The "crime" of living while Black | Baratunde Thurston

It's December 2018.

I'm with my fiance in the suburbs of Wisconsin.

We're visiting her parents, both of whom are white,

which makes her white.

That's how it works.

I don't make the rules.

And we get pulled over by the police.

I'm scared.

I pull over slowly under the brightest street light I can find

in case I need witnesses or dashcam footage.

We get out my identification, the car registration,

lay it out in the open, roll down the windows.

My hands are placed on the steering wheel,

all before the officer exits the vehicle.

This is how to stay alive.

As we wait, I think about these headlines.

"Police Shoot Another Unarmed Black Person."

The good news is our officer was friendly.

She told us our tags were expired,

so to all the white parents out there,

if your child is involved with a person whose skin tone is rated

Dwayne-The-Rock-Johnson or darker,

you need to get that car inspected,

update the paperwork every time we visit —

that's just common courtesy.

I survived something that should not require survival,

and I think about this series of stories —

"Police Shoot Another Unarmed Black Person" —

and that season when those stories popped up everywhere.

In 2018, those stories got changed out for a different type of story.

Stories like, "White Woman Calls Cops on Black Woman Waiting for an Uber."

"White Woman Calls Police On Eight-Year-Old Black Girl Selling Water."

"Woman Calls Police On Black Family BBQing At Lake in Oakland."

That was the now-infamous #BBQBecky.

A subject takes an action against the target engaged in some activity.

"California Safeway Calls Cops On Black Woman Donating Food To The Homeless."

"Golf Club Twice Calls Cops On Black Women For Playing Too Slow."

In all these cases, the subject is usually white.

The target is usually black, and the activities are anything

from sitting in a Starbucks,

to using the wrong type of barbecue, to napping,

to walking agitated on the way to work,

which I just call walking to work.

Now, this is the obligatory moment in the presentation

where I have to say not everything is about race.

Crime is a thing — should be reported.

But ask yourself, do we need armed men

to show up and resolve this situation?

Because when they show up for me, it’s different.

We know that police officers use force more with black people

than with white people,

and we are learning the role of 911 calls in this,

which forces me and people like me to police ourselves.

We maybe pull over to the side of the road

under the brightest light we can find so that our murder

might be caught cleanly on camera.

And we do this because we live in a system in which white people

can too easily call on deadly force to ensure their comfort.

This is weaponized discomfort, and it is not new.

From 1877 to 1950 there were at least 4,400 documented

racial terror lynchings of black people in the United States.

They had headlines as well.

Reverend T.A. Allen was lynched in Hernando, Mississippi,

for organizing local sharecroppers.

Oliver Moore was lynched in Edgecomb County, North Carolina,

for frightening a white girl.

Nathan Bird was lynched near Luling, Texas,

for refusing to turn his son over to a mob.

We need to change the action, whether that action is "lynches"

or "calls police."

I'm asking people here to see the structure,

where the power is in it, and even more importantly,

to see the humanity of those of us made targets by this structure.

I am tired of carrying this invisible burden of other people's fears.

And many of us are, and we shouldn't have to,

because we can change this.

Because we can change the action,

which changes the story, which changes the system

that allows those stories to happen.

Systems are just collective stories we all buy into.

When we change them, we write a better reality for us all to be a part of.