It can be telling being a black man living in a very white environment. Inasmuch as you share all the physical characteristics of those many in your community fear, you are known. They know you. The familiarity makes you forget who you are within the general scope of the immediate society. The familiarity lowers barriers because familiarity allows one to go beyond racial and socio-economic realities. Familiarity can make us one, absent the cancer bred by the externalities of our national reality.
Ultimately, the real world is more than the cocoon that one may live in, the discrete times of fallen barriers and true understanding. Ultimately, an ill society can still suffer contagion.
A dear friend’s son told a story as we celebrated her birthday this week. Her kids and my kid, all black, grew up in the white Kingwood, Texas, bubble, and they are all 20-something adults now. My friend’s son was riding in the back seat of a car with two of his white friends. Unbeknownst to his friends, the registration on the windshield had expired. The police pulled them over. What really made her son upset is that even as he remained completely respectful, the police began questioning him in a condescending and rude manner. He was asked to show his ID and interrogated for no reason at all. His friends were treated with respect and kindness. The police then left ,without any tickets given.
Through my eyes it was obvious why they were pulled over. What do you see through your eyes? What do you see through my eyes? Follow below the fold for more.
When Trayvon Martin was murdered by vigilante George Zimmerman, I wrote an article titled "I was Trayvon Martin the day I came to America," in which I said:
I remember being stopped many times by the police. It's not that I was a bad driver. Most of the stops seemed to have only to do with a desire to question me. It was never confrontational. I did as I was told. You see, where I am from, Panama, a dispute with an officer guarantees a cracked skull with no legal recourse, so the cops in Austin likely thought I was a model citizen. From a young age, I always knew when and where to engage. I adapted.
I was running a bit late to KPFT 90.1, a Pacifica radio station where I do several radio shows a few days ago. The flashing lights behind me led to that sinking feeling. The stop was for an illegal lane shift. The fear for a simple traffic stop was palpable. Ultimately, the encounter with the police officer was surprisingly pleasant—so much so that I
blogged about it when I got home at midnight. A day later, I got an email from the Houston Police Department, informing me that the officer received a commendation that was placed in his file because of my blog post about the encounter. Through the eyes of many, there was nothing special about the traffic stop.
Through the eyes of black men like me, it was a big deal.
This week, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder released the Justice Department’s report on the Ferguson police. It found no irrefutable evidence that a prosecutor could use to charge the police officer, Darren Wilson, who killed Michael Brown. The second report, however, was an excoriation of the Ferguson Police Department, and it documented the inhumanity many went through, not only at the hands of police officers, but at the hands of a justice system that economically harmed an entire people. Their actions caused people to lose not only jobs and money, but their sense of pride.
Ed Schultz interviewed Ferguson activist T-Dubb-O on Thursday (I interviewed him on my show, Politics Done Right ,while he was at the White House after meeting President Obama). When asked about the "shocking’"report, T-Dubb-O could be paraphrased as saying, "You are now seeing my world through my eyes."
The report is not a surprise to any black or brown person. It does, however, give activists like T-Dubb-O a sanctioned document to corroborate the tenets of their activism. Ultimately, T-Dubb-O sees the bigger picture: "We have to save our own community," T-Dubb-O said. "For so long we fought to be in a house that doesn't want us there, into a system that is designed to keep us in this position. And that’s the reason we are in this position now. … What we are doing here in St. Louis is, we are working on programmatic responses." He went on to enumerate the community base tech programs, reading programs, and other empowerment programs created by the grassroots.
Nikole Hannaj-Jones wrote a prescient article in Politico Magazine titled "A Letter From Black America" that is worth a read. She recounts a story in which someone shot into a crowd while she and family members, friends, and an intern staying with her were strolling down the beach on Long Island. After they ran far away from the shots, the intern was on the phone. They were disgusted, thinking she was talking to her mother. But she wasn’t. She was talking to the police. The take of these four professionals were probative:
My friends and I locked eyes in stunned silence. Between the four adults, we hold six degrees. Three of us are journalists. And not one of us had thought to call the police. We had not even considered it.
We also are all black. And without realizing it, in that moment, each of us had made a set of calculations, an instantaneous weighing of the pros and cons.
As far as we could tell, no one had been hurt. The shooter was long gone, and we had seen the back of him for only a second or two. On the other hand, calling the police posed considerable risks. It carried the very real possibility of inviting disrespect, even physical harm. We had seen witnesses treated like suspects, and knew how quickly black people calling the police for help could wind up cuffed in the back of a squad car. Some of us knew of black professionals who'd had guns drawn on them for no reason.
Whether it is through T-Dubb-O’s eyes, the son of my friend’s eyes, Nikole Hannaj-Jones and her friends' and family’s eyes, or my eyes, those who do not live the reality of a real fear of police interaction should pause. They should aspire for an empathy that allows them to see the world through the eyes of others. Then, and only then, will we see the
same dress with the correct colors. Then, and only then, will we really change our country and the world.