Wanted: All Cruisers

It’s 6 p.m. School has been out for awhile now. You’re done with most of your homework and your new car keeps staring at you from your bedroom window. Temptation finally gets the best of you. It’s time for a study break! You vow to your mother that it won’t take too long – thankfully, she’s used to your evening ritual by now. You call your two closest friends as you head out the door.

Before you know it, you’re on your way to another evening of chatting, venting, and laughing while cruising around downtown. Bonding. Then your car clock blinks 8 p.m. It’s time to head back home. The thought of cruising again with your pals tomorrow brings a smile to your face, and makes the homework bearable.

That’s what life was life for 17-year-old Joshua Schmidt, of Sioux Falls, S.D. before anti-cruising ordinances were instated last summer. Now 6 p.m. is just 6 p.m.

“I honestly don’t think cruising was a problem,” said Schmidt. “I kind of understand where they were coming from. But I think we can be spending a lot more time focusing on other things, like the burglaries that have gone on the rise here.”

In Sioux Falls, cruising is defined as passing the same point on the Loop (a road around Sioux Falls) more than twice in a two-hour period. Contrary to Schmidt’s beliefs, the anti-cruising ordinance was instated because of the reported increase in crime in Sioux Falls.

“They said along the Loop that there was supposedly a lot of violence,” said Schmidt. “I’ve never heard of any actual crimes [there]. I think the demographics of many of the cruisers, many being youth of color, had something to do with cruising being seen as a threat.”

According to Schmidt, the stereotypes of what youth do once they get behind the wheel did not happen in Sioux Falls during cruising hours. There was no blaring music, and it wasn’t done really late at night to disturb residents, just between 6 and 8 p.m.

“No one really thought about [cruising]. It was just what people did around here at night,” said Schmidt.

Anti-cruising ordinances, like the one Schmidt faces every day, are no longer uncommon in most parts of the country. But this hasn’t always been the case. At one point, according to Jeff Chang in his new book, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, cruising was acknowledged as a cornerstone of youth culture.

“Cruising bans came after a decade of street scenes, boulevards and neighborhoods where young people’s cruising and partying overtook local traffic on Friday and Saturday nights,” writes Chang. “In Los Angeles, cruising bans ended the scenes in East Los Angeles, Westwood, downtown and Crenshaw Boulevard. In Atlanta, outcries from white homeowners over the city’s annual Freaknik event in 1996 resulted in a cruising ban that ended one of the nation’s biggest black collegiate gatherings.”

Later in 1996, Boots Riley of the hip-hop group, The Coup, led a group calling itself the Young Comrades, in a "Take Back the Lake" rally to protest alleged misconduct by police officers in Oakland, Calif. and to attack the city's anti-cruising ordinance around the city’s Lake Merritt. Not long after the Comrades convinced a crowd of young people to appear at a local City Council meeting, the ordinance was repealed.

Anti-cruising laws aren’t new, but they do continue to crop up, all over the country. And, as Reggie Moore, executive director and co-founder of the Urban Underground in Milwaukee, Wis., points out, they tend to target youth of color, and make youth feel criminalized by adults and society.

About two years ago, some Milwaukee neighborhoods saw the appearance of anti-cruising signs alerting people to the $500 fines. These neighborhoods, he says often make it easy for police officers to practice racial profiling. “One of the areas where there are anti-cruising laws, it’s about 75-80 percent black.” He says. “So if there are more than three young people in the car, they are more than likely to be pulled over for cruising.”