Michigan drivers met with startling billboard message: 'Driving while Black? Racial profiling just ahead'
DETROIT – Motorists in Michigan were met with a startling message Monday on an electronic billboard in Redford Township.
"Driving while Black? Racial profiling just ahead. Welcome to Livonia."
The organizer behind the billboard lives in Livonia and said it is an effort to awaken the city to problems that continue to exist with profiling and other forms of racism.
The mayor called the billboard counterproductive. The police chief said his department does not engage in racial profiling.
The message is funded by a Facebook group called Livonia Citizens Caring about Black Lives. The billboard can be seen on northbound Telegraph Road in Redford Towsnhip, just south of I-96.
Organizer Delisha Upshaw created a donation fund to raise money to pay for the billboard message. The fundraiser website says the group had a goal to purchase four weeks of billboard space with the message.
Billboards have long been banned in Livonia but the group wanted to make a highly-visible statement to daily highway commuters. So members chose Redford Township as a location.
Upshaw said the plan is to highlight the decades-old problem of racial profiling in Livonia, an issue that critics have been mentioning at protests and public forums.
“Some people want to deny that it’s a problem,” Upshaw said. “That can’t be the way. Livonia is not an all-white city anymore. We have to be a city that is welcoming for everyone.
Upshaw says that Livonia is an amazing city for families, but it is marred by a perception of bigotry and discrimination amid a historic reputation for racial profiling by its police department.
Video: Why some Black men fear profiling while wearing masks
Mayor: Billboard is 'counterproductive'
Livonia Mayor Maureen Miller Brosnan has pledged to work for change but called the billboard "counterproductive."
"This billboard will not help advance the progress of diversity in our community, something to which I am committed," Brosnan said in a news release.
She said the Livonia Human Relations Commission has been recommissioned and hosted the first Partnership for Progress Listening Session, which was sponsored by the Western Wayne NAACP and the Conference of Western Wayne.
Police Chief Curtis Caid in the news release Monday said his officers “do not target their enforcement actions to individuals based on gender, race, religion, ethnicity, etc."
"Racial profiling is a serious allegation and is not tolerated," Caid said. "We are proud that Livonia has been consistently ranked as one of the safest cities in the region.
"Livonia is a welcoming community to all regardless of one’s race. This billboard sends the exact opposite message of our values at the Livonia Police Department and of those in our community.”
At a June 24 Listening Tour event, Caid said the department is open to change.
“As well intentioned the officers may be, sometimes their actions are perceived to be the opposite of what they’re trying to accomplish,” he said. “Unfortunately, as a result of that (and) these tragic events, we find ourselves facing some realities. We’re willing to work with that and learn from that and make our communities better.”
At the same event, the mayor said she’d like to embed more mental health services into the community and police department. Mental health and domestic calls have spiked largely because of the pandemic, Brosnan said.
The police department has been targeted by protesters as part of the larger Black Lives Matter movement that has swept the nation since the death of George Floyd.
Hometown Life reporter Susan Vela contributed to this report.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan billboard ad calls out 'racial profiling' in Livonia
