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If you& #39;re like me, and you& #39;ve mostly lived in predominantly white middle- & upper-middle-class suburbs your whole life, and you& #39;ve only ever experienced the police as a helpful, protective entity, then you& #39;re missing some critical context. /1 https://twitter.com/judydominick/status/1297920930497343488">https://twitter.com/judydomin...
The police exist for people like us--people who are formally educated and fully enfranchised, who own property and are empowered, who know lawyers or are lawyers. That& #39;s why we like them. That& #39;s why we wave to them when they drive by on patrol. /2
It wasn& #39;t until I began spending a lot of time in the disenfranchised neighborhoods of Atlanta, not doing volunteer work but building relationships with citizens who lived there, that I began to see another side of policing. /3
Once, when I was talking to a friend at a corner gas station in South Atlanta, I saw 3 police cruisers go through the intersection within 5 minutes. I saw one person get stopped for jaywalking and another get stopped for questioning. /4
So I asked my friend, "Is there something happening today? I see a lot of police activity." He said, "This is just how it is here every day. They& #39;re always stopping people and arresting them for minor infractions. That& #39;s how so many homeless people end up in jail." /5
I finally understood what James Baldwin was talking about in his 1966 essay, "A Report from Occupied Territory." Folks, there are things you can& #39;t understand if your body never enters/experiences certain parts of the city. /6 https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/report-occupied-territory/">https://www.thenation.com/article/a...
Then I began to learn how certain neighborhoods became so distressed & crime-ridden. It had nothing to do w/inherent racial inferiority or inherently inferior culture but sooooo much to do with white supremacy, Jim Crow, reaction to Brown v. Board, white flight, disinvestment. /7
