wrightandleftreport.com

I try not to riff off of another blogger’s work, even though there are a significant number of writers I admire greatly.  But when I read this piece on Ta-Nehisi Coates’ blog regarding an op-ed written by a young black man in New York City, I had to link to it.  Here’s the dagger for me:

Last May, I was outside my apartment building on my way to the store when two police officers jumped out of an unmarked car and told me to stop and put my hands up against the wall. I complied. Without my permission, they removed my cellphone from my hand, and one of the officers reached into my pockets, and removed my wallet and keys. He looked through my wallet, then handcuffed me. The officers wanted to know if I had just come out of a particular building. No, I told them, I lived next door.

One of the officers asked which of the keys they had removed from my pocket opened my apartment door. Then he entered my building and tried to get into my apartment with my key. My 18-year-old sister was inside with two of our younger siblings; later she told me she had no idea why the police were trying to get into our apartment and was terrified. She tried to call me, but because they had confiscated my phone, I couldn’t answer.

Meanwhile, a white officer put me in the back of the police car. I was still handcuffed. The officer asked if I had any marijuana, and I said no. He removed and searched my shoes and patted down my socks. I asked why they were searching me, and he told me someone in my building complained that a person they believed fit my description had been ringing their bell. After the other officer returned from inside my apartment building, they opened the door to the police car, told me to get out, removed the handcuffs and simply drove off. I was deeply shaken…

It feels like an important thing to be part of a community of hundreds of thousands of people who are wrongfully stopped on their way to work, school, church or shopping, and are patted down or worse by the police though they carry no weapon; and searched for no reason other than the color of their skin. I hope police practices will change and that when I have children I won’t need to pass along my mother’s advice.

No matter how many times someone tells me profiling–and this case wasn’t even profiling, rather an unconscionable act of violation– is a necessary evil.  To me it just reinforces the double standard many black men face and white men don’t.  When there is an abrogation of your civil and human rights, that is not a necessary evil.  It’s simply evil.

So it goes I suppose, without recriminations or recourse for these officers involved.  The ever spinning wheels of tainted justice continue to claim victims who have no way to adequately respond to this molestation.  This is what passes for crime-fighting in many cities in America I suppose.

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