As I post various thoughts over the last several years I’ve come to a couple of understandings. One of the most prominent is the fact that there is a huge disparity between what African Americans and Whites think of the legal system. While both respect the police, there is also an obvious distrust of them among Blacks. And few Whites truly understand the reason why, in my experience.
Don’t get me wrong. I think the police are in general good people, doing a difficult job, with the best intentions. But as the quote goes
The path to hell is pave with good intentions.
I say that because I’ve lived through too many situations were officers have approached me, with little or no cause, with guns drawn. I have watched as officers have allowed crack houses to exist without interruption. I have seen the use of violence in response to legitimate questions of what officers are doing. And I am not nearly alone in this.
But perhaps the difference in how officers react when they are not dealing with a White person is the experience that Mr. Solomon Moore recently had. His article was reported in the New York Times on Sep 30, 2007. The experience came to him in a small town Salisbury, N.C.
Mr. Moore is a reporter for the NY Times, 37, drives a Volvo station wagon, and has 2 children in soccer leagues. Perhaps the one element that makes Mr. Moore appear like a gang member is the fact that he is Black. That is, looking like a gang member to police officers. The actual gang members thought he was a cop.
What happened is directly connected to the fact that a gang member might wear a T-shirt and jeans, but it is just as likely a Black guy in a shirt that is blue, is not because he’s a member of the Crips, but because he’s a Dodgers fan.
Mr. Moore was investigating anti-gang measures being taken in the nation. As a reporter he went to speak with actual gang members in North Carolina since it had instituted strong anti-gang laws. He met the gang members at night, when they are out in the open, and where they were actively selling drugs. He observed the drug sales prior to speaking with them. It was that obvious.
The next thing that happens is not what you might expect. The police arrived as this reporter was trying to convince the youths he was not a cop. In his own words
“Without so much as a question, the officer shoved my face down on the sheet metal and cuffed me so tightly that my fingertips tingled.
“They’re on too tight!” I protested.
“They’re not meant for comfort,” he replied.“
This minor experience is nothing new. I’ve had similar experiences as have my brother, friends, and often most African Americans I’ve spoken to since I was a teenager. But when I speak to my White friends, regardless of age, they stand amazed. Even worse are the one or 2 times that I was treated in a similar manner in front of my White friends, because I was deemed a threat to them by police officers of their own volition. They were stupefied to imagine that people can be treated in such a manner. And I honestly was annoyed at their naïveté.
Of course cases like Rodney King, or Amidou Diallo, or Sean Bell garner some news. But many feel those are extreme situations. Unique things that sometimes happen in big cities. Mr. Moore, who was released without an apology or explanation, was in a town of 30,000. No one was arrested. The police just went away. And the gang members stated
“Man, you know what would have happened to one of us if we talked to them that way?” said one disbelieving man as he walked away from me and my blank notebook. “We’d be in jail right now.”
We need to realize that this is not unique. It happens often, daily. It happens in big communities and small ones. It happens near your front door as much as it happens in Los Angeles and Chicago. And it adds to the problem, not resolves it.
As long as the following kind of conversation can occur there will be inequality in America.
“This is America,” I said angrily, in that moment supremely unconcerned about whether this was standard police procedure or a useful law enforcement tool or whatever anybody else wanted to call it. “I have a right to talk to anyone I like, wherever I like.”
The female officer trumped my naïve soliloquy, though: “Sir, this is the South. We have different laws down here.”
That benefits no one. But now that you know, what will you do?
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