“I love the old days… ‘They'd be carried out on a stretcher, folks,’ You know, I love our police, and I really respect our police, and they're not getting enough. They’re not.” Exactly what was the soon-to-be President referring to when he said they [police] are not getting enough at a campaign rally in February of 2016? In a subsequent speech, the President bemoaned the fact that the police are no longer banging the heads of suspects off the roofs of their patrol cars when taking them into custody. In some fantasy world where Mr. Trump believes the police are treating criminals, especially those of color too nicely, he pointedly told a gathering of officers in July of last year, “don’t be too nice.”
With the prevalence of cell phones and security cameras in every nook and cranny of America’s streets, the incidents of over-aggressive policing against black and brown people are more in the public conscience than ever. I may surprise a few people at this point when I tell you that I am not fearful of the escalation of these confrontations with police. Black and brown people will tell you this is nothing new, mobile technology has just exposed it to the world. What does frighten me is the new-found racist impunity that white America has taken. Private citizens are now using their local police departments as a private protection force. If two young black men do not follow orders and buy a cup of coffee at a Starbucks, call the police. If a quintet of black female golfers is not playing to the prescribed pace of the course monitors, call the police. The management of a Waffle House called the police and had twenty-five-year-old Chikesia Clemons of Mobile, Alabama dragged half clothed from a Waffle House restaurant over a 50 cent plastic utensils charge.
I could go on for ten more pages detailing these macros and microaggressions, some of them may even sound funny or trivial but for Black and Brown Americans it is a matter of life or death. I have always had a healthy respect for the law even when it is dead wrong or when people like Walter Scott, Philando Castile or Eric Garner are dead because they were wronged.
I am a black man, I live in a quiet neighborhood, surrounded by black neighbors. It has its share of loud music, rowdy high school kids and the occasional traffic accident, just like Anywhere, America. The difference for me is that I have grown afraid to call a cop if it gets out of hand. When my neighbors are shaking their fist at each other over building a new fence two inches over the property line or have music playing too loudly at a neighborhood barbecue, I fear picking up a phone and dialing 911 because it could end in someone’s death. That notion should never enter my mind. Unfortunately, the President of the United States, in his selfish quest to Make America White Again, has declared people of color public enemy number one, and to my chagrin, it seems a growing number of white Americans are willing to be his stretcher bearers.
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