Detroit Police Chief James Craig was on Fox News Thursday to discuss Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s (D-MI-13) recent visit to the department’s Real Time Crime Center, where the first-term congresswoman suggested that only African Americans should be allowed to work as facial recognition analysts.
Tlaib was invited to visit the center after she said in an August tweet that the Detroit Police Department “should probably rethink this whole facial recognition bulls—.”
.@detroitpolice You should probably rethink this whole facial recognition bulls**t.https://t.co/ZvHEEQxzWB
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) August 20, 2019
She made headlines again when a reporter with The Detroit News recorded her September 30 visit with Chief Craig.
“Analysts need to be African Americans, not people that are not. It’s true, I think non-African Americans think African Americans all look the same,” Tlaib said, claiming that facial recognition software can be discriminatory against African Americans.
Craig later told The Detroit News that to “say people should be barred from working somewhere because of their skin color” is “racist.”
He then joined “Fox & Friends” Thursday morning to discuss Tlaib’s comments.
“We were appalled when she made this statement,” he said. “We even put her in the seat of an analyst so she could understand how it works. And she was somewhat resistant. Not really interested. But it was important for me to invite her after she made her initial comments. So at least she could learn something about how we use it and maybe have a great appreciation for it.”Watch the latest video at foxnews.com
“This is a double standard,” he continued. “If I had made the exact same comment, they would’ve been calling for my resignation and she would have been leading that charge. That’s a fact.”
Tlaib continues to stand by her comments and posted a number of “scholarly research” articles on Twitter showing that “darker-skinned females” are misidentified by facial recognition software up to 35 percent of the time.
“At the end of the day, I was elected to serve my residents, and I cannot in good conscience sit by while inaccurate facial recognition technology is deployed in ways that run the risk of false arrests and overpolicing. We need a real dialogue here,’ she said.
At the end of the day, I was elected to serve my residents, and I cannot in good conscience sit by while inaccurate facial recognition technology is deployed in ways that run the risk of false arrests and overpolicing. We need a real dialogue here. 7/7
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) October 2, 2019
Tlaib published an op-ed in The Detroit News Friday to respond to allegations that her comments were racist.
“I’m going to call out every injustice I see,” she wrote. “It’s probably what makes most people uncomfortable when I speak the truth. My comments weren’t racist, out of order, or ‘inappropriate.’ It is inappropriate to implement a broken, flawed, and racist technology that doesn’t recognize black and brown faces in a city that is over 80 percent black.”
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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of Battleground State News, The Ohio Star, and The Minnesota Sun. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Background Photo “Detroit Police Department” by Mikerussell. CC BY-SA 3.0.
