Rashida Tlaib is not a fan of facial recognition technology. She has branded it racist and informed the Chief Craig of the Detroit Police Department that only African-American analysts should be eligible to work the system.

“U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib told Detroit police Chief James Craig he should employ only black people on the department’s facial recognition team because “non-African Americans think African-Americans all look the same.”” [Emphasis Added]

Yes, she really said that.

Rep. @RashidaTlaib said facial recognition techs need to be African-American because "non-African Americans" think all black people look alike.

Detroit Police Chief James Craig said if he had said that, people would be demanding he resign.https://t.co/JxaJqiwDzO pic.twitter.com/JKXuydfLVd

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) October 3, 2019

The entire exchange is mind-boggling. Chief Craig tried to walk Tlaib through the process by showing how an analyst can pick up on mistakes in the system. 

“The chief started to explain the next steps in the process, but Tlaib cut in: “We know it’s close to a 60% error rate because it doesn’t identify black people; you know that, Chief. Chief, the error rate among African Americans, especially women, 60%.”

“I understand the technology,” Craig said. “That’s why I’m taking you through it personally.”

“I know,” Tlaib said. “Just see if you can get some of our money back before we fix it.”

“No,” Craig replied.””

Look, there are problems with facial recognition technology. It has come a long way since in the last two decades. However, it has a long ways to go as Wired points out here.

One of the points that is made in the Wired piece (which Tlaib links to in order to support her fallacies) is that some of the problems with facial recognition involves the use of badly taken photos. Tlaib’s presumption is that all the photos in the system are professionally done or high-quality mugshots. Which is definitely not the case no matter what law enforcement agency you are talking about. Furthermore, Tlaib presumes that every business has a surveillance system that produces movie quality video…and yeah..NOPE.

That said, Tlaib went into that meeting carting a boatload of attitude.

“Rutebuka then put an old police mugshot on the screen, which he said did match the suspect, 21-year-old Davevion Dawson, who is awaiting trial on felonious assault and weapons charges.

“That’s him,” Rutebuka said.

Tlaib fired back: “How do you know? You can’t say it’s him; it’s allegedly him. That’s the lawyer talk in me. It’s his life we’re talking about.”

“Let me stop you right there,” Craig interjected. “It’s his life, but guess who else’s life? The victim’s. We never talk about the victims. What about that victim’s rights? What about the family of the victim? What about their justice?”

“Do you guys have witnesses as well?” Tlaib asked.

“Yes,” Craig said.

“The warrant wasn’t issued solely based on this, was it?” Tlaib asked.

Craig sighed. “No, it wasn’t,” he said. “Work with me. Work with me.””

Tlaib didn’t care that Detroit PD’s facial recognition system was only one of SEVERAL tools used to investigate crimes. Nor was she interested in justice for the victims.

Chief Craig is correct in his response.

Detroit Police Chief James Craig asked if her making that statement with no backlash was a "double standard."

Tlaib insisted her comments were fine, saying that facial recognition technology is "broken," despite being shown how it's used.https://t.co/JxaJqiwDzO pic.twitter.com/oshlHwPl0K

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) October 3, 2019

Rashida Tlaib stated that anyone who is NOT African-American cannot differentiate between African-Americans when it comes to solving crimes. She leveled a racist generalization against anyone and everyone who isn’t African-American, and blatantly called for racial discrimination in the workplace.

A few takeaways on this

A. Does Tlaib realize that she herself essentially said that all blacks look alike?

B. As Chief Craig points out, if he or any white person had made the same comments, the fallout would be nuclear in scope.

C. Tlaib advocates for racial discrimination in the workplace, even though FEDERAL law has made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, etc.

Rashida Tlaib can hop onto Twitter and link to all sorts of studies in an attempt to make her case about facial recognition. In the end it doesn’t matter because her comments to Chief Craig and the analysts within the Detroit PD have invalidated any decent argument she may have had.

Rashida Tlaib has ranted against racism and bigotry, yet openly expressed her OWN racism and bigotry to the world at large and to her own constituents. This is yet another instance where she shows us exactly who she is, and it’s not pretty.

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Feature Photo Credit: YouTube screenshot via WXYZ-TV/Detroit Channel 7, cropped and modified