Reducing Racial Profiling Depends on All of Us
The post 911 mantra, “If you see something – say something” appears to have taken an ugly turn these days. It used to relate to concerns about terrorism. If you saw an abandoned backpack or van or if you discovered evidence one could construe as bomb related the instruction was to immediately call police to investigate.
Today, citizens seem to have twisted that advice and call police with the pettiest suspicions or complaints about people who don’t look like they look. Thanks to ever-present cell phone cameras we can confirm several instances of racial profiling that have happened in just the last few weeks.
In Philadelphia, two young, well dressed black men entered a Starbucks for a business meeting with a third person. Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson did not immediately buy any coffee and one was denied permission to use the men’s room. While they waited a clueless Starbucks manager called police to report the pair was trespassing. Video shows the two were completely compliant when police handcuffed them and lead them out. Nelson later said he wondered if he would make it home alive.
I cannot confirm that the Starbucks manager is white but in all the cases I’m about to mention prominent reporting indicates that is the case. Whites apparently call the police on Blacks on a routine basis.
Nine days after the Starbucks incident and about two hours west employees at the Grandview Golf Club outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania twice called police for help. When officers arrived they were told about a group of five black women who had paid their membership dues, had their tee time delayed for an hour due to weather and then, allegedly, were playing the course too slowly. Presumably management wanted the women ejected but officers quickly determined it was not a police matter. The women now believe they were the victims of both racial and gender discrimination initiated by employees of the golf course.
A week later in Rialto, California a group of black women was loading suitcases into their car outside a home they had rented through Airbnb. Suddenly six officers surrounded them and a police helicopter hovered ominously overhead. The incident was spurred by a neighbor’s phone call to the police department reporting a suspected home burglary. In what world do women casually leaving a home and chatting as they walked to their car require such suspicion?
Next let’s go to St. Louis, Missouri where earlier this month three teenage boys, all black, were doing some last-minute clothes shopping for prom. While at a Nordstrom Rack department store the teens said they were followed everywhere by store security. After making a purchase they were met outside by local police who wanted to check their bags and receipts. Nordstrom security had summoned the cops requesting a shoplifting arrest.
“The police were actually good,” one of the young men said. “They understood …. they showed us that they were just doing their job.”
One more case in point from the prestigious campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. A black graduate student working on a “marathon of papers” fell asleep in a common area at 1:30 a.m.. A fellow dorm student found her there, declared napping wasn’t allowed and called police. Lolade Siyonbola was made to show her university ID and take officers to her room to prove that she really belonged there. Police ultimately told the white woman who called that it was not a police matter.
Waiting while black, golfing while black, renting while black, shopping while black and napping while black are not crimes.
I have an important question for each of those citizens who called police: If the suspected people were of your same race would you still have dialed your local law enforcement or simply watched with the curiosity of a nosy neighbor?
It has become all too popular to accuse police officers of racial profiling. And, certainly, that plays a role in the behavior of some who wear a badge. But this is a good opportunity to look inward to examine our own reactions to situations. We, the public, instigate a majority of the calls that officers must respond to. As we contemplate whether to call police about a “see-something, say-something” situation are we also engaged in racial profiling?
In all the cases described here the corporation, business or university has apologized to those who were confronted by officers while engaging in harmless, everyday activities. In some of the cases settlements have been reached or lawsuits have been filed or threatened. But not all the falsely accused are looking for monetary gain to ease their humiliation. As one of the teens in the St. Louis incident put it, “I don’t want (Nordstrom’s) to fire anyone,” he said. “I want them to … make this a teaching moment and everybody move forward and get better.”
Amen to that.
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Facebook Friend Silvie Rivera writes:
My thing is: You expect to use a Starbucks Coffee bathroom — use their toilet paper, soap, sink, flush their toilet water, use their WIFI broadband — and you won’t even buy one small coffee in return? You’re being a jerk. Some people just want to create situations.
Facebook Friend Joya Colucci Lord writes:
We like to call them “offense collectors”. People who display “righteous indignation” at the idea that commerce is a two-way street and that businesses exist solely for the purpose of making money by supplying the general public with goods and services…See More
Diane Dimond replies to Joya Colucci Lord
You are richer for it … in more ways than one! 🙂
Manage
Eddie Emmons replies:
lol…Well if a coffee there goes for $6,that should pay for my toilet paper and that of a few others,homeless or not….let’s use common sense…. #casebycasebasis #noexcusesforprofiling
Facebook Friend Andrea Saint James writes:
Nobody knows if they were going to order or not. THEY WERE WAITING FOR A FRIEND. Perhaps then they would have ordered.
Bill Voinovich replies:
Heard a news report that said when the guy was interviewed, he said they were waiting for their friends, then they would all order at the same time…
Facebook Friend Dave Jordan writes:
And they were only in the establishment for TWO MINUTES before police were called. Most people, myself included, took longer to place an order.
But whatever.
Diane Dimond replies:
Now, you’re getting to the crux of this column, Dave! Two minutes and the (presumably white) Starbucks manager calls police on two young black men? Really??!
I know Starbucks Corp is responding with the proper amount of apology now and moving to better train all their employees. But the point is: how many people pick up the phone, don’t think things through and report on people who don’t look like they look? I think we all need to re-evaluate whether WE are adding to the problem of racial profiling.
Facebook Friend Mary Hoffman writes:
Yes I know and when one of the officers are black they’re called Uncle Tom’s. Very sad when the civil war ended over 200 years ago and we still live segregated in our societies.
Facebook Friend Andrea Saint James writes:
I am personally getting more and more afraid that our country is fractured on purpose between whites and blacks, men and women and English only speakers and those who speak in another language. This is terrifying to me. This country is no longer E Pluribus Unum. // (What if) the person who called in the BS should have to pay for the call?
Diane Dimond repies:
THAT would be interesting. But wouldn’t that cause citizens NOT to call in serious situations for fear they’d face a fine?
Facebook Friend Gregg Cockrell writes:
Well, cops do racially profile, but when you combine that with the racist public you get Tamir Rice level results
Facebook Friend Tim Heinrich writes:
Good points Diane. Police work for the public , the taxpayers , and whenever they are summoned to perform their job they must answer that call regardless of ethnicity , religion , etc.
Facebook Friend Ted Brassfield writes:
I agree, the police must respond to a 911 call, so they are not the ones doing any racial profiling. It’s the people who are making nuisance and racist calls that’s the problem. Whether its sitting at Starbucks, women playing golf, a family barbecuing or moving into or out of an Air BandB, people who make those calls need to be billed for the time the police spend when they could be saving lives!