Around my junior year in high school, our teacher/sponsor organized a trip to an FHA (Future Homemakers of America) conference in Louisville, Kentucky. This was a big deal and probably a first for all of us to visit a big city.
During our evening free time, a group of about six of us (all white, a mixture of guys and girls) left the hotel to walk around the downtown area and experience the city. As we walked, we began seeing bars on the windows. Not long after, a police car pulled up beside us and a white officer urgently told us, “You need to get out of here now! I’m serious as a heart attack!” Though we wanted to act bold, we knew he was protecting us and we quickly turned and walked in the other direction to get back to the hotel (and safety) as quickly as possible.
Fast forward about 10 years. As an adult, I moved into a neighborhood near Fair Park in Dallas, a neighborhood known for being predominantly African-American. A new Bank of America had gone up in Fair Park so I was excited to have one near me. (Financial institutions are unusual in African-American neighborhoods, but that's for another post).
I needed to get some cash so I had driven over to the bank one night around 9:00. I waited in the car until the African-American couple finished with their transaction and were walking off. I then walked up to the ATM. While standing there, a white police officer got out of his car and walked up to me. I was a little uncomfortable with him in my space, but he was an officer so I acknowledged him.
He asked me if I knew where I was. "Yes," I replied. He repeated his question with more insistence. "Yes," I replied. "I live here." Looking as if he questioned my ability to know where I was, he continued, "This is a bad part of town and you don't need to be here," he explained. "Where do you live?" he questioned. A little taken aback because I didn't feel like a stranger needed to know where I lived, I told him the street I lived on. He kinda shrugged (because my street truly was on the other side of Fair Park), cautioned me, and walked back to his police car.
From both of those incidents, I realized that the officers were being protective of me. That's what police do.
But what I realized after the second incident is that the officer approached ME. He didn't approach the African-American couple that was at the ATM before me. He didn't approach the people going in and out of the grocery store a few yards away. He approached ME. He wanted to make sure *I* was safe.
What I learned as a child and teenager is that the police are my friend, that they have my best interest at heart, and that I can trust them. What I have learned as an adult is that police protect people *from* the people in communities like the one where I now live, but are not necessarily there to protect the people who live *in* communities like mine.
Police protect the people they feel deserve to be protected. I am a "deserving" one. Apparently, the other people walking around the evening I went to the bank were not as deserving.
What is the difference? The only thing I could see is skin color. I'm guessing that's what the police officer saw as well.
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