Police Brutality – Tenn Ben Says

My first negative interaction with police occurred when I was 15 years old. I remember it was a Christmas break. My brother was home from his freshman year in college and my cousin and I went with him and a friend to a Jerome Rowe party. It was somewhere downtown, I don’t remember where I was. I was still in the party that was about to end. People were making their way to the exit. As I walked down the steps I saw my brother being walked to a police van in handcuffs. I ran up. “Why are you arresting my brother?” “Because I told him to move on and he didn’t.” “It isn’t illegal to stand on the street and he was waiting for me.” “I don’t care and if you keep asking me questions I’m going to arrest you too.” My brother had his keys in his handcuffed hands and threw them to me. He said some choice words before the van doors were closed.

I drove my brother’s old fleetwood cadillac home. I stayed on the surface streets because I didn’t have a fucking license. I dropped his friend at home on the way. I made it home at close to 2am and woke my parents. My parents got up in the middle of the night to go get him. We made it home. They found my brother and brought him home. The charges were dropped immediately. I didn’t sleep that night. I haven’t thought of that story in years. But that story lives in my body. It lives in the suspicion I’ve had for all police since that moment.

I’ve had positive interaction with police since then. Mostly positive I’ll admit. But I have eyes and ears. I’m not blind. I see. I see the statistics – I see the how often police in this country kill people, black people in particular. I see the people who are over policed and arrested most. I see who remains silent when families are mourning and asking for justice. My suspicion is justified.

I have not taught my sons to hate police. I’ve taught them that most police are good, but there are bad people with badge. Honestly, I think the low barrier to entry, the weapon, and the power that comes with a badge is too enticing for certain personalities to resist. There are certain kinds of people who will be attracted to that for all the wrong reasons. Reimagining policing would start to weed some of that out. If you eliminate the shielding and protection of bad officers and focus on protecting and serving instead of catching bad guys, I believe the result would be different. If you focus on the mental health of officers (and the high amount of former military folks who become officers) you’d have a different result.

I have taught my sons to mind their hands when interacting with police. Don’t resist. I’ve told them it is ok to go to jail. Can you imagine telling your kid that? We can get you out of jail. We can deal with whatever charges are levied against you. I don’t want to scoop your body off of the street.

My oldest son is on the Autism Spectrum. He wears head phones everywhere. He doesn’t hear you if you aren’t making eye contact. If you surprise him, he very often swings fists in response. He is difficult to calm down when overstimulated. He tends to respond to the vibe of a situation before he can have a conversation. He moves instinctually. Watching the video of Jay Pharoah walking down the street after a jog while police approached him from behind with guns drawn scared the shit out of me. I immediately imagined my son in that situation. How can entrust the safety of one of the most precious parts of my life to people who see him as a threat before they know him? How can I entrust my safety to any of them if they won’t sniff out their own rotten eggs?

We try not to drive through rural areas at night. A few weeks ago we were thinking about driving to Texas. I didn’t really want to fly in the midst of a pandemic. As I thought through the logistics of the road trip, I realized I’d planned it to avoid driving through any rural areas at night. I thought about whether the SUV we’d rent would be tented. Police seem easier around families. I thought about where we might have to take bathroom and food breaks along the way. Driving across the Southeast. I was concerned about germs, the virus, and the people we’d encounter. What type of police are in these little towns? We decided to fly.

I would like to take a road trip without concern for my safety because of the color of my skin, specifically from police. I would love the privilege of worrying about garden variety things like whether we can grab food at a Wholefoods along the way instead of stopping for fast food. How nice the hotel is and if they have pool side bar service. For now I will catch my flight.

We need SERIOUS reform in police training and procedures AND we need people of privilege to stand up for others who cannot. I recently read this excerpt from Dr. King’s “Letter From A Birmingham Jail for #Thing1’s homework, and it completely reinforced my opinion that there is a need for people who are willing to make life uncomfortable for anyone who would stand by and do nothing while this child is brutalized. As well as punish anyone doing the brutalizing.

The excerpt that touched me most is below. But please read the essay in its entirety at The King Center Website.

“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.”