Not the employee’s job to do that, mathmom. Not in the job description to rouse sleeping bodies of any type. The closest employee with that duty on a campus would be the police, or maybe a nurse for a patient in the health center. The cafeteria employee isn’t paid to do that.
I really hope the cafeteria employees are unionized at Smith.
“It’s that simple.” No it’s not.
One thing that still bothers me: The student immediately going to social media to discuss “The racist punk who called the police on me.” Was she not making assumptions as well? I doubt she’s the only minority on campus. She has no idea of the race of the caller yet she made an assumption without meeting the caller. I don’t get it.
Let’s assume the worker is a she. And she was uncomfortable waking and informing the unknown man that they where alone in an empty building. First of all I would say thank God you had the presence of mind to call campus police instead of getting directly involved.
And isn’t it great that it only tuned out to be a person sleeping.
@choguy1 So, you try to refute my stance by doing the exact thing you accuse me of doing? You’re right, you don’t have any experience, so you ask your Black friend , and because he disagrees you think he is right??? You can miss me with that anecdote.
Many of the folk chiming in on this thread and board for that matter have no clue what we have to deal with. I’m quite certain you don’t consume Black media so you have no clue how often we hear these stories that don’t make it to the mainstream media. So if the girl says she was traumatized, I can believe it. Heck, Many Times we hate it when a cop is even driving behind us let alone approaching us.
I’ve worked a few jobs dealing with the general public—hotels, restaurants, even a college cafeteria.
I can’t imagine calling the police every time I saw someone and wasn’t 100% sure who they were and what they were doing. Not without first attempting to,you know, ask them what was up.
I get nervous when a cop is driving behind Me too. I think that is a universal reaction, regardless of race. But I recognize that the cops are there for a purpose, and in sum I would rather have them patrolling the streets than not doing so, even if I get pulled over from time to time. Just like I would rather have the police check an unconscious body(even if it is my kids) and determine everything is fine, than not to do so. Sometimes, not everything is fine. Better safe than sorry.
You know, in general, I live my life expecting that people are by and large good and that if you treat them well, they will treat you well. I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I’ve been disappointed, but I am glad I am not rule by paranoia. The idea that someone lying on a couch is a threat is laughable to me.
And yes, if my son had not opened my eyes to how ubiquitous this kind of racism is, maybe I’d be arguing the other side. But he discovered that sitting on a park bench, sitting on the curb in front of your friend’s house, walking to the movies were all considered suspicious activities if your friends were the wrong color. Over and over and over again.
Similarly, mathmom, the idea that someone having a very brief and polite interaction with a police officer is genuinely traumatized is unfathomable to me. Yes, too many unwarranted incidents occur, and yes, they should end. But the odds of anyone of any race being killed by a police officer remain extremely small, so best not to be paranoid about that either.
The Washington Post maintains a helpful interactive database of police shootings, which can be sorted by a variety of demographics. In 2018, thus far, 5 black women have been killed by police. The individual circumstances of the cases are available on the website as well.
Since someone will inevitably ask, the Post database says 13 white women were killed by police thus far this year.
Is that for DC or the entire US?
Here’s the thing. I would not be traumatized because I’ve only had two encounters with the police. Once for turning into a one-way street accidentally, once for turning left on red. Both times they ran my license and then just told me to be more careful in the future. No one follows me around stores because they think I might be shoplifting. No one tells me that I can’t sit on a park bench after dusk when the park is officially closed. No one calls me names on the street. No one complains about my accent. My life is pretty stress free comparatively.
For the entire US, mathmom. So that should help put things in perspective a bit. I’m glad you’ve had a stress free life. Most Americans, of any color, don’t. My blonde teen daughter has been followed in stores for fear of shoplifting. I don’t always just get away with warnings from traffic cops. Your experience is not universal. And since many more white women are killed by cops than black women, maybe you should be more worried, but hopefully you recognize that both situations are extremely rare, despite media furor.
I am not understanding what the interactive database has to do with this discussion, but since it has been brought up, the database also shows that approximately 24% of all police fatalities for 2016 and 22.5% for 2017 were of African Americans when we make up 13% of the total population). Every one of those shootings may have been justifiable, but those numbers are statistically significant that African Americans go through more fatal encounters with law enforcement when compared to our portion of the population. It is hard to speculate on what caused the student to react the way that she did, but we all have experiences that shape us (some would have called the police based on their upbringing/past experiences while others would have walked up to the student and spoke). The police in this matter did a good job, but what if student has had a past experience/experiences that has shaped her? We all tend to see the world through the prism of our own life experiences.
roycroftmom, the odds may be extremely small, but they are not insignificant, particularly for a person of color. If we take at face value the idea that the person who called was genuinely concerned about her safety because of her own personal past experiences, then we have to also take at face value the idea that the police officer showing up was traumatizing. And even if not traumatizing, more than just inconvenient when seen through the lens of someone who has had such calls made before - “I’m tired of the cops being called when I participate in various activities, when white people seem to be able to do the same things without having the cops called.” Yes, you get nervous about a cop behind you, but is that because you are nervous you might have done something wrong, and will get a ticket, or is it because you know there is a possibility that any action you take will be misinterpreted, and you could end up dead? You know you didn’t do anything, but what if you look like a suspect they’re seeking? Just this morning I saw dashcam video of a “clean thoroughbred white girl” who thought that entitled her to walk away when pulled over DUI. Where do you think she got that idea?
If this employee was in fact closing the building, then addressing a person sleeping on a couch should be “part of the job.” And perhaps that plays into the reason this employee is on suspension - an inability to perform a normal job function without involving campus security. But I was never under the impression this person wasn’t closing the building - she was simply working in an office in a building she expected to be otherwise empty.
You mention 13 white women (#191) and 5 black women (#190) killed by police. That is a 2.6 ratio. However, the ratio of the white (not Hispanic or Latino) population to the black population in the US is 4.5 (5.7 if you do not exclude Hispanic or Latino white people). So the risk to black women is higher than for white women.
As you say, lethal interactions with police are relatively rare. However, the much more common non-lethal interactions with police and those initially seen as potential suspects could result in injury or other unpleasant results for those initially seen as potential suspects. Having the police called on you more frequently when you are doing nothing wrong means more chances for someone to make an error that gives you unpleasant results. Even when there is no error during the police interaction, and the police themselves have impeccable polite and professional conduct in that instance, you may be delayed and be late for work, class, job interview, airline flight, etc…
It is for a bit of perspective, changethegame. The current climate seems to dwell on the degree of risk, when it is actually quite small. And while, as you note, those killed were disproportionately African American compared to the overall demographic, they were also overwhelmingly urban dwellers, which has a different demographic mix than the US as Whole. The shootings were highly concentrated in large US cities. Seems like one is pretty safe in Alaska.
@ChangeTheGame I think your point around seeing things through our own prism is spot on. What I don’t understand is why some are saying the caller’s prism is wrong or opens him/her up to criticism or suspension or loss of employment while at the same time expecting everyone to accept that the lounging student’s prism is right and no one should question the outrage she has demonstrated.
We may not like everyone’s prism they view the world through but that is what makes this country great; the ability to have different views, opinions, etc. and the right to express them and act accordingly.
@ChangeTheGame says
“but what if student has had past an experience/experiences has shaped her?”
But what if the caller had an experience or eexperiences that shaped them.?
I have a friend whose home was broken into. The criminal thought the home was empty, but my friend happened to be there. She was beaten, raped and robbed by this person who was black. There is NO way my friend would have approached this person.
Whose experience gets to trump whose. NOBODIES, which is why a third party (security) is absolutely the best option. This situation was handled appropriately and responsibly and everyone should have just moved on.
I said it before and I’ll say it again. There is NO way this incident should have risen to the level of national news.