Being black in the US is no walk in the park. Indeed, as recent viral videos have made blindingly clear, being black means having to worry about having the police called on you just for being in a park. It means having to worry about the police arresting you for walking in your own neighbourhood.
Police in Tulsa, Oklahoma, made headlines this week when they violently detained two teenage African American boys, and arrested one, for walking down a quiet street that didn’t have a pavement. When one of the teenagers asked what they had done wrong, he was told: “You were jaywalking; you broke the law.”
But why is jaywalking even against the law? There is no such offence in much of Europe, including in the UK – although Ken Livingstone apparently proposed making jaywalking illegal while he was mayor of London. In the US, however, you can get a hefty fine and even go to jail for it.
This is the result of aggressive lobbying by the automotive industry. In the 20s, car usage increased hugely in the US – and so did road accidents. The industry responded by pressing the government to create favourable legislation and working with the media to shape coverage of traffic accidents. “The newspaper coverage quite suddenly changes, so that in 1923 they’re all blaming the drivers and by late 1924 they’re all blaming jaywalking,” one automotive history expert explained to the BBC.
By the 30s, laws against jaywalking were the norm across the US. To this day, pedestrian and cyclist victims tend to be blamed in media coverage of traffic accidents. They darted into the street! They weren’t paying attention!
Jaywalking laws are not evenly applied: enforcement disproportionally targets people of colour. In 2019, for example, 90% of illegal-walking tickets issued by New York police were to black and Hispanic people. The laws are one small part of widespread systemic racism, but they are also part of the ongoing privatisation of public spaces. The streets don’t belong to communities any more – they belong to individuals, driving around in expensive cars.
Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
