these engagements inscribe black people as presumptively suspect, communicates the idea that black lives do not matter, and exposes them to the possibility of police violence.” 4 CERD has also acknowledged the pervasive anti-Black prejudice that feeds and is equally fed by history and structural impediments in a vicious cycle that perpetuates vulnerability, stereotypes and stigma. Poverty is both a cause and a consequence of this cycle of rejection and despair. In its General recommendation No. 34 adopted by CERD in 2011on racial discrimination against people of African descent, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination recognized that: “6. Racism and structural discrimination against people of African descent, rooted in the infamous regime of slavery, are evident in the situations of inequality affecting them and reflected, inter alia, in the following domains: their grouping, together with indigenous peoples, among the poorest of the poor; their low rate of participation and representation in political and institutional decision-making processes; additional difficulties they face in access to and completion and quality of education, which results in the transmission of poverty from generation to generation; inequality in access to the labour market; limited social recognition and valuation of their ethnic and cultural diversity; and a disproportionate presence in prison populations.” CERD has called on States to: “39. Take measures to prevent the use of illegal force, torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or discrimination by the police or other law enforcement agencies and officials against people of African descent, especially in connection with arrest and detention, and ensure that people of African descent are not victims of practices of racial or ethnic profiling.” Let’s be clear, in deeply divided multi-racial communities, the problem is not one of policing methodologies per se, but rather, the problem is racism. The issue is one of explicit and implicit stereotypes of people, of all people of the minority community, as being poor and therefore angry and violent. Consider this scenario: Patterns of poverty, racially segregated residential areas and school districts often create enormous social distance between the daily lives of minority communities and others. Members of the majority don’t go to school with minorities, don’t live near them, or shop where they do. There may be a 4 Unpublished paper by Devon W. Carbado, The Legalization of Racial Profiling: Setting the Stage for Police Violence. 4