Word.ws English Dictionary

driving while black

driving while black noun: 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.

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.
    • I was pulled over for driving while black yesterday. That idiot cop spent 20 minutes asking me a bunch of crap.
    • 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. . . .[1995, Paul C. Rosenblatt, Terri A. Karis, Richard D. Powell, Multiracial Couples: Black and White Voices (Understanding Families), SAGE Publications, →ISBN, page 147
    Synonyms:
    DWB

Synonyms of driving while black

Origin of driving while black

A jocular play on driving while intoxicated.

Questions about driving while black

What does driving while black mean?
Driving while black means 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.
What part of speech is driving while black?
Driving while black is a noun.

Words near driving while black in the dictionary

  1. driving up
  2. driving van trailer
  3. driving van trailers
  4. driving wheel
  5. driving wheels
  6. driving while black
  7. driving while Mexican
  8. driving wind
  9. driving winds
  10. driving-wheel
  11. driving-wheels

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: driving while black (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-driving while black.wav.

Cite this entry: “driving while black.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/driving_while_black. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.