In an entirely unsurprising report from Breanna Edwards at The Root, we learn that some White woman sees a Black man, moving about in public, in broad daylight, and she’s having none of it:
It’s news to no one that the Rebeccas and Karens of the world will not cease until they call cops on every single black person in this country for the most minuscule of perceived infractions.
In the past month alone we’ve had incidents of police being called on black people for napping while black, cooking while black, dining while black and moving while black. And now we have real-estate-ing while black.
In a video posted to YouTube earlier this month, Michael Hayes, a real estate investor in Memphis, Tenn., went to a house that was in desperate need of a fixing up to inspect it. It was at that point, he said, that a woman came out of a neighboring house demanding to know what he was doing. Ever affable, Hayes said that he readily showed the woman his investment contract, which showed that he had permission to work on the house, as well as the written permission he received from the homeowner.
Still, Karen the unidentified woman wouldn’t be swayed and called the police anyway.
At this point in the story, which echoes so many instances like it from across the country, we might not be blamed for expecting this Black man being detained, questioned, perhaps even arrested, for the offense of Being Black While Black Around White People [BBWBAWP] (a charge I previously described in this diary).
But wait!
While the White woman might have felt confident that White privilege will always triumph (and really, why would she have had any reason to doubt that?), the police saw it quite differently:
Thankfully, in this case, the police were quick to call the woman out on her bullshit and defended Hayes’ right to be there.
“You keep the camera rolling. If you have any problems with her, what I want you to do is call me back over here,” a white male officer reassures Hayes. “She will go to jail for that.”
The woman says something that sounds like, “I’m friends with the sheriff,” but the same officer shuts her down.
“I don’t care if you’re friends with the president,” he snaps. “You’re going to let him do what he’s going to do. If you try to do anything to stop him, I’m going to take you to jail.”
I’m glad to be able to share stories where common sense, fundamental decency— and a basic understanding of the law and constitutional rights— overcome grotesque and obvious bigotry (make no mistake, when this White woman called police, it was pure racial animus, and in my book, a hate crime).
But don’t be lulled into a sense that we’ve turned some sort of corner with regard to the deliberate aggression of a White person calling police on a Black person.
As I noted in my previous diary on this subject, calling the police about a ‘disturbance’ of any kind involving a Black person has a significant likelihood of that Black person: a) being arrested for no particular reason, b) assaulted and seriously injured by police, and/or c) killed by police.
We can hope that more officers will wake up to being used by White people like bouncers for a private club, seeking to expel all Blacks from ‘their’ communities. In the meantime, every instance of aggressive and dangerous White privilege must be documented, and we must intervene. Lives depend on it.
What’s the expression?
If you see something, say something.
I think we might repurpose that in our efforts to eradicate racial discrimination, harassment, and violence.