Someone called the police on my husband today. It's happened before and it will happen again. It will happen again because my husband is Black.
When his daughter was three, the store in our neighborhood called the police. Suspected of shoplifting a tiny patent leather purse. He wanted it for his little one. He looked inside it, probably took too long making a decision. The woman called the police. He looked suspicious. He was shoplifitng one of those tiny purses. They were nine dollars and ninety-nine cents, he told me later. It was the first time I ever saw my husband humiliated.
Today, he went into a Levi's store. Browsing while waiting to pick me up from an appointment. The call goes out for a "Black man wearing a Cal t-shirt and a gun on his belt." The store is worried about a man with a gun. It is a reasonable concern. But then they add this: He's the guy who shoplifted in here before.
It was quickly straightened out. The cops laughed. Sounds like Officer H. with that Cal shirt and gun on his belt. Officer H. wears that damn Cal shirt way too much, and those cops knew it was my husband and I could see how they would think it was funny, except it's not.
He's the guy who shoplifted in here before. They lied, they embellished the story, when in fact, the cops would have come just as quickly with only the description of a man with a gun.
It always takes a toll on us. It ends up in an argument. I am frustrated and angry and I hurt for him. He is a man with a sterling character. It hurts me to think someone thinks otherwise. He tells me nothing has changed. I say I don't want to hear that nothing has changed. He says I don't understand racism. I say we have a Black president goddamit, and things have changed. He walks away, shakes his head at my inability to understand.
I understand better than most.
I will never know exactly how it feels.
But I understand better than most.
I just don't want to believe his words.
No, Joan. Nothing has changed.
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Thanks Joan for reminding us how prevalent racism still is.
r.
But he shouldn't have to, dammit, and that's where you're right too. It's bullshit, what ever happened to the "presumption of innocence"?
I wish I had answers. The only thing I feel like I can do is make damn sure my children understand what racism is, why it's wrong, and how they can go about being better examples for their friends.
Which is something I've done since they were little.
It makes me proud that they understand, they get it, and they are better people for doing their part to end racism.
After all, we have a President who looks like a ghetto crackhead, according to Fox News. We couldn't have a ghetto crackhead in the White House if we were a racist country. And Republicans love "their" blacks. Just ask Ann Coulter...sigh.
Rated.
now i am going to post something for you... actually it might be a re-post. i forget...but it will be for you either way.
You should know that arguing about whether things have changed or not can destroy your relationship and ultimaterly destroy your marriage....As it did mine.....
You must accept His assessment of where HE believes HE stands in the scheme of things re race and racism, and understand that he feels that he must continue to fight and struggle against racial injustice and he needs you to support him in the process and not succumb to the denial that he perceives to be part of the problem...
Failure to do so will poisin your domestic environment. Refusing to do so will only cause the wedge of racism to come between you, and if it does, the racists will have won...again..
Lezlie
@RonP01, your comment is beyond wise. Thank you.
R
Now, I hear someone saying, "I know many white people without a single racist bone in their body." My question is this. If there are so many non-racist people around, why don't they do something to make racism go away? Excellent post. R
HUGGGGGGGGG
I know that incidents like this still happen in Chicago. In our integrated neighborhood, there are black owned and operated restaurants where I've been treated like dirt. I don't have to go to a nearby neighborhood that's 98% black to experience this. It happens within 1 mile of our house. There are other nearby businesses where I would not feel comfortable taking my black friends, because they would get similar treatment.
Hearing about what happened to Victor hurts. Every time I hear about a friend being a victim of racist treatment, or when I'm on the receiving end myself, it hurts.
Please don't let this destroy your relationship. If that happens, after all you've been through together, the bigots win.
I know it still lives within me, despite decades of my efforts to discard that inherited baggage. It is what it is, like an indelible stain on my favorite old shirt; except it's not on my shirt, it's on my soul.
Just hope I take it with me when I die, and that it doesn't infect my grandchildren,
An Old White Dude who lives on a Mountain.
i am sorry.
Seemingly effortlessly the best a human can be..
Give Officer H a hug for me, will ya Joanie?
Rated for even if one person will change..
Okay, so that's where I am so far. But here's the other thing I want to say: Joan, your writing amazes me . . . it's as if you take a blank canvas, and paint with singular flowing lines, as if to create an abstract work; the outlines are nearly stark . . . yet the effect is stonger than if you had added minute details . . . simply stunning.
Change is definitely slow in a lot of areas.
Another time I had my car vandalized by two White Canadian girls a security guard and another witness and myself told the cops we heard them pry my gas tank open with a board that woke me up, I saw them and only them running from the area the others saw them running past the car they were in. The cops asked me repeatedly for hours what did I want to do. I kept saying arrest them. They told me they couldn't because there were no actual witnesses. I told the cops if they were two Black boys or men you all could have found them 3 miles from the scene and had no problem arresting them so I don't understand what the problem is. They never did arrest the girls.
I hate to admit Officer H. being right, but as I contribute to political discussions in areas where I am a commentator, I realize the hatred of, what I hope is, a minority of our citizens as they hatefully attack our President. I, too, breathed a sigh of relief after he was elected, both for being a minute part of the grass roots, but that the culmination of "The Dream" was complete. The disrespect of this President is unprecedented. The GOP is havig a more difficult time, with the passing of each day of this primary season, hiding their racism where our President is concerned.
I wish I could offer an apology for ignorance everywhere, but I would never sleep again (presently I am not anyway). We may not be able to fix stupid, but we can not just continue to believe, we can continue to work toward the day racism dies. I still believe in Martin's dream!
Change is here, but, the Confederate Traitors are very, very, very scared of it. Why? Simple, you see they internally feel that if put in the same position they would rise up in violent response, and so project that same behavior onto others who couldn't give a rat's @$$ about them, it's the ultimate ego trip/paranoid delusion combo item ... and it's what's on the Menu in Southern and Midwestern white Amerikkka!
Example B- today's Montana Federal Judge (and seditious traitor who ought to be lynched himself, Benedict Arnold redux, appointed by none other than Cheney/Rove via Shrub.
On a softer note, men of color have only two choices and your husband has taken one of them.
Auwe (Alas)
I am a mixed blood person, but I don't look Ojibwe enough for anyone other than another Indian to identify me on sight. When I was advisor to a Native American student group at a Minnesota state university about fifteen years ago, I experienced racism for the first time. A graduate student and I were headed to an event in a small town in a northern part of the state where we were to make a presentation. We were in his pickup truck because we were hauling a teaching lodge. A braid of sweet grass lay across the back of the seat. Other artifacts as well as our physical appearance easily identified us as Native Americans. We were pulled over on a bogus traffic stop and berated by a local cop. He grabbed the sweet grass and shook it at us, accusing us of having drugs in the vehicle. He asked where the beer was hidden. He used racial slurs, and I, who had never been subjected to anything near this in my life, was ready to light into the man, demand his badge number and identify myself as Dr. So and So from Such and Such University. My grad student calmly put his hand on my arm as he heard me pull in a long breath so I could get my thoughts out fast and loud. He barely shook his head, but I knew he wanted me to stay silent. I did. After we were sent on our way, he explained that he wanted me to know what it was like. He said that sometimes just letting them do their ugliness without contributing to the event works best. I was so shaken I could not sleep that night. As I type this comment, I can feel the bone-deep shudder and anger I felt that night. My grad student, who wore his hair traditionally in a long, black braid and fit the image many have of an Indian, still lives with incidences of overt racism--which he says he prefers to the covert episodes. At least, he says, he knows of whom to be wary.
My father has told me stories about his mistreatment over the years, but those instances were so long ago and seem so far removed from my experience... This is not to say that I can't look around my community and see the writing on the wall, but if I'm still enrolled in "racism 101" I can understand how many whites are lacking in education and understanding. Unless it hits you where you live, you can't fully fathom the scope of the problem. Yes things have changed, but there's so much inequity baked in the cake, it will take generations to root it all out.
-r
Fifty years ago, you wouldn't even have been able to marry your husband in most States. He knows that, too, I'm sure.
Rise above it (racism) and enjoy your life.
@hugs, me~ I love the goal: one child at a time.
Sending you a hug and hope that you realize you are both on the same team.
Did they even apologize?
Maybe there were times when he thought that some progress had been made, that things had changed. But I would imagine that an incident like this sets the clock back to zero. The anger and the humiliation are almost unfathomable.
I would also imagine that this could drive a wedge between two people. The truth is that you both perceive the world and are perceived by the world differently. But I don't think it's insurmountable. Your realities are what they are, and you have to agree to understand and accept each other's realities.
Thank you for *your* wise comment.
I guess I want to say "not enough has changed."
But I can see where he'd see it differently.
Jesus.
Once I was with my very white son in a posh cooking shop and he was followed closely by the clerk. He was a little scruffy and in his mid-twenties, probably not a type she dealt with a lot. We were the only ones in the shop, had entered separately and she didn't know I was with him. I followed her as closely as she followed him. I was pissed but never felt threatened and she didn't call the cops so it's no way the same but I learned again, this time from how angry my own reaction was.