Why “Don’t Resist” Advice is Not the Solution

Sitting on an airplane, the man in front of me was watching 12 Years a Slave.  I glanced up.  Two men were just hung.  A third was passing and was kicked by a white man to move along.  The hung – as being hung - looked at him, at the man passing, with what in their eyes?  Not pleading.  I don’t know.  He looked back knowing it was their last look, and they were hung.  Bodies twitching violently in the air, high above the crunchy brown leaves and the stained hats of the stained white men.

This is why “don’t resist” is not an acceptable answer to the pervasive police brutality against black men in this country.  For over 200 years, we have told black men they have no dignity.  We have emasculated them with commandments that they obey our orders and our force or die.  To tell them the solution to not dying is to just obey is not ok.

“Obey, and fight it later in court,” and this, somehow, is supposed to be “justice.”  Without even getting into the skewedness of that system, even if they “win” by not having charges filed or by getting a case dismissed on a 4th amendment violation, their dignity has still been taken.  There is no justice for that; there’s no getting that back.  The closest they can get is a civil judgment or settlement against an officer or a department by their family after they’re dead – or maybe, in extremely rare cases (Walter Scott), a murder charge against the officer.

The solution is not “don’t resist.”  The solution is showing respect and acknowledging dignity.  It is officers treating human beings as fellow men – not “others,” not “criminals,” not “thugs,” not “pests,” or “suspects” or “perpetrators.”

A lady who had testified during the Congressional Briefing on The Justice Package said on the news, “it’s the system, not the officers.”  Well you know what? The officers are the system.  And until they can treat other humans – black humans, black male humans – with respect, the system will not change.

“Do not resist” is not the answer.  It only addresses the symptom of “death in police custody.”  It does not address the problem, the raping of black men’s dignity, the continued degradation and emasculation of the American black male. 

The Privilege to Choose

The thoughts for this blog post have been in my head for awhile, but I haven’t been able to formulate things into words.  I’m just going to sit down and write and hope I can express this somewhat intelligibly, because it’s a very important topic.

My last couple serious relationships were with black men.  I’m not saying that for some sort of “see, I’m not racist” point.  In fact, what I’m about to say is more likely to prove I am.

My last serious relationship was with a black man in America.  At some point in the relationship, as a woman is apt to do, I started thinking about what it would be like to have children with this man.  What they might look like, how they might act, what kind of mother I’d be, what kind of father he’d be.  I found myself wondering if I could really keep going with this relationship.  I legitimately questioned whether I could stay in a long-term relationship with a man because he was black. 

You see, if I were to have children with a black man, I would have black children.  Could I handle that?  Could I handle everything that meant?

There was the easy stuff.  If I had a daughter, she wouldn’t look like a little me.  I wouldn’t know how to do her hair. Etc.  But if I had a son,  could I handle it?  My son would be light skinned, half-white, but to society, he would be black.  He would be a black man.

Black men wind up in jail.  They wind up on church fans and screen-printed T’s.  They wind up in chalk lines on the news.  Black men wind up as hashtags.

Statistically, my son would be 3x less likely to graduate from high school.  My son would be nearly 10x more likely to go to jail.  My son would have a shorter life expectancy.  My son would be more likely to be in a gang, more likely to die in a violent crime, more likely to be harassed, targeted or killed by the police.

Yes, the odds on some of these things can be changed based on location, schooling, parenting, etc.  But nothing, nothing, can completely erase all the extra risk that comes with being a black man in America.  Names like Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Oscar Grant are still fresh in our minds.  Take also Caleb Gordley, a black male teenager, with a white father, who lived in a wealthy neighborhood and attended good schools, who was shot and killed by a neighbor when he accidentally entered the wrong house in the middle of the night.  There’s how many hundreds more stories.  We know it.  We hear them.

As a mother, I’d be carrying all this.  I’d be the one sitting up late at night worrying the worst had happened when he wasn’t home on time.  I’d be the one teaching him to keep his hands on the steering wheel until the officer was next to his window and talking to him – something I learned from a black boyfriend and never would have thought of on my own.  I’d be the one letting the police know he would be walking around his own neighborhood.  I’d be the one scared and panicked and helpless.  Could I handle that, could I handle being the mother of a black man?  Did I want to take all that on?

In the end, I decided yes.  I cared about the man I was with and if we would be together long term, I’d want a family, no matter what our children looked like.  The simple fact that I could make that decision, that I had a choice, that I could walk away from the risk and pain, exemplifies what it means to be white in this country.  No other race can do that.  A black woman can have a child with a white man, that child will be black.  A Latina woman can have a child with a white man, that child will be Latino.

As a white woman, I can choose the color of my biological children.  Let that sink in for a moment.  I. have the ability. to choose my child’s race.  That, my friends, is just one example of white privilege.

Stop the World! Someone’s crossing the street

There’s this thing Californians do – well at least Bay Area Californians – that absolutely drives me nuts.  They love their pedestrians and are all about letting them cross the street safely.  I’m all about pedestrians safely crossing streets, too.  But, I’m also about sense and logic and efficiency.  Californians are not about any of those things.

Pedestrian’s standing at corner of intersection, waiting to cross street.  All good.  See the little diagram below.  Person is waiting to cross from the north east corner to the north west corner.  North-south traffic has the right away.  East-west traffic has stop signs (yes, I know they don’t have enough sides. Paint doesn’t have an octagon tool.)  Although honestly, the scenario I’m about to show you would also happen if it were a four-way stop.

Traffic comes along on the roads.  Say someone comes along going west.  They stop at the stop sign and wait a bit because there’s a car coming north on the cross street.

Now, 1 time out of ten, that green, north-bound car is going to keep going, and after it passes, the pedestrian and the blue, west-bound car will cross the main street.  The other 9 times, here’s what’s going to happen.  That green car’s driver is going to see that there’s a pedestrian waiting to cross the street.  So the green car is going to stop for the pedestrian.  Is the green car going to pull up to the intersection and stop, which allows the pedestrian and the blue car to cross?  No.  The green car is going to do this.

The green car is going to pull into the intersection and then stop.  And sit in the middle of the intersection until the pedestrian has fully crossed the street.  Meanwhile, more cars come along….

And the streets are needlessly jammed because there’s a car just sitting in the middle of the intersection.

As a pedestrian, this drives me nuts because it often appears the car isn’t going to stop until it’s right in front of the cross walk.  If it had started slowing down sooner, I could have been half-way across the street before it got to the crosswalk.  Plus, now if I cross, I hold up the whole intersection.

As a driver, this drives me crazy because you’re zipping along at 30 and the car in front of you fairly suddenly stops in an unexpected place and you can’t see why because they’re so close to the crosswalk they’re blocking the pedestrian from view.  I’ve heard stories about people getting rear-ended in exactly this way, yet stopping in the middle of intersections is still very common.

I asked a local police officer about this once, at their annual fundraising dinner.  His response was along the lines of, “well if I saw a pretty girl waiting to cross the street, I’d try to get as close as I could to get a good view, too.”   Not only was it inappropriate, it was also entirely unhelpful.

An Injustice for an Injustice?

Some of you may remember a video and a post from shortly after New Year’s 2009.  The murder of Oscar Grant.

Except technically, I’m wrong for calling it ‘murder’.  The jury on the trial of that officer in the video that you see shooting Oscar Grant in the back while Oscar Grant is lying face down on the platform and then, after Oscar Grant is bleeding to death, puting handcuffs on the dying man – the jury in that officer’s trial came back with a verdict yesterday.  A verdict of involuntary manslaughter. 

Those twelve people decided that not only was this not murder, the officer did not intend to hurt Oscar Grant.  Somebody, please watch that video and tell me if you believe the officer didn’t intend to hurt Oscar Grant.   But then a video didn’t matter in the Rodney King trial either. 

Anyway, I could go on about how ridiculous I find that verdict, and why, but I won’t.  I’m not the only one that was angered by this.  Lots of people were, and they took to the streets in Oakland last night to protest.  There’s a beautiful set of pictures of the event on Thomas Hawk’s Flickr Stream. 

It paints a fitting portrait of the police in light of what happened to Oscar Grant.  The police from all over the area converge on downtown Oakland for the “Oakland Riots.”  The Oakland Riots, considered riots because they were named such by the media before the trial even ended, named in expectation.

You can see the clearly angry and upset, but restrained, crowds with their signs, making their speeches, demanding the justice they didn’t get.  You can also see the police, in full riot gear, looking like something out of a 1960s picture of the South, utterly stupid in their mis-match of armor.  Assault rifles in hand, assault rifles against cardboard protest signs.

And then, there’s these guys:

who decided that the injustice of the verdict was a permission slip to steal sneakers.  And this is what really pisses me off.  (There are several other pictures of the Foot Locker looting on the Flickr Stream.)

One, how does a bad jury verdict in a murder trial justify stealing shoes?  Ok, maybe in the OJ trial if you were stealing some OJ shoes or something so he didn’t get the royalties.  But stealing shoes because a BART officer got off easy?  They’re not BART shoes; there’s no little  logo on the side; they don’t get you on the train for free.  How about just jumping the toll gate at BART instead?

Two, why are you busting stuff in your own neighborhood?  It’s your neighborhood!  You’re mad?  Justice wasn’t done?  You wanna break something?  At least go break the officer’s windows so your angry, aggressive, illegal behavior makes some bit of sense!

The protesters were of all ages and races, all styles of dress, from suits and ties to hippie gear.  The looters, at least in the pictures, almost completely 20-30 year old black men in ghetto-styled clothes.  This is not a good look for the black community!  (and I’m not talking about the clothes; those look fine.)  I’m not going to begin to discuss the amount of stereotypes this perpetuates; I get to sad.

This looting of the Foot Locker, this alone almost* justifies the presence of the full-riot gear police in Oakland.  And to some people, as sad as this is, it may even help justify what that officer did to Oscar Grant.  The black community deserves better than that.  Oakland deserves better than that.  Oscar Grant deserves better than that.

 

 

 

[All photos, except the BART logo, by Thomas Hawk, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license and available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/sets/72157624455565162/detail/]

 

*Thomas Hawk gives a good 1st person account of the event, which includes descriptions of when the crowds did turn violent later in the evening and broke windows on other area businesses.  Although I still don’t think assault rifles are ever appropriate against unarmed people, Hawk’s account does show that some riot protection and the heavy police presence were eventually necessary.

Heading Home from Spring Break: a Few Loose Ends

There's a few little stories I forgot to include throughout the week (and enough events at the airport so far to write a novel).

Earring

Wednesday evening, I realized I lost an earring.  Sadly, it was one of my favorite dressed-up-nice-fairly-conservative-but-not-boring earrings.  Silver double teardrop dangles from an old friend.  Yesterday, Mr. Trizzle's putting stuff in the backseat of his car and says, "I found your earring!"  He pulls this gigantic silver hoop of the floor.  I started laughing, "that's not my earring."

Po-po

Mr. Trizzle spent a great part of the week trying to convince me to like the police.  Then, on Wednesday, an investigator came into the DA's office.  He used to be a beat cop in Oakland.  After listening to him for over half  on hour during lunch, he completely undid any progress Mr. Trizzle might have made.  In fact, he probably increased my agreement with NWA's sentiment.

I have yet to meet an honest, decent, or trustworthy officer.  You can keep trying, but you have a large mountain to climb.

The Airport

Mr. Trizzle dropped me off at BART.  The train I needed was on the platform.  The Air BART bus was waiting at the Colosseum BART station.  There was no line for check-in and only four people in front of me at security.  I was through everything in no-time.  And then things started to go downhill...

I accidentally left my boarding pass in the restroom.  Luckily, I realized it pretty quickly and went back for it.  I decided to get a green tea frappe from Starbucks to help me have energy to work on my computer during the flight.  Got my drink, got to the gate, spilled half the drink on the floor.  Splendid.  Got set-up, everything was fine, airport guy called clean-up.  Then, some lady decided to try to roll her suitcase over my power cord.  Rolled the cord (and power pack) right into the green tea/whipped cream pile, turned around, and left.  Thanks, now I have a sticky, soupy cord mess to clean-up.  Got it cleaned-up.  So far, no new issues.

While waiting for my flight, the gate loads a flight to Denver, with continuing service to Nashville.  I'm waiting for a flight to LAX to switch planes to Nashville (after an 1hr and 1/2 lay-over).  Funny how that works.

The clean-up lady just came - no more giant green and white slosh puddle.

Why Haven't I Seen This on the National News Yet?

Ok, the fact that I don't watch the national news, or any news for that matter, may be one reason.  But it still seems like this is not getting enough coverage.

BART police officer shoots a man dead in Oakland, on the BART platform, in front of a BART train full of people returning from New Year's Eve festivities in the City.  Riots in Oakland last night.  Most of the people at school hadn't heard a thing about it.  My classmates from The Town were doing a good job of remedying that.  Here's the news story.

WARNING:  What you will see here is extremely disturbing.

Why Yes Officer, I Always Carry a Key of Coke with Me

Just outside Salt Lake City, late afternoon. Those ominous flashing lights. I hate being pulled over. "Ma'am, the speed limit is 65; you were going 71." Yes officer, and the speed limit was 75 right before where you were sitting, cars don't drop 10 miles an hour instantly. Who gets pulled over for going six over the speed limit anyway?! I'd bet my tuition that if anyone reading this hasn't gone 6 over, they don't drive.

Luckily, I had seen instructions on how to act with police. Be polite, answer "small talk" questions while he runs all the info. He went to his car to check on what he ran and then returned empty handed to my window.

I don't know if it was my car (I drive a 95 Buick), my hair and stunna shades (also had on my bandanna so I basically looked like I did when leaving Texas), or the fact that I was coming from the Yay, but the officer had some pretty strange questions....

"Do you normally carry large amount of cash?" - good thing I wasn't able to get any naira in San Francisco, Oh not normally, I just happen to have several thousand dollars in foreign currency in a bag. "No."

"Do you have any marijuana in the car?" And of course, since I said no to that, the next logical question is, "how about cocaine?"

That's when I just started laughing at him. He paused as if waiting for me to invite him to search my car. No thanks. He seemed quasi-satisfied, went to his car, took the papers off his dashboard and came right back with them. (i.e. everything was finished being run before, he had only come back to ask about the drugs.) He gave me a nice warning for "speeding" and handed back all my documents. Then he started a new exchange.

"Would you mind popping the trunk for me?" My trunk doesn't pop. "Do you have a reason you want to look in my trunk?"

"I'm asking." I did not appreciate this further intrusion but also knew I had nothing he wanted. I made clear I knew I didn't have to let him see the trunk, but would do so only because there was nothing in it (for him - it was packed chock full of boxes, bags and hangers).

He opened the trunk briefly, returned the keys and sent me on my way. I spent the next 15 minutes before finding a gas station worrying that he planted something in the trukn for the next Utah cop to pull me over and find. He didn't, at least nothing I found yet. My friend who will soon be a (fabulous) DA said I handled everything right. That's good.

I've been pulled over before, though it has been years. No one has ever asked for my registration or insurance. He did. No one has ever asked if I had drugs in my car. And certainly, no one has ever asked to look in the trunk. What's up Utah?

Wyoming also proved to be an adventure. I stopped in Rowling about 9:30 local time. Having been on the road since 5:30 in the morning, I just wanted some good sleep. Tuesday night, middle of Wyoming, all the hotels in the city were full. (Yet, somehow they still had lots of empty parking spaces out front. Guess I'm used to Bay Area parking now.) Frustrated, tired and sad, I drove on - next town: Laramie 100 miles.

About 50 miles down the highway, I saw a sign, "Lodging Elk Mtn. Lodge." Splendid! I took the exit and followed the road 3 miles to Elk Mountain: Population 129. I am not even kidding. I found the library, the town hall, the fire station and the church. They were all next to and across from each other on the town's one street. I did not see the Elk Mtn. Lodge. Back to the freeway....

Follow my travels here throughout the next week: