If you’re Black, here's why you don’t want to call the police.…

Part 4 in a Series: My Realities of Race

Recently, I’ve been approached by so many well-meaning folks – many if not most white – who’ve responded to several of my recent pieces published via this medium that have dealt with the specter of race in our society. In hopes to educate, elevate and engage ever more people of goodwill in the fight for equality and justice for all in our society, I’ve crafted a five-part series of articles – of which this is the fourth – detailing my personal experiences as a Black man in modern America. I believe that my experience of race is representative and not unique, and I share it with the intent of helping others understand the differences in our experience and how these help explain the civil unrest we’re experiencing at this time. I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I have lived most of the questions and it’s in this spirit that I offer my perspectives.…

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Here’s something else that you probably don’t know about your Black colleagues and possibly even your Black friends: virtually all of us have at least one if not more stories of unfortunate – if not potentially lethal – interactions with the police. In addition to being called the N-word, this is yet another near-universal aspect of the Black experience in modern America.

In his classic comedy routine entitled “Ni**ers vs. The Police” (from the iconic 1974 album “That Ni**er’s Crazy” that I also recommend highly to you for the incision of its social observation and commentary in addition to the nonstop laughter that it induces), Richard Pryor noted the difference between how African-Americans and whites perceive the police. Whites, he suggests, identify with the police because the latter “live in your neighborhood” and they know “them as Officer Timpson.” By contrast, Blacks experience them as likely to pull us over for no reason and assert that we ‘fit the description’ before executing a dehumanizing search of our person (which anticipated what we came to call “Stop and Frisk” by several decades).

I’m sure many whites who’ve heard this routine assume that he was joking. None of my black friends do. While Mr. Pryor’s is a humorous take, the reality that too many of us of Color experience is decidedly unfunny.

You see, sadly, as a Black man in America and especially in our younger years when your unfounded but well-stoked fears of us lead you to believe us to be especially threatening, it’s very difficult to avoid the police, who, for us, are an often uninvited and unwelcome occupying force in our neighborhoods.

Again, to keep it real, why is it that if Blacks and whites use drugs at approximately the same rates, the former are up to six times more likely to be prosecuted? Or, why is it that the powdered form of cocaine favored by whites was punished up to 100 times less in terms of sentencing than its cheaper, smokable variety favored by Blacks? And even when President Obama took historic remediative action, this variation wasn’t completely eliminated but only reduced to something like a 20 times higher penalty, a lessening of the still quite appreciable ‘Black Tax,’ as it were.

As is clear if you examine any of the enormous trove of research, there is a huge variation in experience with our criminal justice system, of whom the police are the initial aspect, based on race. Not shockingly, our experience as African-Americans is the far less pleasant or equitable or just one.…

I’ve only been held at gunpoint once in my life, but since it was courtesy of the NYPD, it merits a mention here. Some college friends of mine and I were on our way from our apartment in Manhattan out to Long Island to picnic with friends. As our car proceeded across town to the east side, we passed under the elevated subway tracks in Harlem. As soon as we did, we were stopped by two NYPD officers. Apparently, we fit the description.

OK, so we got stopped by the police: unfortunate but not uncommon, right? True, if that were the entirety of the story, but it’s not:

First, let’s address our alleged crime: the cops claimed that we ran a red light. We didn’t, but for argument’s sake, let’s concede the possibility because the traffic lights are largely obscured by the elevated tracks (as they remain to this day). OK, cops are supposed to pull you over if you don’t obey traffic signals. So far, so good, right? Except that we weren’t the last car through the light, but we were the only one stopped.…

Next, let’s address the way in which we were pulled over: after putting on the lights of the squad car and blaring its siren, we dutifully pulled right over to the side of the street. After a few minutes, the cops emerged to engage with us. Again, so far, so good, right? Except that when they exited their vehicle, their guns were drawn and pointed at us as we sat patiently and unthreateningly.

In fact, it wasn’t until my friend who was driving looked in the rear view mirror and saw the officers with guns drawn that he immediately though carefully issued a warning for us to chill and then informed us of the approaching danger. Suffice it to say that as he maneuvered around to the front of the car, gun drawn and pointed, the lead officer barked orders at us not to move and reminded us that he would be forced to shoot if we did not comply. Yep, all this for running a red light.

But it got worse: he then informed us that his partner who was standing behind the car with his gun drawn would continue to be ready to fire if we were not compliant as he approached the car to question us. What followed was supposed to be fairly straightforward: we explained where we were headed, in whose car we were going (i.e., it was a rental) and then we asked why we were stopped. It’s then that we learned that not only had we – allegedly – run a red light but that, indeed, we also fit the description – yes, he literally said this, I can’t make that up – of some robbery suspects they were seeking. Well, at least the real reason we were facing lethal force was clear.…

As we sat there, simultaneously terrified and enraged, the rest of the traffic stop proceeded uneventfully and we were released … and not given a ticket, if I remember correctly. But what I’ll always remember is that after our interaction was over and the lead officer began to walk back to his squad car, I turned to see his partner who kept his gun aimed at us until they both reentered their vehicle. Again, I was terrified and enraged: if our traffic stop had ended, why were we still being subjected to potentially lethal force? Further, I noticed, the second officer was quite young and seemed at most to be our age and possibly younger. He was also of Hispanic origin, which made his involvement in this situation all the more unfortunate.…

Finally, let’s address who we were: the driver, my friend Geoff, was working on Wall Street before returning to Harvard for his senior year during which he would win a Rhodes scholarship and study at Oxford before returning to the United States and graduating from the University of California at Berkeley’s esteemed law school. The front seat passenger, my friend Ben, was working on Wall Street before returning to Harvard Business and Law Schools (after a clearly very successful undergraduate career at Yale) to finish his joint JD/MBA degree as a prelude to a distinguished career as a successful investor (and protégé of a young, soon-to-be former Salomon Brothers partner who went on to found in eponymous company worth tens of billions, be mayor of New York City for a dozen years and contest for the presidency). In the backseat with me was Ben’s former college roommate Cornell, who, after graduating with honors from Yale, had enrolled in the dentistry program at Howard University in Washington, DC, from which he would graduate two years later. And then there was me, between my junior and senior years of Harvard before beginning the decades-long career in financial services and not-for-profit leadership that I’ve enjoyed ever since.

In other words, we were about as distinguished a group of young African-American men as could be assembled, but to two members of the NYPD on that fateful day, we were four Black men – which means, in practice, suspects – who, literally, “fit the description.” It reminded us of a difficult truth that remains to this day and is attributed to Malcolm X, whose sense of humor could be incisively yet appropriately dark: what do you call a black man who’s graduated from medical/law/etc. school? Ni**er.

Strangely, when I returned to campus in the fall, none of my white friends had a story anywhere near as unusual or potentially deadly….

Don’t get me wrong, both #AllLivesMatter and #BlueLivesMatter to me, but these are not nor should they be seen as offered in contrast to the truth that #BlackLivesMatter is still apparently a subject for debate for millions of our fellow citizens. And neither white lives nor blue ones are anywhere near as threatened by agents of the state as are their Black counterparts: this is what this is really about.

Further, I appreciate that the police have one of the hardest jobs in our society: let’s face it, we only call them when things get out of control and we don’t think that we can handle it, which means that their most important service is virtually always rendered in dramatic if not even more threatening circumstances. It’s a tough, tough job. But if you can’t do it while maintaining your humanity and evidencing that you protect and serve all of the members of your community, then you shouldn’t be an officer, period. This, too, is what #BlackLivesMatter is all about.

And let’s take this a little bit further: why is the assertion that “Black Lives Matter” so controversial? Shouldn’t this be self-evident, especially given the words of our founding documents? But, in practice, this never has been the case and is not yet so even today. Plus, think about it: Black Lives Matter is a request (or demand, depending upon your perspective) that you acknowledge our basic humanity; it doesn’t even begin to address the reality that our lives should be fully valued and celebrated as our white relatives’, friends’, neighbors’ and fellow citizens’ are. As one recent social media meme put it: “‘Matter’ is the minimum”.…

Just in case I haven’t established the point conclusively enough for you, I’ll close by considering another recent incident that has brought to mind indelibly how different our experience of the police is depending on our race, that of the fabled meeting of the Coopers, Amy and Christian. In response to Chris’s reasonable request for Amy to leash her dog as was required by local ordinance, the latter overreacted and threatened him with #DeathByPolice, which, sadly, is really a thing in our society.

Seriously, think about this: this white woman took such umbrage at being asked to follow the minimally invasive laws of New York City that she threatened to tell the police that she was being attacked by a Black man because she understood how great a threat that was (to him). Really? Apparently, not all vicious racists are hillbillies; some of them are supposedly liberal Northerners (which virtually any Person of Color who’s lived above the Mason-Dixon Line has experienced firsthand and frequently).

To illustrate just how sinister and racial this abomination was, let’s try to picture its contrast: can you even conceive of an African-American man threatening to call the police and have them deal in a potentially lethal way with a white woman all because the latter had the temerity to ask him to comply with the law? Of course you can’t! None of us can: that’s not the way race works in America, but it is a simple yet profound reminder of this tragic fact.…

A final bit of personal testimony: in the spirit of full disclosure, you should know that Christian Cooper, the African-American man ensnared in this potentially deadly encounter, is a college classmate of mine, and, while we weren’t close friends, I can assure you that there are very few less threatening Black men on the planet … so what does this tell you about Amy Cooper’s reflexive resort to the threat – and promise, really – of state-inflicted lethal force?

Perhaps if we consider it from another angle, it’ll be even clearer: have you ever, in your life, heard of birders – including that rarest kind, Black ones – being in the least way threatening? And yet my classmate is the latest example of a telling phenomenon that illustrates the deadly power of race in our society: now, thanks to Amy Cooper, #BirdingWhileBlack is a thing, to go along #SleepingWhileBlack (Breonna Taylor), #JoggingWhileBlack (Ahmaud Arbery), #WalkingWhileBlack (Jay Pharoah) and a host of other ostensibly normal and non-threatening activities. Normal and non-threatening for white folks, that is.…

So, if you really want to understand what’s going on in our society right now and why so many Black people feel so angry in response to the murder of George Floyd and so many before him (and, sadly, since), understand that, for them – in other words, to us – it’s personal, because we could’ve been any of those victims of the police.

It’s why so many of us are joining the call to defund the police: not that we don’t want to be protected in our homes and neighborhoods, but that we expect two things that whites largely take for granted: first, that officers of the law approach us in the spirit of their chosen commitment, that to protect and serve us along with everyone else; and, second, that law enforcement services be complemented with appropriate other ones (e.g., social/emotional and mediational supports, etc.) that reduce the inappropriate and unfair burden that we’ve placed on our police.

A significant portion of the incidents that police are called to address are simply not appropriate for them, but we’ve eliminated virtually all of the other public services that are. So, defunding the police is not about getting rid of them; it’s about narrowing their scope appropriately and complementing their worthy efforts with those of specialists in other areas that are germane to the situations and conflicts that arise most often in our society.

But until that day, for us Black folk, we’re going to think twice before calling the police and we ask that you do, too.…

(Photo credits: https://www.amazon.com/Martin-Luther-Poster-Darkness-Cannot/dp/B0765VWWS4; https://www.amazon.com/that-niggers-crazy-RICHARD-PRYOR/dp/B0044UVX0S; https://www.businessinsider.com/the-disparity-between-crack-and-cocaine-arrests-shows-how-the-system-targets-poor-people-2015-2; https://society6.com/product/ida-b-wells-barnett-black-lives-matter-series-black-voices_print#1=45; https://thesocietypages.org/toolbox/police-killing-of-blacks/; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFzwoUH6cTc; https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/28/opinion/letters/amy-cooper-race-central-park.html; https://www.mostmetro.com/the-featured-articles/what-does-defund-police-really-mean.html; https://www.etsy.com/listing/715790596/still-i-rise-maya-angelou-poem-wall-art)