White Fragility Digest #3: 15 May 2018

[MrScorpio]

Security questions Black dad deemed ‘suspicious’ for pushing sick son in a stroller
Donald Sherman was just trying to give his sick son some air.

By TheGrio - May 14, 2018

Link to tweet

Another day, another “Let’s call authorities on Black people for no reason” story. Today’s story comes from a dad in Washington, DC.

Donald Sherman‘s little boy had a fever, so he stayed home with the tike and decided to take him out for some air at a nearby park, Kingman Island. There was nothing out of the ordinary, just a dad pushing his son in a stroller.

But half an hour into his walk, a security officer in a marked vehicle flagged him down and told him that a woman called in to say that there was a “suspicious man” walking with a baby on the path.

When the woman was asked to describe the man’s race, she reportedly declined to do so. Lucky for Sherman, the security officer did not press him, detain him, or call the actual police. She simply let him know that someone had made a complaint about him.

Sherman is pretty sure the complainant was a white woman on a bike who passed by him and his boy a little earlier. He took to Facebook to explain the situation and why it’s so dangerous to call police or authorities on Black people for no reason.

https://thegrio.com/2018/05/14/dc-dad-stroller-suspicious/

"White people in North America live in a social environment that protects and insulates them from race-based stress. This insulated environment of racial protection builds white expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering the ability to tolerate racial stress, leading to what I refer to as White Fragility. White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium."

Robin DiAngelo, Ph.D

The Digest will be posted as needed...

White Fragility Digest Archive:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210609305

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210612268

[MrScorpio]

3. Would you like to speculate an answer to your own question?

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

6. Wypipo is why ndr... they're here and, unfortunately, they're not going away.

All you can do is call these racists out on their bullshit and, hopefully, shame them into making this stop. Thanks to Mr. Scorpio for posting... hope this helps in that regard.

[MrScorpio]

2. Symone Sanders Straightens Out Nosy MOTHERF*CKER Who Said Her Nails Are Not 'APPROPRIATE' For TV

By Erin White May 14, 2018

Link to tweet

Being a public woman in general, but a public black woman, especially, is hard as hell. Due to the cruel standards that we place on women to look, speak, and act a certain way at all times, it’s nearly impossible for black women to present their authentic selves in professional settings. So when a fan thought it was their place to critique CNN commentator Symone Sanders’ nail art claiming that long nails are “not appropriate when you are on CNN TV and discussing […] politics,” Sanders, who served as the press secretary for Bernie Sanders during his 2016 presidential bid, clapped back with absolute clarity that her professional dress isn’t her problem, it’s yours.

http://afropunk.com/2018/05/symone-sanders-straightens-out-nosy-motherfcker-who-said-her-nails-are-not-appropriate-for-tv/

[GeorgeGist]

4. ❄❄?

[MrScorpio]

5. 11 More Things You Can't Do While Black (or Brown)

Link to tweet

Napping on campus? In your own building? Really?

BRANDON E. PATTERSONMAY. 9, 2018 6:00 AM


The latest addition to the list of things you apparently can’t do while black is a doozy.

On Monday, a white graduate student at Yale called campus police on a black classmate who was sleeping on a sofa in the common room of the building where both students lived—Lolade Siyonbola, a grad student in Yale’s African studies program, had fallen asleep while studying.

Siyonbola was detained for more than 15 minutes as officers tried to verify she was a student. The spelling of her name on her student ID apparently didn’t match the spelling in the database the officers used to look her up—which is really not all that surprising. Afterward, she posted two videos of the ordeal to Facebook. In one of them (below), which has hundreds of thousands of views, an officer asks for her ID. Siyonbola asks why, and another cop says they need to “make sure you belong here.”

“I deserve to be here. I paid tuition like everybody else. I am not going to justify my existence here,” Siyonbola protests later after one of the officers asks about the assignment she was working on. After a bit more back and forth, she adds, “I’m not going to be harassed.”

When they finally let her be, one of the officers tells Siyonbola to have a good night. “I’m not going to have a good night,” she says. “But you have a good night.”

Siyonbola also informed the officers that the woman who called her in had previously called the police on her friend “because he was black and in the stairwell.”

Stuff like this happens every day in America: Black and brown Americans are unfairly perceived as suspicious or threatening by store clerks, restaurant managers, cops, and everyday people—who are often quick to call in law enforcement over behavior that is legal and/or benign.

https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2018/05/11-more-things-you-cannot-do-while-black-starbucks-nordstrom-rack-1/

[marble falls]

7. Its all the "see something, say something" crap. There's no self-editing in "concerned" busybody...

with personal race issues.

[EffieBlack]

18. "Something" means different things to different people

To some people (especially Wypipo) "something" means "a black person I've decided has no right to be here."

[marble falls]

19. Unfortunately "something" means "other", a dogwhistle word that almost always gets....

attached to a PoC, when what it almost always should mean is a white guy with a basement full of ammunition and fertilizer bombs.

[Bettie]

8. This is ridiculous

and why do people feel the need to call the police on others who aren't doing anything illegal? Being black isn't illegal, pushing your kid in a stroller isn't illegal...WTF.

[MrScorpio]

9. Of course, it's ridiculous... But it's pretty clear cut as well...

Unfortunately, in this country, many whites conflate comfort with safety. They didn't call the cops because they were in unsafe situations, by any stretch of the imagination. They called the cops on those black people because they were uncomfortable with having black people existing in locations that they arbitrarily determined were "white spaces."

It's as if they were imposing some sort of virtual reality Jim Crow scenarios onto black bodies. As a matter of fact, it's part of our national heritage as it regards to Jim Crow, despite the fact that the Jim Crow laws are no longer on the books.

That's merely a reminder that America is still highly dysfunctional behavior in this day and age.

[Bettie]

11. I know the history

I just don't understand why people would go out of their way to be awful to other people who are just living their lives.

Seems like a waste of energy and being nasty for no reason.

[haele]

25. If you don't see or hear it in the way media has always portrayed the majority of POCs -

- then I can't really explain it.
My parents were in education; I grew up surrounded by college-level history and anthropology research and travel. I grew up noticing was that in popular culture ... movies, TV (or news radio), stories in general... except for the few almost saintly "good" POCs, most are pictured as being either 1) clever but emotionally immature, reactionary savages that needed some hard-nosed but heart of gold white savior to bring them to the light - or serve justice over them, or 2) were negligibly human, only around as background story dressing, to be disposed of once their use to the story was over.

In most pop culture, People of Color do not belong in polite society - and never really has.
That's why you see the more shallow and socially anxious lower middle class/middle class Caucasians call the po-lice whenever a POC appears to be uppity enough to invade their social order. White people whose existence revolves around the maintaining trappings of status are always confused and uncomfortable - frightened even - whenever POCs go about pursuing the same American normal life "everyone else" has.

If you ask white people why they called the cops on a person of color just because they're "not where they're supposed to be" or not acting sufficiently compliant, this is what you'll hear:
"Because everything I know about the way America is great does not include People who don't look like me..."
"Because on the TV and the Radio, Black and Brown folks want my stuff because they think I got it easy; not because I worked hard...they don't respect hard work the way we white people do, all their people make money in entertainment..."
I've heard this from "white folks" all my life.

Totally ignoring their own expectations and sense of privilege when it comes to how they and their kids are able to act in public.

Haele

[heaven05]

10. sad

what this country has, is and continues to perpetrate. Racism, bigotry, ignorance and racial fear.

[IronLionZion]

12. That's a very black neighborhood

the white woman on the bike is the one who would look out of place there.

I've often wondered what would happen if POC started calling the cops on suspicious whites. In chocolate city, there's a good chance the cops would also be black.

[treestar]

14. and he's "pretty sure" it was a white woman on a bike

nothing other than that - that is not enough to prove it was that woman. Suppose it was not? It might have been a gender thing - man with stroller is suspicious, woman not? Why was he "suspicious" to the person who called? Might have been something else, and even a black police caller.

[CaptainTruth]

13. Thank you for writing & posting these. They're eye-opening. nt

[get the red out]

15. That's RACIST

Nothing "fragile" about it. If you see someone pushing their kid through a park in a stroller you just say hello unless you are a racist piece of shit looking for an opportunity to harm a person of color.

[Ferrets are Cool]

16. "Black dad deemed 'suspicious' for pushing sick son in a stroller"

You could/should have stopped at "Black dad deemed ‘suspicious’".

[Madampiece Theater]

17. Wypipo.

[OneGrassRoot]

20. K&R n/t

[gollygee]

22. Why did she call?

That's the big question here. What seemed suspicious about a man with a baby in a stroller?

Also, why does he actually have to talk to the dad? Can't he take a look, see there's nothing suspicious going on, and move on?

[EffieBlack]

24. Or maybe first talk to the woman who called to have her explain to them what wasn't suspicious

Let HER justify her call before rolling up on an innocent man.

[gollygee]

29. Yeah!

Dispatchers could ask some more questions. Like, "What specifically is suspicious?" Or, "What is suspicious about someone pushing a baby in a stroller?"

[EffieBlack]

23. What you're describing is exactly how institutional racism is intended to and does work

It’s NO one’s fault.

A white person sees a black man and it doesn’t feel right. They’re “not racist,” of course. They even have black friends! But this guy doesn’t look right, and aren’t we SUPPOSED to say something if we see something. If it’s nothing, the police will know that and no harm, no foul.

They call the police.

Police show up and confront the man. Why bother to first try to find out what was supposedly suspicious about him before rolling up on him themselves? I mean, after all, who are they to question a citizen’s motives? They need to just check it out. if the guy’s innocent, he shouldn’t mind because we all need to be safe, right? And if he’s. Or doing anything wrong, he won’t resist our questions or resent being checked out.

But here’s the thing. Why is the burden on the guy to prove he’s not doing anything wrong? And what if this isn’t the third or fourth or fifth time he’s been stopped this week or month? What if he’s sick and tired of this and doesn’t feel like being polite and cooperative this time? What if, instead of sending laid back, cool, decent cops, the dispatcher sends a couple of good old boys just as distrustful of black men as the caller and are looking for a fight?

Next thing we know, we’ve got a black man taken down, handcuffed and arrested for “trespassing,” or “disorderly conduct,” or “resisting arrest” - if he hasn’t gotten shot because the police got skeered of the skeery humongous 5’5” black man.

And then we get the excuses: The caller didn’t have a choice. She was suspicious, so she HAD to call. It’s not HER fault the police questioned/arrested/shot the guy. The police didn’t have a choice. They HAD to question him/arrest/shoot him. It’s not THEIR fault the guy wasn’t cooperatives or didn’t scare them.

Actually it’s all the GUY’s fault. After all, I feel he had just cooperated with the police, answered their questions, didn’t resist arrest, tried harder not to scare them, Nine of this would have happened!

If people didn’t try so hard to make everything about race, we wouldn’t have these problems.

[gollygee]

28. Amazing post!

+1000 !!

[Hekate]

26. Over and over and over again

[ismnotwasm]

27. K&R

[Gothmog]

30. Arghh