A Letter to White America from a “Safe Negro.”

July 19th, 2016 ikelove Leave a comment Go to comments

Dear White America,

I can be considered one of the “safe Negros,” you know, the one who’ve you told before that, “You’re not like them,” so I thought that maybe coming from me, you may be able to develop a greater empathy through my explanation of why Black people are up in arms about with the way we’re treated by law enforcement.

So what do I have to say for myself?

Well, I have never been arrested and as such, have no criminal record. I’ve lived in your neighbourhoods, gone to some of the best schools with your kids, eaten at and slept over your houses, and some of my friends from your demographic I’d save over just about 95% of my extended family (yea, most of my extended family suck as people). I have a college degree in Computer Engineering, and come from a hard working, successful family – my father is a retired physician, my mother a retired RN, and out of my three other siblings, one is an administrative judge, another is a physician, and another is an MBA from one of the top business schools in the country.

Growing up, many of you would commend me on what a polite, well-behaved, well-spoken, intelligent young man I was. Some of you would point to me and tell your kids to, “Be more like Ike,” and some of you have even pulled me aside requesting that I “try to talk some sense” into your sons because you didn’t like the direction they were going.

Moreover, unlike “them,” I know the difference between “ghetto English” and grammatically correct English. In fact, I can articulate myself well enough to have fooled many of you on the phone to think I was one of you.

Don’t worry, I wasn’t offended at the derogatory comments some of you made to me about minorities and immigrants when I was working as a cold-caller for a mortgage company, in fact, I thought it was funny. Growing up with in New York City with a diverse group of people, we used to make fun of each others’ ethnicities all day and laugh about it, so when I hear racist comments made by others, I’m usually amused, not offended. Chalk it up to my weird, dark sense of humour.

Plus, you’re excused because when some of you asked me what my nationality was and I told you I was a “real American” just like you, what were you supposed to think? Since I sounded like you it couldn’t have been anything other than White.

I also have a lot of friends who like me you would also deem to be not like “them.” We’re ambitious, forward thinking, intelligent people. In fact, if you were a fly on the wall for some of our conversations, you’d hear us speaking articulately and intelligently, sharing with each other things we’ve learned from thought provoking books we’ve read and documentaries and movies we’ve seen, talking with one another about our dreams, goals and ambitions, and encouraging one another on our individual paths to success.

Yea, we know “things happened” during this country’s history, but in our conversations, you don’t hear us complaining how you’re “keeping us down” because we don’t like being victims. We believe that ultimately, our success is our responsibility. We know that racism exists, but in no way would we allow ourselves to look at it as a hindrance to getting what we want. Just like you, we just want to be left alone to be able to pursue the lives we want to live.

As such, I don’t think you owe me anything. You don’t owe me a living, nor a job, nor your approval nor “recognition” to prove that I’m worth something. I can give all these things to myself. All I ask from you and any other person regardless of colour is that you give me the same respect you want for yourself.

Apparently, even if you’re one of the supposedly “safe ones” like me, I’m still labeled as a potential criminal such that holding my belt could be hazardous to my health because it’s seen as a threat to the public.

So this is the funny thing, I’ve been so “safe,” that at the age of 22 it almost got me killed.

One summer day, when casually walking to the subway from my house to meet some friends in the city, three burly White dudes with hostile faces jumped out of a car and belligerently told me “Come here!” Thinking I was about to get jumped by some random dudes, I took off running with the goal of getting to the train station to tell the cops that I was being chased. The men jump in the car and give chase, and after running three blocks, they catch up to me by cutting me off by crashing into a store, and jump out and say, “FREEZE! It’s the police.”

With their guns drawn, they handcuff me and take me into the back of their unmarked car while I’m asking repeatedly, “What did I do?”

They drive me around the corner where I sit in TIGHT handcuffs for about twenty minutes until two of the other officers involved come back to search me, run my info and ask me questions. They asked me why I ran, and I told them I thought I was about to get jumped, to which they responded, “Didn’t you notice the unmarked police car?” and I said, “No, I’ve never had to deal with the police so I didn’t even know what an unmarked police car looked like.”

They then tell me the reason they stopped me was because they saw me holding my belt and they thought I was carrying a gun.

Sound familiar?

After searching me, one of the officers then deemed me as “not a threat” and let me go. I consider myself lucky, because others in similar situations have gotten arrested, tasered, or even shot in the back for running.

Shoot, maybe I should’ve knocked over some old ladies for their purses in my hey day, it’d have learned me some “valuable” lessons, like what an unmarked cop car looks like.

You see White America, you haven’t lived it, but there is a certain perception of Black (and Latino) men perpetuated by the mass media that we’re all potentially thugs and criminals. Look at someone like me, ME, who’s never been arrested or been in trouble with the law, almost potentially getting shot because my innocently holding my belt was construed to mean I had a gun. Have any of you ever had to worry that holding your belt might be deemed as a threat to law enforcement?

I’m not telling fables here. There’s a whole host of Black lawyers, Doctors, celebrities, successful businessmen, and even a U.S. REPUBLICAN senator and also Barack Obama himself before he became President, who, despite staying on the right side of the law their entire lives, can recant experiences of being racially profiled and being harassed as if they were some sort of criminal. Bryant Gumbel, probably one of the “safest” Negros out there, and at the butt of the jokes of being the whitest Black guy alive even talked about his son being arrested for “walking while Black.”

How do some cops, after dealing with thousands of criminals over the course of their careers, seem not to ever develop a sense of who is potentially a troublemaker and who isn’t to the point that they’d stop a well dressed person of colour walking to his expensive house in a well-to-do neighbourhood and ask him “What are you doing here?” or “Is this your house?” because he looks “suspicious.”

What’s so suspicious about such a person? The way he walks? Was he acting “dodgy” while he was walking to his house or car? Or was it his ethnicity/race?

The day of the incident, I was dressed preppy style, in khakis and brown shoes with an Abercrombie and Fitch shirt tied around my waist. I wasn’t even dressed like a thug.

Thankfully, I don’t have to deal with criminals on a daily basis, but it seems that I and many others seem to have a better judgment than cops of who looks suspicious.

Now I will admit, I don’t trust the media. I’m aware that they like to use “fear porn” to divide and manipulate us, that’s why I don’t watch the news. I do know that though these unfortunate instances that involve minorities and cops are only a TINY fraction of all police interactions, they get the most press. I do know that the good cops far outweigh the bad cops. I’m aware that all cops want to do is go home safe to their families. I also know that more Whites are killed by cops than Blacks.

However, with Blacks being 9 tomes as likely to get killed by a cop and more likely to be harassed by cops, ALL Black men, including the ones that are law abiding citizens, have some type of concern in the back our minds of the possibility that if we get stopped by a cop we still may get shot EVEN IF we comply. This is because in the eyes of law enforcement, we know that we are ALL painted with the same broad brush of criminality, rather than as individuals.

So White America, if I had gotten shot during that incident I had with the cops and it was all over the news, would you have AUTOMATICALLY assumed that the cops were in the right or that I must’ve been some sort of thug?

If I, God forbid, ever wind up being at the wrong place at the wrong time with one of the “bad apples” in law enforcement, and wound up getting roughed up or shot during a routine traffic stop or while being stopped and frisked when simply walking down the street, all because the officer(s) thought I was armed or suspicious, what would you say?

Would you automatically say I must’ve deserved it or open your minds to the fact that there may actually be a problem that minorities have known about for YEARS?

Would you be outraged at the overreach of police or would you think the officers were well within their rights to do what they did?

White America, we can’t live peacefully together if we refuse to try to understand one another. I love this country, and think I have just as much a chance to succeed as anyone else, regardless of colour or ethnicity. However, reflect on this, that though we’re all Americans, we don’t all share the same experiences. The Black and Latino population definitely have a more negative perception of law enforcement due to the overall way we’ve been treated, and as such, just because it hasn’t been part of your experience doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Hope this gave you some insight.

Cheers,

Ike Love