got caught one time!
Years later, Jerry sold his Fremont house and settled with his family back in
Gabon. I thought they'd live happily ever after but he soon asked me for
reference as, to support his large family, I'd assume, he had to start working
again.
