"driving while black" meaning in English

See driving while black in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Etymology: A jocular play on driving while intoxicated. Head templates: {{en-noun|-}} driving while black (uncountable)
  1. (US, sarcastic) A fictitious criminal offense, said to be committed when a traffic stop is motivated by a police officer's racial bias against a black motorist, rather than any actual violation of law. Tags: US, sarcastic, uncountable Categories (topical): Racism Synonyms: DWB [initialism] Related terms: racial profiling, lookism, facial discrimination
    Sense id: en-driving_while_black-en-noun-zEl~EJM8 Categories (other): American English, English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Alternative forms

{
  "etymology_text": "A jocular play on driving while intoxicated.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "driving while black (uncountable)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "American English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Racism",
          "orig": "en:Racism",
          "parents": [
            "Forms of discrimination",
            "Discrimination",
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I was pulled over for driving while black yesterday. That idiot cop spent 20 minutes asking me a bunch of crap.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "[1995, Paul C. Rosenblatt, Terri A. Karis, Richard D. Powell, Multiracial Couples: Black and White Voices (Understanding Families), SAGE Publications, →ISBN, page 147:",
          "text": "jill We [Jill and her husband James] call it, \"Driving While Black.\" We have a . . . nice car. So we got pulled over for a DWB. . . .",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A fictitious criminal offense, said to be committed when a traffic stop is motivated by a police officer's racial bias against a black motorist, rather than any actual violation of law."
      ],
      "id": "en-driving_while_black-en-noun-zEl~EJM8",
      "links": [
        [
          "sarcastic",
          "sarcastic"
        ],
        [
          "fictitious",
          "fictitious"
        ],
        [
          "criminal offense",
          "criminal offense"
        ],
        [
          "said",
          "said"
        ],
        [
          "committed",
          "committed"
        ],
        [
          "traffic stop",
          "traffic stop"
        ],
        [
          "motivated",
          "motivated"
        ],
        [
          "police officer",
          "police officer"
        ],
        [
          "racial",
          "racial"
        ],
        [
          "bias",
          "bias"
        ],
        [
          "motorist",
          "motorist"
        ],
        [
          "actual",
          "actual"
        ],
        [
          "violation",
          "violation"
        ],
        [
          "law",
          "law"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(US, sarcastic) A fictitious criminal offense, said to be committed when a traffic stop is motivated by a police officer's racial bias against a black motorist, rather than any actual violation of law."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "racial profiling"
        },
        {
          "word": "lookism"
        },
        {
          "word": "facial discrimination"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "initialism"
          ],
          "word": "DWB"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "sarcastic",
        "uncountable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "driving while black"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "A jocular play on driving while intoxicated.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "driving while black (uncountable)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "racial profiling"
    },
    {
      "word": "lookism"
    },
    {
      "word": "facial discrimination"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "American English",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English sarcastic terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English uncountable nouns",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "en:Racism"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I was pulled over for driving while black yesterday. That idiot cop spent 20 minutes asking me a bunch of crap.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "[1995, Paul C. Rosenblatt, Terri A. Karis, Richard D. Powell, Multiracial Couples: Black and White Voices (Understanding Families), SAGE Publications, →ISBN, page 147:",
          "text": "jill We [Jill and her husband James] call it, \"Driving While Black.\" We have a . . . nice car. So we got pulled over for a DWB. . . .",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A fictitious criminal offense, said to be committed when a traffic stop is motivated by a police officer's racial bias against a black motorist, rather than any actual violation of law."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "sarcastic",
          "sarcastic"
        ],
        [
          "fictitious",
          "fictitious"
        ],
        [
          "criminal offense",
          "criminal offense"
        ],
        [
          "said",
          "said"
        ],
        [
          "committed",
          "committed"
        ],
        [
          "traffic stop",
          "traffic stop"
        ],
        [
          "motivated",
          "motivated"
        ],
        [
          "police officer",
          "police officer"
        ],
        [
          "racial",
          "racial"
        ],
        [
          "bias",
          "bias"
        ],
        [
          "motorist",
          "motorist"
        ],
        [
          "actual",
          "actual"
        ],
        [
          "violation",
          "violation"
        ],
        [
          "law",
          "law"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(US, sarcastic) A fictitious criminal offense, said to be committed when a traffic stop is motivated by a police officer's racial bias against a black motorist, rather than any actual violation of law."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "initialism"
          ],
          "word": "DWB"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "sarcastic",
        "uncountable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "driving while black"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-02-12 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-02-02 using wiktextract (1c4b89b and 9dbd323). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.