General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI fit the description….
Last edited Sat Dec 5, 2015, 07:43 PM - Edit history (1)
Note: this is not by me but the gentleman in the photo and on the link. His title above for the short essay below.
http://artandeverythingafter.com/i-fit-the-description/
This is what I wore to work today.
On my way to get a burrito before work, I was detained by the police.
I noticed the police car in the public lot behind Centre Street. As I was walking away from my car, the cruiser followed me. I walked down Centre Street and was about to cross over to the burrito place and the officer got out of the car.
Hey my man, he said.
He unsnapped the holster of his gun.
I took my hands out of my pockets.
Yes? I said.
Where you coming from?
Home.
Wheres home?
Dedham.
Howd you get here?
I drove.
He was next to me now. Two other police cars pulled up. I was standing in from of the bank across the street from the burrito place. I was going to get lunch before I taught my 1:30 class. There were cops all around me.
I said nothing. I looked at the officer who addressed me. He was white, stocky, bearded.
You werent over there, were you? He pointed down Centre Street toward Hyde Square.
No. I came from Dedham.
Whats your address?
I told him.
We had someone matching your description just try to break into a womans house.
A second police officer stood next to me; white, tall, bearded. Two police cruisers passed and would continue to circle the block for the 35 minutes I was standing across the street from the burrito place.
You fit the description, the officer said. Black male, knit hat, puffy coat. Do you have identification.
Its in my wallet. May I reach into my pocket and get my wallet?
Yeah.
I handed him my license. I told him it did not have my current address. He walked over to a police car. The other cop, taller, wearing sunglasses, told me that I fit the description of someone who broke into a womans house. Right down to the knit cap.
Barbara Sullivan made a knit cap for me. She knitted it in pinks and browns and blues and oranges and lime green. No one has a hat like this. It doesnt fit any description that anyone would have. I looked at the second cop. I clasped my hands in front of me to stop them from shaking.
For the record, I said to the second cop, Im not a criminal. Im a college professor. I was wearing my faculty ID around my neck, clearly visible with my photo.
<SNIP>
For the rest of this amazing narrative please use the link at the top of the post.
NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)I'm a PI and I'm always told my vehicle matches a description... I bet you could pull police reports and find no recent break in with a description given that matched.
merrily
(45,251 posts)http://www1.macys.com/shop/product/michael-michael-kors-cimarron-hooded-down-puffer?ID=1631560
The correct description of the outfit in the photo is a knit hat and a jacket--what millions of males and females wear in winter.
TeeYiYi
(8,028 posts)...isn't the problem. It's wearing a hat and a jacket while black that's apparently a nationwide cause for alarm.
TYY
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,639 posts)My tension rose along with the author's. I can still feel my heart beating a bit harder than usual.
I knew, because he was writing it in the past tense, that they did not kill him, but that didn't help much.
Thank you for posting this, Photographer.
Keep doing it.
Photographer
(1,142 posts)I teared up when he was thinking about the woman on the red coat.
cyberswede
(26,117 posts)Really potent story.
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)I too understand how they feel now, sort of. I mean you can never really feel that fear and hopelessness unless you've lived it.
TransitJohn
(6,932 posts)I wasn't in fear for my life, though....afraid of getting the shit kicked out of me, but not afraid of dying.
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)Journeyman
(15,036 posts)It happens in our name, whether we agree with it or not.
peacebird
(14,195 posts)Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Please don't say that any more. Nothing is to be gained from that, and no reasoning person wants you to feel that way.
Positive actions to change attitudes is necessary, not feelings of guilt.
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)I don't think you can stop it.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)HuckleB
(35,773 posts)And your coat doesn't look very puffy to me, either. I love the hat! I'm jealous of that, but not of what you had to go through.
Of course, I'm a 48-year-old white guy, but even unshaven, and unshowered, in need of a haircut, that has not happened to me. (Well, ok, I was pulled over a few times in high school, just because I drove a '72 Mach I Mustang, but that was still a very different stereotype situation.)
Take care, and thanks for sharing.
That said, I don't think I could pull off those shoes. They are cool, though. What are they?
Photographer
(1,142 posts)HuckleB
(35,773 posts)Bernardo de La Paz
(49,007 posts)As I write this I see the latest post made the same mistake. Perhaps an edit would help?
Photographer
(1,142 posts)fbc
(1,668 posts)I handed the officer my license and she asked for my registration and insurance. I reached back behind the passenger seat and pulled it out of the pocket in the back of the seat.
I thought later, "If I had been black, I might have been shot for that move."
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)So far to go....
nashville_brook
(20,958 posts)this is life, as it is lived. it's exactly how anyone would feel. it's the feeling of having our freedom taken away and no one caring. we're supposed to live in a "Democracy" that "means something" as in someone hates us for our "freedoms." What freedoms are those, anyway?
The freedom to shop at Target? Or be a target? or target others so your privilege isn't questioned.
We're just pawns and bystanders watching neoliberalism systematically corrode democracy and we're chanting, "go, go, go!"
I imagined sitting in the back of a police car while a white woman decides if I am a criminal or not. If I looked guilty being detained by the cops imagine how vile I become sitting in a cruiser? I knew I could not let that happen to me. I knew if that were to happen, I would be dead.
Nothing I am, nothing I do, nothing I have means anything because I fit the description.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,007 posts)(one description of an officer lifted from the narrative to make a point about the description the woman gave about a black man)
Thank you for writing today.
MerryBlooms
(11,770 posts)cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
MissDeeds
(7,499 posts)I cannot imagine the pain and humiliation of being profiled simply because of the color of your skin. I can't believe this crap still happens. It breaks my heart.
safeinOhio
(32,688 posts)Black Like Me. Changed my life as that book gave me a hint as to what life would be like if I was not white. I think anyone that does not think racism doesn't exist should try that experiment, walk thru stores, drive a car at night and deal with LEOs. Even though I'm white I have been a member of the NAACP for many years thanks to that book.
thanks for the post.
malthaussen
(17,204 posts)Response to Photographer (Original post)
safeinOhio This message was self-deleted by its author.
SoapBox
(18,791 posts)...a loss for words.
What a terrifying situation.
kaiden
(1,314 posts)melman
(7,681 posts)In that same city. And I'm a white guy.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)as you were being questioned, and wondering about the very real possibility that your face was going to be smashed into the concrete for nothing more than being born into skin of your color.
Because you look like most of the cops, your most likely worst outcome is a ticket, maybe jail. His was death.
Not even close to the exact same thing, just so you know.
shadowmayor
(1,325 posts)Professor Photographer - to my old eye you look straight outta America, or even worse; straight outta campus. What a typical tragedy. If you're ever in the El Paso area let me buy you a burrito the size of your arm that will melt your face and make your belly happy for quite some time. Keep on teaching America, we need it!
Photographer
(1,142 posts)I put a disclaimer up at the top now and apologise for any confusion.
shadowmayor
(1,325 posts)Noticed it after I posted. I jumped right to the link and wanted to reply. Thank you for posting!
Paka
(2,760 posts)As upsetting as this is, it is beautifully written and EVERYONE, needs to read it. I'm too disturbed just reading this to even continue typing. I have to stop and shed a few tears.
napkinz
(17,199 posts)thank you for sharing!
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)Because they fit the description of killer Cops.
Mr.Bill
(24,303 posts)in the 70s and 80s, I was pulled over by police and approached by them while walking in public places under the guise of "you look like someone we are looking for" more times than I can count accurately. But at least dozens of times. I never got a ticket, and once I showed ID and appeared to be sober, I was let go. I was in my 20s or 30s then and drove decent cars.
The catch here is that I am as white as Opie Taylor. My point is, this doesn't only happen to people of color. Cops go fishing like this all the time.
I tried to go to the link in the OP, but it would not work for me. I sure would like to read the rest of the story.
arikara
(5,562 posts)I tried it earlier and it crashed my browser. Now it just gives an error message. I'll try later.
mountain grammy
(26,624 posts)His ID was hanging around his neck!
onecaliberal
(32,864 posts)spanone
(135,844 posts)BeanMusical
(4,389 posts)This is a horror story, I'm all sweaty and shaking.
retrowire
(10,345 posts)This comradarie should extend across us all. That unity is a love we should all share. We are ALL family.
pansypoo53219
(20,981 posts)try to stay happy.
jeepers, now i have a cousin w/ a adopted black girl. in the future, she could have black boys. and now that my uncle has a black girlfriend.....
livingonearth
(728 posts)One I recognized as my next door neighbor's autistic grandson. He's a black kid(about 18 at the time) and I could hear him yelling "I live here"..."I live here" over and over. I looked out my front window and saw a policeman and a policewoman struggling with him, trying to handcuff him up against their car. Now this is a good kid, whose only problem is he has a hard time speaking clearly because of his condition. He doesn't understand things all the time, and tends to get upset easily. He was struggling slightly with the police, but it was because he didn't know better. The police were starting to get a little rough with him. I figured I better intervene before something happened. He did live with his grandmother at the time and had every right to be there.
I opened my front door and cautiously called out "officer he lives there".
I remember the woman cop reaching to her side as she turned my way. "We have this. Please don't interfere" she shouted.
At first I got a little worried that I had frightened her too much, but she quickly relaxed when she looked straight at me.
It was probably because I was in my pajamas that she relaxed and took her hand away from her gun. Nobody is a threat in pajamas, right? Some might say my being white didn't hurt either, but I don't know that for sure. I can't really say my race made a difference, so I'm going to say it was the pajamas and give her the benefit of the doubt.
"He really does live there" I insisted. "I know the family".
When the young man called back to me in recognition and stopped struggling, they could clearly see I knew what I was talking about.
They went much easier on him.
The police said they would "check on it", and asked me to "please go inside", which I did.
Later I found out the reason the whole incident ever happened was because the young man had gone outside the house and had gotten locked out with no one else home. He had been noticed trying several other doors in the house trying to get back in.
That was about 10 years ago, and the young man still thanks me every time he sees me. I always remind him he wasn't doing anything wrong.
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)I wonder if we will ever evolve past this garbage.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)DashOneBravo
(2,679 posts)And that happens every day.
liberalnarb
(4,532 posts)That's not the type of story you hear every day... Even though the same thing happens to someone every day. Not all of them walk away alive. Great story I'm glad you're not hurt.
Photographer
(1,142 posts)liberalnarb
(4,532 posts)Photographer
(1,142 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)JohnnyRingo
(18,636 posts)Many white males like myself have difficulty putting ourselves in such a position as a black man.
I've been detained myself, but never had to fear for my life. I never thought I'd do time for matching a general description.
Thanx for sharing.
jmowreader
(50,560 posts)"You fit the description of a person who just committed a sexual assault in (names housing area three miles from where I was.)"
'What's the description of the person?'
"White male, slender build, brown hair, between 5'6" and 6'0."
'That's the description of half the male soldiers in the 10th Mountain Division.'
"Uhh...yeah, you're right..."
Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)BlueMTexpat
(15,369 posts)How tragic - and shameful - that it should happen to anyone, merely for the color of their skin!
NOT a puffy jacket, ID visible around the neck, and STILL harassed for 35+ minutes ... it is truly an act of courage for any black man to venture outside in today's Murica.
I suppose that the silver lining was that the cop didn't shoot this gentleman when he took his hands out of his pockets.
I remember an incident when the wonderful Wendell Pierce (of The Wire & Treme, among others) was stopped while driving to a funeral - dressed accordingly and with two toddlers in the back seat! He described the most dangerous moment for any black man as being stopped by a cop. http://www.upworthy.com/an-actor-on-the-way-to-a-family-funeral-was-surprised-by-the-words-the-policeman-screamed-at-him
Note the irony: http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/11/the_wire_star_wendell_pierce_s.html
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Pierce
King_Klonopin
(1,306 posts)Sounds suspicious to me -- especially the clothing part! Can you prove your innocence??
I grew up in Dedham. Back then it was similar to other parts of Boston which practiced covert segregation, if you catch my drift. Some were overt (Southie, Charlestown, West Roxbury, etc.)
Dedham is much more racially diverse 40 years later. Upward mobility with the ability to move to suburbs is available to more people from the city, including all minorities, which is a good thing. However, it doesn't sit well with some of the "zeitgeists".
The area where he was harassed is a section of Boston called Jamaica Plain, which has had a diverse population for decades, especially spanish-speaking minorities and people of color, with a lot of younger, eclectic, college-aged people who attend the local schools. He looks no different than any other person who may be walking the street .... but this is Boston which has its own unresolved, cultural lags and ghosts from the past. His story is quite believable, common and sad.
robbob
(3,531 posts)I moved from Montreal to Boston in 1998 and returned to Canada right after the USA went to war in Iraq in 2004. Or, as I like to put it, when I moved to the U.S. they were impeaching a president over a blow job, and when I returned they were rabidly cheering for an illegally declared war against a country that posed no threat and had nothing to do with 9/11.
Anyway, I rented an apartment from my aunt Mary, another Canadian ex-pat who was in her 80's and had spent most of her life married to the Boston equivalent of Archie Bunker, a virulently racist and angry man from all accounts; I never met him as he had passed away many years earlier.
Aunt Mary made a point to warn me about all the "Spay-nish" people just down the hill from us on Center street who I needed to watch out for, and as a newcomer to the city, but also someone who had played piano in a number of Salsa/Merrengue bands, I took her advice only partially to heart, but added several grains of salt to the mix.
Another thing I did for the first time in many years was go out and buy a bike. So there I am, returning from the local supermarket on one of my first outings on the new bike, about to head up the hill (Chestnut Ave., I believe), my right arm clutching several bags, when I notice, directly in front of me a large pothole!
Of course, rusty as I was at riding a bike (one handed, loaded down with groceries), I immeadiatly grabbed at the brake with my free hand. Which unfortunately was the front brake. Right as my bike dipped into the pothole.
Of course, the bike pitched forward and I flew face first into the concrete. Almost immeadiatly I was swarmed by a group of young Latino's who had watched the whole disaster from the door of a local youth center. One of them grabbed my bike, another couple the groceries and a third took me by the arm.
"Hey man, I think you broke your nose!" Blood was poaring down my face. "I'm a boxer; bend over man, just let it out." Which I did, at the same time in shock and worried about my groceries and my bike. Another kid runs back into the center and returns with a tool kit. My bikes handlebars were all crooked and he set to work fixing them.
The bleeding stopped soon enough, these beautiful kids handed me back my bike and my groceries, I thanked them profusely from the bottom of my grateful heart, and continued on my way.
And that was the last time I ever listened to anything Aunt Mary had to say about the "Spay-nish".
King_Klonopin
(1,306 posts)Nothing to fear but fear itself....
Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)madokie
(51,076 posts)what have we become?
ewagner
(18,964 posts)frightening and so well-written that for the first time I understand the depth of the fear he felt.
Dustlawyer
(10,495 posts)I was flying from Houston to Dallas on SW Airlines after 9/11. I went through security (it had not change to "Homeland Security" yet and went to the gates that were in a big round pod. I went to check in and get my boarding pass (no assigned seating) when the girl looked me up and her facial expression changed radically and she looked up at me suspiciously. She grabbed the sleeve of her supervisor at the next terminal and in a loud voice said "That's funny, I've never seen it do that before (SW's code for terrorist)"! The supervisor immediately looked at me instead of the computer screen, then the screen, then back at me again. Then she says they are having computer problems and they will be right back. They walked through a door behind them. I leaned over the counter and looked at the screen which was flashing "Alert Security!"
They came back out and the supervisor hands me my boarding pass and points to my gate and instructed me three times to go sit at my gate. As I walked away I knew I hadn't heard the last of this, whatever it was. Since I was early, another flight still had to leave that gate before mine and all of the seats were full of businessmen flying home for the weekend, the whole terminal was packed with thousands of people. I found a seat on a window ledge overlooking the Tarmac next to two businessmen. After a little while the flight at my gate boarded and so I got up to go sit in a seat. As I passed the "Standby counter the young lady who checked me in was there and made an announcement for me to go the the Standby counter. I was behind her so I tapped her on the shoulder and she turned and screamed, still holding the microphone. Then she looked over to the window where I had been a shouted into the microphone "He's over here, he's over here!" Four cops run at me with guns drawn while the whole terminal was as silent as the old E.F. Hutton commercials. They took my license at gunpoint when another man with the same name showed up because of the announcement, he had the same common name as me. He asked me what was going on and I responded by saying that if either of us has so much as a parking ticket outstanding, we are going downtown.
Turns out a terrorist from South Yeman used my name as an alias (so the FBI says) and my name was on the "No Fly List." 14 years later I am still on the No Fly List along with millions of others and flying is a bitch, but they don't even bat an eye when it pops up on the screen since it happens so much now. Back then they were so paranoid I could have been shot!
Due to what happened in California the other day they now want to deny my right to purchase a gun since I am on a list that they never purge and only add to. I think this gives them probable cause to spy on me (maybe I am getting paranoid too, but I don't think so). I own a pistol, but don't have any real love of guns, but the knee jerk reactions of politicians piss me off! Now they want to ban anyone on the No Fly List from being able to purchase a firearm. Where will this all end? This paranoia of young black men, terrorist, whoever is getting out of control and our media is a big cause. I am behind Bernie when he says he wants to bust up the media oligarchy and reform the police state. Feel the Bern!
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)Once riding my bike home a cop asked me to stop and explained with a chuckle that a guy who had a description just like me, long hair, dressed in black, with a green backpack, on a bike, and he asked if I could just unzip my backpack to show thale lack of bags with dollar signs on them, I laughed and did so, he told me to have a good day and to ride safe.
The second time was late at night with my brother, our local 7-11 was closed for floor cleaning so we went to the next one which was downtown. Two cops stopped us, one was kinda serious and was trying to ask for our I'd, and the other was just standing there saying "it's not them, stop wasting their time" they argued, apologized and left us alone.
The difference (aside from almost 20 years ago) is that I'm white, I never felt afraid. Never was a hand on a holster. I know that had I been a shade darker both times would have turned out very differently.
There is once more I remember, it was again late at night on our way to the local 7-11 (we were night owls) and a cop pulled over and flagged us aside. He said that he was new and wanted to get to know the locals better and thelat the 7-11 guy mentioned we were out there most nights, he introduced himself and gave us his card.
That's how all interactions should be. No one should be afraid of the police.
Hekate
(90,714 posts)Yeah, I know, I feel sick