Recently, I had the opportunity to watch the movie,The Hate U Give, based on a book by Angelia Thomas. It a story about a sixteen-year old African American girl named Star who proverbially lives in two different worlds: one is comprised of the community in which she lives in and the other is the community where she receives an education. Star lives in a depressed, mainly African American, inner city neighborhood but attends a private school in a more affluent Caucasian community. Her parents, understanding the world they lived in, taught their children the reality of being black in a white world. Star and her brothers were taught to put their hands on the dashboard if they are pulled over by the police and to make no sudden moves. However, one evening, during a routine traffic stop in her neighborhood, Star witnesses the police involved shooting death of her unarmed childhood friend. In stead of keeping his hands on the car, he reached in for a hair brush and was shot. The white society views the shooting as justified because the black man must have been a thug and drug dealer. The black community, however, did not understand how a police officer would confuse a hair brush for a gun. This was Star’s second friend that she saw murdered but, like other members of the community, she kept quite not wanting the consequences brought by snitching. Now she stands in the crossroads of keeping quite or saying something. Does she stand up for her friend when the law supports the police officer or does she say nothing and let the status quo continue?
One line from the movie was, “We can never be unarmed if the police see our skin color as our weapon. How many more of us have to die before we stand up and say something”. The book’s author, references Tupac’s quote of ,“the hate you give little infants f…s everyone” which means that the fear and hate we teach our children in their youth will hurt them in their adulthood and it doesn’t matter the color of our children’s skin. Hate works on all sides. Some say that we live in a colorblind society but that is not the case. We see color and we should. Another quote from the movie?, “If you do not see my color, you do not see me.” How does the color we see frame our definition of good and bad?
Racism has existed in this Country so long that it is now the status quo. It is part of our mores, norms, and ethics as designed by our social structure. This structural or systemic racism is invisible to people with white privilege because their lives have not been impeded by it. This is why it is easy for people to poo-poo the idea that the US has a racial problem and to think it is a historical issue that doesn’t apply today.
DEFINITION: The phrase “white privilege” is a stumbling block. The Dictionary defines the word privilege to mean an advantage, opportunity, or immunity assessed to an individual or group of people. It does not imply wealth or economic status. Regards of your social position, the color of skin either is a privilege or a disadvantage. The white race is the dominate race. Laws have been written and enforced by white men before we were a Country. White people had the legal ability to own land, travel without fear, had educational opportunities, and more job openings that people of other races. This is the privilege referenced here and it exists today. If you do not recognize white privilege, you have it.
What do parents tell their children about how to behave during a routine traffic stop? I told my son to make sure that he is polite and ensures that he has his license, registration, and insurance card with him at all times. He doesn’t want to have a ticket for missing those documents. I am not worried about him being mistaken for a criminal. I do not fear murder by police when it comes to my son. However, this is not true for many African American parents who teach their children how to stay alive not because they live in a war zone like Afghanistan nor because they are a third world country with the lack of clean drinking water. It is because they are dark skinned and live in the US. They have to teach their children that they will be feared and not trusted by people that are meant to protect them. Therefore, they need to keep their hands in plain sight, don’t ask questions, and don’t make eye contact.
Would you tell your children to surrender their constitutional rights so they will not be killed? The Fourth Amendment to the constitution prohibits unjustified search and seizures. Probable cause must be attested before a judge who is responsible for granting search warrants stating the person and place to be search as well as the intended find. However, the police practice of random search and seizure violates this amendment and the rights granted to all citizens under it. I have a teenage grandson that was searched by police along with his friends on an inner city basketball court an afternoon after school. The police officers asked them to put their hands against the wall and surrender to the search. When I was upset at this occurrence, my grandson told me it happens all the time. It is the reason he prefers to play basket ball in my neighborhood rather than his.
Have you ever been followed in a store to make sure you are not shoplifting? While there are stores that have this as their policy, I do not frequent those establishments. However, it really becomes standard practice to follow African Americans. I encountered that once when I was with my daughter from another mother. I was insulted by this behavior. I commented to my daughter that if the store wants my money, I demand to be treated with respect. She told me that she was used it. I wasn’t used to it and did not want to gain that adjustment. This is the hate that we teach our youngsters. If someone lives all of their life in an environment where they are suspect, why are people surprised when they live up to expectations?
I was not familiar with Baltimore when I first started working in the City. I was one of those people that simply did not get off the beaten path because the City had a bad reputation in the news of shootings, gang violence, murder, and robbery. I simply chose to sit in traffic rather than explore the road less traveled by. A friend of mine, who later became my husband, decided to introduce me to the City that he grew up in. He is not a fast driver on most occasions but even slower when he wants to point specific place to me. We were driving around West Baltimore’s Penn North, Franklin Square, and Franklin Town Road neighborhoods. I guess having a African American driver and a Caucasian passenger driving slowly through the streets of West Baltimore drew the attention of the Narcotic police squad. Suddenly, a clown car pulled in front of us, stopping our forward movement. A clown car is a small car with six or seven plain clothed police falling out of it intent to make a drug arrest. I was surprised at this event to say the least. My husband said, “look forward and don’t make eye contact”. Of course, my white suburban upbringing precluded this from happening. I asked, “what is the problem officer?” I am not going to tell you exactly what they said because it is not something that I want to write here. What came out of their mouths was insulting, degrading, and humiliating. I was so angry that I really wanted to give them a piece of my law abiding mind. I had every right to be were I was with whom I was. How dare they. Even 15 years later, it still bugs me. Yet they had the right to say what they said the way they said it because my husband knew what would happen if we reacted to it. He told me that is what life is like within his skin. Well, talk about the hate we give.
I ask only one thing of you now. Ask you to reflect on what I wrote here. When you drive down 95 and see two black men in handcuffs with three police cars on the side of the road, do you say, “ah another drug bust” or do you say “could this be another example of racial profiling? Not every person that you see on the side of the road is guilty of anything more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Try not to assume the worse. Try not to give hate but understanding instead.
#AngeliaThomas #blacklivesmatter #hateugive
There is a problem yes. But why do these police see blacks as a threat? It is a conditioned response. They have become accustomed to what to expect from blacks through experience. When bad black behavior is more often encountered to a much higher degree than police have experienced in other races, it is only natural that police will approach blacks with a differently cautious or even fearful attitude especially in inner city communities. If blacks want to be treated equally they should behave equally to other races. I say this not to imply all blacks are a problem, only to say that it is impossible for police to know who to beware when there is such a bad reputation which has been built up and blacks are to blame.
It is a conditioned response, yes, but not from the conditions you mention. Society has painted a picture of African Americans as bad. The face we tend to see in the media is a dark male face with a hoody, pants down around their butts, and a gun in their hand. It is depicted this way on all the cop shows on TV. A stereotype that we have become accustomed to. When we here of a shooting, a robbery, a rape, etc. we tend to imagine the perp to be a black man. When we walk down a quiet street, we may be tempted to change the side of the road we are on if a black man is approaching us. We can say it is because so many black men commit crimes but that is not the case. White people are afraid to walk in certain areas of Baltimore. Why? Because it is a black neighborhood and we imagine that we are not safe. We paint a color on crime and that picture is what causes police to shoot first and ask questions later. It is what got Trayvon Martin killed.