It’s About White Supremacy

I don’t even know how to fully articulate what I’m feeling right now, but I’m feeling a lot of things so here goes. Also - sorry, Mom, that this is how you’re getting this story.

On Saturday night, hundreds of police in riot gear lined up on the corner of my Brooklyn street, about 100 feet from my doorstep. That afternoon, a protest had started about 15 blocks away at the bottom of Prospect Park as thousands of New Yorkers angry about systemic violence by police on Black people, spurned by the newest brutal murder caught on film, the tragic death of George Floyd, took to the streets. An oppressive police force that acts without recourse is more destructive to our city and society than a virus, so, despite being the city with the highest pandemic rates, we came out.

A friend and I went to the protest together and after some time walked up through the park then back down along the side. Suddenly, 20 police vans with sirens on flew past us, heading down to where we had started. Then another 10. Then another 10. Then 20 all at once. Then a couple more. Helicopters started to appear. Some friends nearby started sending updates - it looks like it’s moving south, it looks like it’s moving west, it looks like its moving to your house. We walked by where the protest started. It was pretty quiet, so we turned to walk home.

About three blocks from my house, we ran into a wall of police in riot gear, stopping protesters from going any further. They threatened us to stay on the sidewalks and refused to let the protesters through. After a while, many turned to march the other direction and when it was down to about a 1:1, the police moved in and arrested three people while we watched.

After I got home, I started seeing the videos from the rest of the city. Police SUVs mowing people down. Representatives being arrested and pepper sprayed. Cops opening moving car doors on protesters and pulling masks off to pepper spray.

There’s more, there’s so much more - so many more cities, so many more protests, so many more arrests, so much more violence. Every day there’s even more more. But back to Saturday evening in Brooklyn. At this point, there had been helicopters overhead for a couple hours, but as night fell, sounds were getting closer. A loud noise I couldn’t fully understand happened (it was firecracker, it’s ok) and I ran up to my roof to see what was going on - which is when I first saw the line of riot gear, the protesters throwing glass bottles and trash cans, and then the police surge one way while everyone else fled. They seemed to be down the street now, so I went out front, but as I stood, looking around, they re-formed, this time lined up facing me. I was standing there, in flip flops and a daze, when I heard someone say, RUN. And even though I was feet from my door, I ran.

I only got about half way down the block so as soon as I could, I got back to my door and decided this was my new job - I was going to let people in the next time anyone said RUN. A man with a bicycle had hopped up my stairs while I was running so I asked if he wanted to come in, which he graciously accepted. When I went out to see if it was safe for him, a mother and her sleeping toddler in a stroller two doors down was calling for help. They lived a few blocks away and were trying to get home. The man grabbed the stroller over his head, baby and all, and we all huddled in my doorway until I could make sure she could get to her block.

I stayed by the door til about 1am, when it finally quieted, telling people that if they needed to go inside, they could come in. One woman ended up staying with me for probably close to an hour and at the end of the night asked for my number, saying that we’re family now.

Two different women asked how I felt about this happening on my block. One was a local, one grew up in the Bronx. To both, I said, I’ve never witnessed anything like this. And both said, Oh. I have.

In the last 72 hours I have been radicalized and humbled in ways that I have never. It is a deep privilege to have gotten 35 years without witnessing anything like this. My whiteness is privilege, my upbringing is privilege, the amount of my life that I haven’t had this searing, deep anger is privilege. Sure, I’ve been reading and thinking about and dealing with my own white supremacy for minute here, but this was different and, fuck, am I angry.

I spent Sunday two doing two things: reading about white fragility and telling people on social media that the police force is broken. And today, Monday, I’m here. I will now share my responses to some recurring questions, in case it’s helpful as you talk to the other white people in your life about what’s going on.

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I have people I know/love/respect in the police force and am worried for their safety. I do not want to see violence done to them either and I know that they are there to protect and serve, not to do harm, and are just as upset by all of this as you are. If you criticize the police, you are putting my loved ones in harms’ way and isn’t that just as bad?

This is not about if there are any people trying to do good in the police force or about intention. This is about systemic brutality and racism, about the response to Blackness being oppression and violence, about corruption and how power corrupts. When a vast number of the population implores you to not call the police because it will do them more harm than good, when the response to criticism is punishment, the system is broken no matter how many good people may be in it.

If people are turning against the police force it’s because the police force has not turned against itself and done what it needs to do to hold itself accountable. Police may be regularly putting themselves in harms way and therefore be afraid, but they are also the ones with power and unless they learn to deal with that power constructively, it needs to be taken away.

I am not condoning doxxing or assault, let alone death. But the other day, a parked police car suddenly sped across my intersection and pulled up on the sidewalk in front of three men of color “because they were jaywalking.” I have jaywalked in front of that cop car approximately 700 times; this was about intimidation and making sure that these men knew that they were being watched. Do not conflate criticism with oppression and do not forget the power imbalances at play here.

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We need to figure out how to coexist - we’ll always need an armed police force to keep rule of law.

Do we? I mean that very sincerely. The UK doesn’t arm it’s police force and all of Europe has significantly lower crime rates than the US. We have decided that this is how this works - that the only answer to how to have order is to create laws then give a handful of people power, riot gear, and impunity to enforce them. But if parts of the population are already opting out of the system, do we really NEED the police? What about community accountability? What if we created an entirely new way to think about law and power and justice? It would be hard work to get there and it would involve a lot of people giving up a lot of power and privilege but - wouldn’t it be worth it?

A police force is the easy way out. And with so many other easy ways, it is built on the destruction of our most vulnerable people. Don’t forget that, either.

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I’m ok with protesters, but looting is irresponsible and a bridge too far. If you’re going to loot, you should just go home.

Couple of things. First of all - of all of the things we’re talking about here (civilians being murdered by the people who supposedly protect them, racial profiling and violence, systemic poverty, toxic masculinity, etc), I’m honestly not that worried about some property damage. Businesses have insurance for these things. Windows don’t have feelings, you can just replace them.

Second of all. These protests did not erupt in a vacuum. People have been trying to peacefully protest for months, years, decades, generations, and the brutality hasn’t ceased. What is the correct way to protest? Black people have tried to prove in every way they can that they deserve to be heard and let to live and in return we punish them. If they take a knee, we blacklist them. If they announce they have a dream, we assassinate them. If they become president, we elect the person who claimed it was illegitimate. Every single one of those non-violent acts has gotten us here. How you can expect continued civility by a population that has been routinely had their personhood denied and abused? Do you not have a breaking point? If you were afraid how you would be perceived every time you went birding, wouldn’t you get the impulse to set something on fire? I’m angry and I only just started! These protests are the results of years of oppression being met with a police force itching to fight. So a Target gets looted. They’re taking it in stride, why shouldn’t you?

And just quickly: by implying that people should just go home, you’re implying that by being violent they are asking for violence, no matter how much harder that violence may be returned. It’s classic victim blaming. And what got us here in the first place (the perceived violence of Black people being used to justify violence upon them). Just… FYI.

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I’m totally with you, I am, this is really bad, and I’m upset that our police force is hurting people. But what are we supposed to do?

First of all, thank you for asking me and not asking a person of color. Which, while we’re here, the first thing is to not ask a person of color to solve white supremacy for you. Talk to other white people, read books, do the work. But also: check in on your Black friends and see if they need anything. And if you don’t have any, make some. Like, real ones.

But again - what we’re talking about here is the ways that Black people in the United States have been systematically oppressed since they were first brought over here on boats to be slaves, and the ways that has left them economically and physically vulnerable to further abuse and destruction. And we’re talking about state and federal governments willing to enact further, sustained violence rather than take any accountability or change.

So what do we do? We stop rewarding the abusers and we invest in the ones we have been abusing. Call your cities and states and tell them to slash the budgets of your police departments and redistribute those funds to the things that would actually address the root causes at play here: living wages, health care including mental health services, education reform, affordable housing, climate change. Do not underestimate the trauma of living in or on the edge of poverty and how it has been used as a bludgeon and justification for further abuse. Oh and - tax the rich (whose money comes from profiteering off the backs of cheap labor and destroying the earth) to pay for it.

Give your money to Black-owed businesses, Black-run nonprofits and hold it in Black-owned banks. Listen to what Black people say they need from you.

Really think about the world you want to live in and what it would take to get there. Then do that.

And remember: Black Lives Matter.