Dallas Ice Storm--Day 2

I haven't had to work for two days! Or maybe I should say I haven't had to go into the office for two days. Even if there were crucial things I needed to get done, at times like these I can work from home.

While having two days of ice makes me very happy, I realize it becomes a very painful and scary time for my friends and neighbors who don't have the luxury of being able to work from home. I don't mean the icy conditions become scary (although that is true as well for those who are out and about). I mean the businesses who shut down for a day or two hurt the income of our friends and neighbors who depend on hourly wage jobs. A day off for them can't be made up elsewhere. They are simply out of that day of pay.

That bothers me. Most of my friends who are working hourly wage jobs are barely making ends meet as it is. They struggle to pay their rent and put food on the table. Loss of a day...or two...of pay can be quite serious--besides the fact that many of them have kids who are at home instead of at school during this time...which means more mouths to feed with less money.

So, when I heard my neighbors spinning out in their driveway trying to leave for work, I went to see if I could help. A little preposterous, I know. Besides the fact that I'm much smaller than the two grown men who were already pushing, the ice on the pavement made it impossible to even stand up while pushing!

It was a challenge in problem solving. We tried putting cardboard under the wheels, pouring Purex on the pavement (I have no idea why...but someone had seen it work somewhere!), pushing the car sideways...but nothing worked. Instead, the car had gotten out far enough to have its tail stuck in the middle of the street. My neighbors needed to get to work. The processing plant where they work keeps going, even in ice...and I'm sure they couldn't afford to miss another day.

We were about to give up when we saw a police car headed down our street. I'm not sure what DPD's role is on a day like this, but I knew the officer so he stopped. My neighbor had gotten the car back in the drive and seemed about to give up. After a few minutes of chatting with the officer, I asked if he would mind taking my neighbors to work. Again, I'm not sure if that's even allowed. I could tell by my neighbor's hesitation that they weren't too excited about being in a police car driving through the neighborhood. It doesn't look too good in my neighborhood if you're in the back seat of a police car. But, they needed to go to work. So they agreed to the police chauffeur. I'm sure they got to know the officer on the way there. All three people are good people.

Maybe this snow/ice day was a good thing. Sometimes a situation where we have to depend on others provides an unexpected opportunity for both sides. We haven't always had the best police experiences in my neighborhood. I would guess that their ride with Officer Wright probably did more to help police/neighborhood relations than any kind of patrolling could ever do.

The complexities of moving to a post-racial society

I received a tweet from my friend, Shawn Williams at Dallas South.

This is an interesting addition to the story:

911 call about break-in at Professor Gates' home

Puts another twist on the story...and about our (society's) initial assumptions. Moving to a post-racial society is extremely complex and will be a difficult road.

Gates, Crowley, and President Obama's comment

I am not going to commit to a position on the Henry Louis Gates incident this week. My feelings on it are complicated and complex.

When I first heard about the incident, I knew it would be a big issue...at least in the [predominantly Black and Hispanic] communities and circles I'm in. As it started getting more press, I knew it would arouse irritations from the [predominantly White] communities and circles I connect with as well.

I nodded in agreement as I listened to Black friends talk about the issue. Though not to the extent they do, I have gained an understanding of the frustrations and skepticism of the police and White people who assert power.

Though I realize to many of my African-American friends (and possibly some of my White friends as well), it is absolutely ludicrous to say that a White person does not realize they are asserting their power and domineering over someone because of race. It seems ignorant that a White officer who has been commended for training people about racial profiling would then engage in a word battle and arrest someone who had obviously been racial profiled.

The issues are complex. Should the blame be placed on the neighbor who called? The police officer who arrested a man for being upset that he was being suspected of being a thief in his own home? The Black officers who stood by and watched? Should the blame be placed on Professor Gates for asserting his highly acclaimed socioeconomic status over the police officer?

But what about all of those episodes on Jay Leno where they take cameras around to show the absurdity of people standing by doing nothing while houses are robbed, people "kidnap" children, boyfriends are abusive, etc. So what is one to do?? Quite honestly, all of the lawn mowers that have been stolen from my house (about 3) have all been done in broad daylight while I was at work or on vacation. I wish someone would've seen them and done something!

So although it may not be a popular stance, I am in the middle on this.

However, I don't have a problem with what President Obama said. Nor do I have a problem with the frustrated conversations that are taking place...and here's why...

As I talked to a bi-racial friend of mine, she recounted an incident that impacts the way she sees this issue.

When she was 5 years old, a white police officer pulled her dad over. Her dad has very dark skin. She has very light skin and, as a child, had blonde, curly hair. After pulling her dad over, the officer immediately walked over to her side of the car and began talking to her (not her dad) and asking her, "Who is this man?" and challenging the assumption that it would be his daughter. She recalled the look of pain, shame, and hurt on her dad's face as he sat silent and she looked to him for answers. She recalled the anger and tension she felt from her dad as they drove off. She was five. She is forty now, yet she still remembers the incident very vividly.

My friend is usually much more conciliatory than I am. I can't imagine anyone ever saying she is an angry Black woman or a woman with a chip on her shoulder. However, the Gates/Crowley incident brought up very vivid memories for her. What she experienced as a five-year old child shaped her. I cannot expect that to go away. And when it happens, even though we (White people) may think it was an innocent mistake, it doesn't feel so innocent when on the receiving end.

I think the conversations need to continue. We need to talk about and listen to each other. I hope Profeesor Gates, Officer Crowley, and President Obama follow through and actually have that beer together in the White House. President Obama could potentially facilitate and encourage open race relations dialogue that would help us move forward.

Having those conversations...listening to each other...putting ourselves in someone else's shoes...thinking about perspectives from a several different viewpoints... I believe, could begin to change the way we view and make decisions about our nation and our world.

Fearing the police: Which one will protect you?

Why is there so much hostility and resentment to police in the inner city and from the Black and Hispanic community?

Here is a new cell phone video that has just been released on the Oscar Grant case showing a different police officer punching him in the face before the other officer shot him in the back and killed him:



I don't know what happened to cause the police to get involved. I assume the guys might have been causing some trouble. However, I also know that police are not trained to deal with situations by punching people in the face or by shooting them in the back.

I know before I moved in to the inner city I trusted the police a whole lot more than I do now. Even though my skin is white, just by virtue of living here I have had a few police officers talk very rudely to me. Other times, also because my skin is white, I have had police officers be very kind to me (assuming I didn't live here) and try to help me find my way (even though I wasn't lost).

I don't believe that every police officer is bad, corrupt, evil, mean, or racist. It reminds me of something a [Black] friend told me once. He explained that he knows White people aren't all racist. He made his point by saying that perhaps only one in 10 are; the problem is that you never know which one of the 10 you are encountering.

I think it's the same way with police in our neighborhoods. It's not that we don't like the police or don't want them around. In fact, we know we *need* them to keep us safe. There is a part of us that want the police presence. However, there is the other part of us that wonder and worry...perhaps only one in 10 of the police are racist or corrupt; the problem is, we don't ever know which one of those 10 we are encountering.

Unfortunately for Oscar Grant, he encountered the wrong one (or two) police officers. Incidents like these make the rest of us more skeptical and reinforce our distrust, despite our best efforts to believe the police are here to protect us.

"Senseless" rioting??

As I talked with a friend, I could hear Anderson Cooper speaking from the CNN news room in the background. But it was the glimpse of the rioting being shown that caught my attention. As I watched closer, I realized that the rioting was in response to a video that I had seen a few days ago.



As the CNN news report showed people jumped on police cars, the reporter talked about the rioting being "senseless and all caught on camera." Perhaps it was just a poor choice of words on the reporter's part. But "senseless" rioting? Really??

I just finished reading a book called Blaming the Victim. It was written in 1971. As I read the book, I was compelled to write several times in the margin, "same as in 2008." I thought about the book as I watched the video above and listened to the CNN reporter.

One chapter of the book is entitled "Counting Black Bodies" and talks about the response to the riots in the 60s. One of the quotes in the book seems particularly relevant and applicable to this very situation.

"...almost every disturbance is initiated by police action that the community finds offensive and intolerable."

However, it's interesting to me that the book also surmises that, despite the police fatal brutality toward people of color,

"the predominant focus of violence by residents is against property, rather than persons..."

Unfortunately, police violence is against people rather than property.

The CNN reporter called the rioting "senseless." Allow me to refer to the 1971 book again..."A white surburbanite finds this [rioting] hard to comprehend; he might find it easier if, once or twice a year, a teenage son of one of his white neighbors were found dead on the tree-lined street with a police .38 bullet in his back."

From what I've heard from reports, the young man was being arrested for fighting on the train. Arresting may have been an appropriate consequence for his actions. Killing him was not.

I've also heard that the officer may have meant to reach for his tazer (though the video doesn't seem to show a lot of struggle from the young man...and the man was unarmed). Post-incident, the officer is refusing to be investigated and has resigned from the force. Perhaps that officer recognizes he made a fatal mistake that affected a young man's life as well as an entire family. Giving the officer the benefit of the doubt, let's say he's a nice and good person. However, being a nice and good person is not enough.

The reality is that in 2009 we still allow our fears to be attributed to an entire group/race of people instead of channeling our fears toward certain individuals. As a result, one [more] unarmed young black man is dead.

Blaming the Victim was written in 1971. This is 2009, yet sometimes I wonder just what it is that we've learned over the last 38 years. Though I know in some ways we've made progress, there are so many ways we haven't. Watch the video. Read the book. Then talk to me about progress.

The power of unmarried women

I received this email from Women's Voices Women Vote. As a single woman I couldn't believe that I hadn't even thought about myself as a demographic group. Perhaps this study isn't talking about unmarried, professional women with no children, but irregardless (children or no children), the fact of the matter is we (women) make less than men. We are a demographic that has much to be concerned about this election. Though the media discusses suburban families losing homes to the mortgage crisis, they don't talk as much about those of us who don't even have the cushion of that second income in the home.

Dear Friend,

The nomination of Sarah Palin for vice president has focused the news media's attention on how women will vote on Election Day.

But the media are missing the real news that underscores the importance of Women's Voices. Women Vote. In their weekly data for August 25-31 - an
interval that includes John McCain's selection of Palin - the Gallup Poll found a 23 percentage-point "marriage gap" in women's preferences in the presidential election. While married women favored McCain over Barack Obama by 49 to 42 percent, unmarried women supported Obama over McCain by 60 to 30 percent.

These findings underscore the importance of unmarried women as the fastest-growing major demographic group in this country - and the largest under-participating segment of society. For the first time in history, about as
many adult American women are unmarried as are married. Numbering 53 million, these single, separated, divorced and widowed women represent 26 percent of the voting-age population.

These unmarried women have the potential power to elect the next President. But 20 million of these women did not vote in 2004. That is why WVWV uses so many tested messages and trailblazing techniques - direct mail, telephone calls, and public service messages on television, cable, and theInternet - to educate and encourage these women to register, vote, and participate in public debates.

As WVWV's research reveals and reports, these "women on their own" have household incomes of $30,000 a year or less, earn only 56 cents for every dollar that a married man makes, and are less likely than married people to have health coverage. That is why WVWV (together with the Center for American Progress Action Fund) prepared and promotes an Unmarried Women's Agenda , including equal pay, expanded health coverage, and investments in public education, college opportunities, and career training and retraining. By advocating this agenda, WVWV is raising issues that encourage unmarried women to participate in the political process - and advancing policy proposals that will improve these women's lives and livelihoods.

With your help, WVWV is encouraging unmarried women to register, vote and take part in public debates by making political participation fit into their busy and burdened lives. Together, we can help unmarried women make history in this
crucial and eventful year.

Sincerely,

Page Gardner
President
Women's Voices. Women Vote

Who does the city really care about?

For the last couple of weeks I have noticed an upsurge of police patrolling in my neighborhood. You would think that is pretty impressive considering the Dallas Police Department is understaffed. The Southeast division (my area) covers 96-square miles and consists of three of the highest crime neighborhoods in the city (why they don't split those up so that police in other areas with less crime could help, I have no idea!). But this month, the city has devoted a very large number of officers to our neighborhood. From the number of police around these days (I believe I saw 5 on my very short, less than 1-mile drive home the other day), you would think that I would feel safer, more protected, and we, as a community, would feel more valued.

Au contraire.

For three weeks in the fall, Fair Park (which is within walking distance from my home) is the home of the State Fair of Texas. Police are everywhere...inside, outside, and around the fair. My uneducated, but probably very accurate guess is that it's the city's attempt to make outsiders feel safe enough to visit and spend their money.

That's where I feel slighted. Yes, there is more protection around here lately, but it's not protection *for* us, it's protection *from* us!

The people I see getting pulled over are not the people going the wrong way on a one-way street (which happens VERY often...as they boldly drive straight at me until I frantically blink my lights or dodge them) or the ones crossing two lanes of traffic, making the locals screech to a halt as the fair-goers have just found an open parking lot.

I would like to see the police statistics of my neighborhood for the three weeks of the fair. I would guess crime has gone down. I've heard the guys talk before. The ones causing the most problems go somewhere else when "the block is hot" and the police are around. I would guess that's the case right now. I would also like to see the statistics for the offenses people have been pulled over for. I would guess it has less to do with the people attending the fair and more to do with minor offenses committed by the people in my neighborhood.

I would like to feel like my neighborhood is safer because the city cares. But the gunshots I've been hearing at night (after the fair shuts down) and the cars and the people pulled over during the day tells me that although the city cares about crime, it cares more about protecting people from my neighborhood than protecting my neighborhood from crime.

When one suffers, we all suffer

I met up with a couple of the college kids this evening to help them with paperwork for a scholarship. When we met up, one of them asked me if I had seen his cousin. I said I hadn't, though he had just called me last week out of the blue and asked me to help him with his college paperwork (he's 21). For the last 2 years, we've been talking about college and I've been telling him what he needs to do, but so far he has never followed through. I was hoping this time was different.

The question, "Have you seen him?" told me something was wrong. He proceeded to pull out his phone and show me a picture of a guy in a restaurant with a gun...obviously from a security camera. Evidently, it's one of the main news stories.

My stomach dropped.

I've always had this fear that I would be watching the news and they would flash a picture of one of the kids/young adults I know. It's right up there with my fear of hitting someone on a motorcycle.

I can't say that it's a complete and total surprise. Though the guys are always extremely respectful around me, I've heard stories about people "hittin' licks" (robbing places) and making out pretty good. But though it's not necessarily surprising, it's still depressing. Reality is hard to face.

I'm sad this evening. Sad for my friend. Sad for a lost dream. Sad for my community who is watching yet another of our close-knit community on the run from the police. It will only be a matter of time before he is caught.

I am also sad because it makes me think of the potential path of the kids in the After-School Academy. I am sad because they can't see how quickly their lives can turn at a wrong decision...a simple decision to hang out with the wrong people even just for one night. I am sad because I know that Billy, Tyree, Sammy, Slick, and others have already chosen that path and it has resulted in death, jail, or being on the run from the police. I am sad for the families whose lives they affect.

I want to figure out why. Why does this become a lifestyle choice when they see so many others before them getting caught or killed?? I want to know what solution is.

I want to do everything I can to connect people with as many opportunities as possible so that they see so many more possibilities and options that they never feel like they need to carry a gun or rob people at gunpoint.

I don't want to lose anymore kids.

Neighborhoods get a bad rap--is it justified?

I absolutely love the neighborhood where I live as well as the one where I work. But some days, being a part of these neighborhoods frustrate me.

Both are low-income neighborhoods. There are good people in both neighborhoods. Unfortunately, some of the negatives of our community are much more visible and get much more publicity than the positives.

Just this week, Wyshina, my friend and the Assistant Coordinator for our After-School Academy in Turner Courts, witnessed a break in. As she was bringing things in off of her back porch, she saw three teenage boys run out of her neigbhor's back door. She knew her neighbor was at work so she called the police. When the police car arrived, Wyshina explained to him what had happened. One of the three boys was still standing right beside the apartment casually drinking the Gatorade he had stolen from the lady's home! Wyshina pointed him out to the police officer and explained that he was one of the boys who had broken in. Instead of getting out and investigating, the officer said there was nothing he could do and explained that when the lady came back home she should call the police.

Being good neighbors, Wyshina went across the street and got another friend to help her go into the house and move the washer and dryer unit in front of the back door so no one else could go in and then proceeded to sit on the front porch and wait until the lady arrived.

Needless to say, Wyshina was frustrated at the lack of response from the police.

Evidently, the teenager knew nothing would happen or he wouldn't have been so casually sitting outside the apartment drinking the evidence!

What do we need to do?! I realize that not everyone is as bold as Wyshina was. Most of the time in our communities people will witness everything that happened and then refuse to tell the police anything for fear of retaliation or rejection in the community. I know that must be frustrating for the police. So many of the negative activities are connected to family members and friends. No one wants to be the one who accuses a family member or friend. But by denying we know anything, we hurt ourselves and keep our communities from being protected. It all becomes a vicious cycle.

We don't trust the police --> The police can't do their job --> Our communities remain unhealthy with negative activity --> The police wrongly accuse people and harass people because of the neighborhood and its assumed activities --> We don't trust the police.

I realize we have a long way to go in cleaning up our communities. I realize that the police probably don't want to waste their time on people who deny they saw anything. But why can't the police value people like Wyshina...a person who takes the risk to boldly point out the person...and at least look into what she witnessed?

Neighborhood stories

As I sat on my front porch this morning, I saw two police cars drive up and park across the street. I was sad when I saw them go over to my neighbor's house and bring out one of my friends.

He's around 35 years old and has two felonies on his record. He's been out of prison for a while now. I don't know what he did or didn't do for the police to pick him up. Although I know that he makes choices just like the rest of us and is still responsible for his choices, it still made me sad as I watched them bring him outside and lean him against the police car and handcuff him. I know he could see me sitting on my porch and I just thought of how that might feel knowing people in the neighborhood could see everything that was happening.

From talking to him, I don't get the feeling he's proud of his record nor do I think he would be proud of being arrested. He encourages kids not to take the same path he did. Unfortunately, I think he poses a more "do as I say, not as I do" role modeling...which doesn't work real well.

I guess some people might be happy to know that the police are doing their job and getting "bad" people off of the streets. I guess that's true and I suppose I should be glad. I've heard stories about the things he's done. It's always so hard for me to imagine these people who are so kind around me being such menaces to society.

I really have no big message or no big solution. It just makes me sad to see people with such potential making bad choices.