I lived in a community that was majority black in Chicago until middle school. I went to a majority black school through middle school. I am not unfamiliar with being poor, as my family spent time on food stamps and going to the county health clinic. My father spent most of my high school years in jail for theft and possession of crack. Many of the people that I knew from middle and high school have spent extensive time in jail. I got the shit kicked out of me more than once when I didn’t go along on their adventures, some of which ended them in jail. I’ve been searched multiple times by the police for being a white kid in the black neighborhood where I lived. I’ve had the shit kicked out of me and had my life threatened numerous times for being the white kid living in a poor black neighborhood. Sometimes by the same people that I played basketball with the day before and went to school with and thought were friends. I’ve been the target of racism. I’ve seen white racism against black friends. I could’ve easily settled into the life of the people in those neighborhoods. I made choices and pursued actions, despite many failures and against much adversity, that led to me graduating from UCF with a college degree that I paid for at the age of 27.
I’m sure that’s the upbringing you’d have pegged me for, right?
I also married a police officer. She is an amazing woman who works the worst neighborhood in the community. She believes in community oriented policing and treats everyone with respect and dignity. I’ve consoled her when she worked a drive-by shooting where a thug fired an AK-47 at two teens, resulting in an innocent girl dying. One round blew out her back and destroyed all of her organs. I listened to her frustration that the family and friends of this innocent victim went out and marched for a violent criminal that they didn’t know in Minnesota but can’t be bothered to make one positive action for the innocent killed in their own community who was their sister, cousin, niece, daughter. Ive seen the police be the only people to console grieving mothers. I’ve seen all of those people that you portray as evil struggle with the after effects and the inability to do anything because no one in the community will say anything. Many of them cried for weeks. They got into the job to help and are finding it harder and harder to do so because of the sentiment that is getting stirred up for political purposes. She did not get into the job to be unfairly demonized by people who are unwilling to look at all of the facts surrounding situations before proclaiming that she and her colleagues are wrong, criminal, and evil. To constantly hear “we don’t know all the facts but our police are wrong.”
I’ve seen or lived both sides of this debate. I feel that I have a good perspective to share even though I have opinions that differ from those that seem to be prevalent right now. I’m also not going to just be silent while you and others misrepresent reality because you are either ignorant of the totality of circumstances or you have an ulterior motive that must be served at all costs. Maybe, just maybe, one time you’ll actually challenge your own assumptions and consider a different perspective.
