I’ve been reading and watching a lot about cases of ‘Out while black’. The idea behind these things is that people (generally white and generally female) are calling the cops on black people for doing basic things in areas where these callers don’t think black people belong.
In some cases the callers are going to extraordinary lengths to pursue the black people. In one instance a woman believed that a black man who was leading around two white children had kidnapped the children. Her basis was racial and also due to the fact that the man would not let her talk to the kids privately. She stalked them in her car while she was on the line with the cops, following them from location to location until the cops could arrive. Another video showed a woman blocking the entrance to her apartment building because she didn’t believe the black man entering actually lived there. She demanded name and ID and ‘who he was there to see’ but when he claimed to live there she followed him to his apartment and still demanded his name after he opened his own door.
I’m a bit old school when it comes to crime. I’m used to a world where criminals really are not polite. Here’s what I know from that world: If someone was kidnapping two kids and you followed them and demanded things of them, you would get hit. If you barred a person’s way to their home and then followed them to their door, you would get hit. In many of these cases history suggests you would get hit. The fact that you are not immediately being pummeled ought to indicate that this person is not a bad guy.
Obviously that isn’t the real problem. The real problem is a certain stigma and expectation in regards to black men–particularly young black men. Moreover, we are in an era where people feel it is their right to get in your business and ultimately feel they have some manner of power over you, though I cannot understand where this feeling comes from.
It is a trip. See for yourself.