In the Dark Time of Police and Race
Yesterday as I was walking the dog, I came up onto Grand and was looking left and right. I didn't want to go sit at a cafe with Tegan at that moment, but I wanted to scope out my possibilities. There is a cafe with porch seating one block left and one block forward from my house-easy walking distance for the corgi and I. The street wasn't all that crowded, but there were plenty of people in the cafe, despite it still being a bit warm and sunny.
As I was looking at the cafe's seating, I noticed a police car and a policeman on the street in front of it. He had apparently stopped a man crossing the side street, who had been walking down the sidewalk. The man had on a bright white shirt and was carrying a plastic bag. I assumed he'd just come from one of the little grocery places down the street.
My intention was just to make the block and go home. But both the men were radiating tense body-language at each other. And the man with the shopping bag was an African American. So, like all of us these days I suppose, I stopped and tried to think through what was going on. All the people in the cafe- white. Policeman- white. Me- white. Man with shopping bag- black. Was he being stopped just for being black? Was he behaving oddly and the policeman thought he needed help? Was he endangering someone? Was he in danger?
So I just stopped in my tracks. Having been raised in a relatively violent culture, I know that when two men have started posturing, the only thing that will happen if a third party walks up is-- they'll feel like they have to posture more, and things can get out of hand. So I just stayed where I was, trusting that the professionalism of the policeman wouldn't break, and that the man with the shopping bag wouldn't become beligerent. But on the other hand, it seemed like the right thing to do, to make sure that's how this was going to play out.
They were just out of hearing, so I watched this play out as a dumb show for the most part. The policeman obviously asking questions. And the man with the shopping bag obviously being irritated. The man plopped down in the street with his legs outstretched and his hands slightly upraised. His little shopping bag was hanging from one of his hands. I noticed he was barefoot and thought, "He must live really close by to come out barefoot" and also, "Is something wrong with him that he's out in nice clothes but without shoes?"
The policeman started holding out both his hands in front of him in a clear "I don't have a gun in my hand" gesture. And the two of them kept eyeing each other and talking-- hackles raised, but obviously feeling the fact that they are on a street in broad daylight with an entire porch of coffee drinkers and a middle-aged woman with a dog watching. At some point the policeman is gesturing for the man to get up, but the man on the ground is shaking his head no, and is obviously asking for- what? reassurance? an apology? I could only hear the odd-word when one of them raised their voices. For instance the policeman's "Sir," and the man's "Can I stand back up? And eventually the policeman backs up a bit, hands still in clear sight. And the man on the ground gets up and continues coming down the sidewalk, shaking his head in irritation.
So I'm not sure what that story was about. If there was a right or a wrong or a mistake. Absolutely no way to tell. I'm sure that from the moment that the white policeman stopped the black man, both of them had a script running in their minds of all the ways this could go badly. You could see the tension playing out between them.
Tower Grove is far far south of Ferguson, but still-- it is all still part of St. Louis and its "counties." In the windows of my neighborhood, I see "Black Lives Matter" signs and enlarged xeroxes of teenagers who've been killed. I also see the Tower Grove police station just across Grand Street from the park itself. The neighborhood has gentrified (which mostly means, white people have moved in), but there are retired grandmothers and grandfathers of both races, who pre-date the change in the neighborhood. They sometimes don't have airconditioning and sit out on their porches to catch the breeze. They all say hello to me as I pass. I look friendly and I'm with a corgi- I must be all right. This is not a scary neighborhood at all. But it is a neighborhood that's aware of the racial tensions it's trying to overcome.
So so sad that the black man felt he needed to be really visible and demostrate that he was completely helpless in order to be safe. So so sad that the policeman felt like he needed to visibly show that his hands were empty in order to not be suspected of unprovoked violence. So so sad that a passerbyer felt she had to stay and be a witness to make sure neither of them would be falsely accused later.
I am hesitant to share this. Everyone has a view these days- So I fear that some of you will think I should have been braver, some that I should not have stopped, some that I am not using the right language to tell this story, some will want to tell me what I should have said or done, and some that I am not making the right person the villain in this story. But the same reason I could not turn away and walk home without making sure both of the men were all right, is the same impulse prompting me to share. This was the best I could do.