I’m definitely a real life Gladys Kravitz and know I’m checking with my neighbors before taking a chance on calling the police on their guests.
It’s a way of policing public spaces. Somehow, the cop-callers feel that people of color don’t belong in public spaces, and must be up to no good, even when they are manifestly not up to no good. (Seriously, middle-aged women putting luggage in cars in broad daylight is not what burglary looks like.) I don’t know what to call it, but there will soon be a name because we need a way to talk about it.
So why does it happen?
Many white people are used to considering the police as protectors, the people you call for help in a risky situation. And for them it generally is true that if you aren’t doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear. Because that’s the way it works out for them.
Imagine the scenario of someone forgetting their keys and breaking into their own home. Someone notices and calls the cops.
Best case scenario: police come, probably with guns out, scare the homeowner, who quickly explains the situation, provides proof, the police say, “Just doing our job” and they leave. No police brutality. No one is hurt.
Outcome for white person in the scenario: he got quite a shock when the police arrived. It was scary for a moment there. But now, the whole thing seems kind of funny. He’ll be laughing and telling this story at parties for years to come. He tells the story at the block party and one of his neighbors says, “That was me who called the police. So sorry man.” He replies, “No really, dude. Thank you for looking out for my property. It was my own fault I forgot my keys.” They share a beer together feeling good about living in such a great neighborhood.
Outcome for black person in this scenario: he got quite a shock when the police arrived. All the stories in the news and the stories he’s been hearing his whole life flashing in front of him. Am I the next dead black man, he wonders. But it’s okay, the police listen, they leave and now he can’t stop shaking because of what might have been. He tells his story at parties and people say, “You are lucky. My cousin …” and he hears over and over all the ways this could have gone down. He ends up with PTSD. He used to love his neighborhood. But now he looks around and wonders which neighbor saw him and thought, “scary black man.” It doesn’t quite feel like home anymore. He moved here for the great schools but now he wonders if his kids are safe here. He moves back to a primarily black neighborhood because at least he’ll know his neighbors have his back.
And that’s assuming the police in question treat a black suspect and a white suspect identically. Which statistically is not the case at all.
So, no, this is not a no harm done situation when people call the police.
Post #81-- it’s almost impossible to constructively discuss negative actions for which we don’t have adequate shared vocabulary. imho
^^This (referring to @mom23travelers 's post, which I wish I could like 100 times)
@mom23travelers hits the nail on the head.
Dialogue is useful yes, but action is more important.
I think the dialogue is already happening, just not sure if everyone is paying attention and is educated on the matter.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/when-calling-the-police-is-a-privilege/558608/
“Black people are less likely to call the police than white people. According to federal data on requests for police assistance from 2011—before many of the high-profile killings of black Americans that are etched into the collective national memory—black Americans were slightly less inclined to call police for help than their white counterparts. The data hint at the result of that estimation black people make daily: whether involving police will help a situation or make it worse. Marginalized communities do not feel confident in reaching out to the authorities that are created to protect them—and that is extremely problematic.”
^And this is the kind of thing that informs conversations around race and the police. When a young black man is shot after running from he police the first thing many white people ask is, “If he’s innocent why would he run?” whereas for at least some POC the question is, “Regardless of whether he’s innocent why wouldn’t he run?”
Historically, many police departments were created largely to protect white citizens from racial minorities (Indian constables, slave catcher/patrols, etc). There’s history there that hasn’t yet been completely overcome, I think in the case of the police agencies themselves and in the propensity of whites vs anyone else to avail themselves of police services.
It’s hard to discuss this without being aware of that background.
“Slightly” doesn’t make a strong case.
@“Cardinal Fang” , If you read what I wrote, you would see that I called calling the police on POC “racial territoriality.” I was posing rhetorical as I raised the need for a larger vocabulary.
“Racist” is a label. Labels are used to define who or what people ARE, sometimes as if that is ALL that they are and nothing else. As if that tells us all we need to know about them. To say that someone has “racial bias” allows for the fact that they also have other qualities, perhaps not all of them bad. That they are complex, subtly described, human beings.
In the age of twitter, we seem to want to define every human with just one word each.
This woman has a bit of a history - here’s a cached copy of an article she wrote for Humanist.com 8 years ago (it’s been removed from their page, replaced by a statement disavowing her views - the comments are interesting). Perhaps this can provide some context on who this woman is.
As for the “overreaction” of the woman who was accused of not belonging, there is the additional context that this same woman called police to report another “intruder” in February - she had already dealt with police during that incident, because she was the person who had invited him to meet at her dorm. So I am not surprised she was “looking forward” to speaking with the police again.
From an article in the Washington Post: And for anyone keeping score, it adds “napping” to the long and apparently still growing list of things it is unacceptable to do while black.
Other entrants include: couponing while black, graduating too boisterously while black, waiting for a school bus while black, throwing a kindergarten temper tantrum while black, drinking iced tea while black, waiting at Starbucks while black, AirBnB’ing while black, shopping for underwear while black, having a loud conversation while black, golfing too slowly while black, buying clothes at Barney’s while black, or Macy’s, or Nordstrom Rack, getting locked out of your own home while black, going to the gym while black, asking for the Waffle House corporate number while black and reading C.S. Lewis while black, among others.
Here is the article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2018/05/10/a-black-yale-student-fell-asleep-in-her-dorms-common-room-a-white-student-called-police/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e855477c1742
Sorry, but on the scale of things calling the cops on someone who is taking a nap is pretty high. I don’t think “racial territoriality” really captures what’s going on, unless you’re saying I should be calling the police everytime I’m feeling territorial. All this handwringing over terms might be more appropriate if we are talking about professors responding to e-mails more frequently if they come from white students, for example (which is actually the case).
I’m not sure why they used the word “slightly”. That seems like it’s very underrated.
I think everyone already knows how much distrust the black community has with the police.
Since it’s happened twice, I wonder whether it could be considered a form of harassment.
https://collegian.com/2018/05/hodge-check-your-biases-before-calling-police/
Op-ed in *The Rocky Mountain Collegian/i:
Each time these stories are reported it reminds me of a situation I went through a number of years ago and as I reflect my opinion on things change.
I was about 30 years old (white), living in an affluent suburb of Chicago and walked to the commuter train late morning to catch a train into the city for Cubs opening day. I arrived at the train station early and realized it would be a good time to go to the bank across the street to get some cash from the ATM. It turns out the bank only had a drive up ATM so I walked over to it and the armored car service was servicing the machine. I stood about 25 feet behind the truck and was day dreaming while I waited for the guard to finish up. I was jolted out of my daydream looking at the barrel of a gun with the guard screaming at me asking me who I was and what I was doing. I explained I was waiting, he interrogated me some more, told me I had to leave the bank property while he was there and I refused. He eventually finished up, keeping one eye on me and his hand never far from his gun, he left, I got my cash and off I went. An interesting tale that may have gone differently if I was a person of color.
About 6 months later I was driving and stopped at a drive up ATM at a different branch of the same bank (in the same suburb). When I pulled up the machine was being serviced and I recognized the guard from my earlier encounter. I put the car in park, turned up the radio and settled in to wait. The next thing I know the guard is standing at the front of my car, gun drawn, screaming at me (again) that I couldn’t be there and had to leave. This went on for a few minutes he eventually finished up, I got my cash and went on my way.
My thought has always been that the guard was way too high strung to be in that job but after reflecting over the years I think there is more to it. I think he was high strung but maybe it had more to do with being in an unusual situation and not knowing how to react. I did nothing out of the ordinary but it was unusual for him and his reaction was to protect himself. Could this have gone differently if I was a POC? Potentially but we will never know. What I do know is this guard’s response had nothing to do with race but was due to fear (or something similar).
Many of these stories are attributed to racist motivations but we don’t know how an individual would react if the story involved someone of a different race. We can assume the neighbor wouldn’t call the police if white women were loading the car but no one (possibly even the caller) knows for sure. What I do know is that when I was staring down the barrel of a gun (twice) it had nothing to do with race but were I a POC the story would have been told to an audience broader than my circle of friends and family (a story like this in my suburb would have sold papers) and race would have been a big component with no idea if the guard was racist.