We have spent much time exploring the many ways in which advocates can use mapping to highlight the social isolation and segregation from opportunity of their client communities, among other things, and advocate for positive change. (See REP Blog mapping archives.) However, mapping is tool available to everyone and, as this story may suggest to you, can have its downside, especially when applied to groups racialized as prone to radicalism and violence.

According to the NY Times in Protest Greets Police Plan Map Muslim Angelinos, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) plans to map the location of southern California Muslims under the auspices of the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism” Act. The “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism” Act defines “ideologically based violence” as “the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual’s political, religious, or social beliefs.” That’s the place from which LAPD’s assumptions about Muslims run wantonly in the direction of implicit bias. As many are aware, the law of implicit bias is unsettled.

Though not listed among the LAPD’s official maps, the department never officially withdrew its proposal to map SoCal Muslims. Here’s what others had to say about the proposal.

Peter Bibring, a lawyer with the A.C.L.U. of Southern California, expressed the alarm many felt at hearing that the “starting point for a police investigation is ‘let’s look at all Muslims.’”

Mike German, policy counsel for the ACLU, called the plan “wrongheaded” because the bill calls for heightened scrutiny of people who believe, or might come to believe, in a violent ideology, which, the In These Times article notes, is perfectly legal.

Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Greater Los Angeles Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA), debates an LAPD proposal to “map” Southern California Muslim communities on “NBC Nightly News.” See the video interview here. The video questions whether racial profiling can be good policing. For an historical view of the process of official state mapping of minority communities and racial profiling policy, see the LA Times article, “Community Profiling’s Long, Sad History” by Professor Richard Marcus of Cal State Long Beach.

Pr. Marcus points out that, under the Bush Administration:

The U.S. Department of Justice banned racial profiling, calling it unconstitutional. Under this definition, former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft followed in February 2002, saying that using race “as a proxy for potential criminal behavior is unconstitutional, and it undermines law enforcement by undermining the confidence that people can have in law enforcement.” I guess the LAPD missed the memo.