If you're like me, and you've mostly lived in predominantly white middle- & upper-middle-class suburbs your whole life, and you've only ever experienced the police as a helpful, protective entity, then you're missing some critical context. /1 https://twitter.com/judydominick/status/1297920930497343488

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's why we like them. That's why we wave to them when they drive by on patrol. /2

It wasn'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're always stopping people and arresting them for minor infractions. That'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't understand if your body never enters/experiences certain parts of the city. /6 https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/report-occupied-territory/

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

I think that's why I don't have patience for attempts to frame the race issue as disagreement between two equal entities. It's a clear case of the strong crushing the weak over and over and over again. /8