Of Heroism and Harassment

[Kareem]

Of Heroism and Harassment

By Malik Singleton

I'm a black man from LA and police have never been my heroes. To me, the heroism of September 11th was what seemed an isolated incident, no cure for years of antagonism.


About the Author

Malik Singleton is an editor at Blackplanet.com.

It's late night in Culver City. Sepulveda Boulevard is empty except for one car in front of me. Its round headlights are close together, high off the ground. It's a pickup truck, red, an early '80s model. Another car comes into view through my rearview. It's way back, about a quarter mile, but I can make out that its headlights are lower, more spread apart, rectangular. The street is lit just enough for me to distinguish light cars from dark. The car's front end is very dark, black, a sedan approaching at about 30mph in a 45 zone — creep speed, black in the front, low to the ground. That's a cop.

A quarter mile away a brother can spot a cop. It's a keen skill developed during puberty. We have to know where they are, what they're doing, and what to do next. Brothers all in one car keep each other alert by codenames: one-time, 5-0, po-po, jake — 10 o'clock, on the left. I see him, good looking out.

In California, in New Jersey, in any driving state, black men live life vigilant of the police. The need for such vigilance varies in degree, depending more on the car type than the indiscernible profession or education of the man. But we all share it. For no one, absolutely no one, experiences cops the way black men do. All people face unique advantages and disadvantages: women have to exercise cautions men take for granted, handicapped people, gay people, overweight people, homeless people, groups that cross lines of race, sex, class, health — all experience prejudices (even able-bodied, handsome, middle-aged, middle-class white men might come up with a few), but no group can say they encounter racial profiling the way young and middle-aged black men do. That's our territory. It's part of our history. It's part of our psyche. And just when I start to think maybe it's just me, maybe I'm holding an unfounded grudge, they go and make it a reality again.

I heard the news about the latest beating and after all my reactions my last was a sigh of relief. A brother has been waiting to exhale. No, I'm not relieved that Donovan Jackson was beaten, that keeps me as tense as always, but relieved that the post-9/11 mystique around police heroism is dissipated somewhat, and I can be vocal about cop misconduct again without sounding blasphemous. I'm a black man from LA and police have never been my heroes. To me, the heroism of September 11th seemed an isolated incident, not the cure for years of antagonism.

I've known police to do horrible things. Once when Farrakhan was in town and thousands of black people, including Crips and Bloods, came in support of unity. Police saw the number of brothers dressed in blue and dressed in red and felt threatened, even though the event was peaceful. Once it was over, they pretended to escort the rival groups to separate exits, while in fact they coordinated with each other to bring the groups together. A few scuffles resulted, but most of the rivals didn't fall for it, recognizing who the real enemy was. Is this the conduct of heroes? Is this just the doing of one or two bad cops? This kind of violence goes unheard of and unpunished. It wasn't caught on tape so nobody hears about it.

The sub-city cops who beat Jackson are being distinguished from LA cops, and it's true, they are often worse. You have to understand, cities like Inglewood, Beverly Hills and Culver City are not suburbs at a distance from the main city. These mini-cities are sectioned off but completely surrounded by the big city. Picture Lesotho inside South Africa, politically independent country, yet dependent geographically. So these towns have their mini-mayors, mini-transit systems and mini-police departments, and the borders give the residents and police power to define lifestyles for these areas. There's no avoiding the sub-cities, whether you're just driving across town to work or to visit a friend. But if they don't think you fit in, they want you out of their small space. I didn't grow up as a resident of Inglewood or Culver City, per se — I'm from adjacent South Central Los Angeles — yet I've been told not to come there by cops. Teens just going to the mall are told to go to their own malls.

I realize now that one of the subconscious reasons I moved from LA is that I no longer wanted to live anywhere I had to drive all the time. New York cops have their own corruption, but at least they don't have any power over my commute. New York cops don't make excuses to pull me off the train and detain me on the platform, throw me down on my knees and search my bag just because my Metrocard expired. But this is the logic applied to some LA commuters, mostly black male commuters the police imagine as violent. Sometimes we bear it, sometimes we go off, in which cases we're called hotheads resisting arrest, which opens the door for them to react harshly, beat us, even kill us.

My personal experiences with the LAPD are not the worst on record. I've only been removed from my vehicle and forced to my knees on the concrete, never beaten. I've only had guns drawn on me as I exited a bank after cashing my own check because I fit their idea of a robber, but never shot. I've only been followed for miles, made to pass the nerve-wracking slow chase driving test, in which the driver has to drive flawlessly or risk be pulled over and accused of recklessness. My experiences haven't sent me over the edge, partially because I've had my share of small victories too. I've lost them, outmaneuvered them down my familiar streets, made it home, shut off my lights and watched them prowl around before they got to flash their lights on me and harass me for nothing.

I want to be fair. I'll bet the majority of cops are good cops; otherwise our day-to-day problems in the street would be much worse. But we have to be able to open up the dialogue again about the bad cops. I live in New York now and I was here September 11th to witness the day of heroism. As I was staying safe, avoiding downtown, I saw cops racing down to face whatever awaited them, and save whomever they could, not profiling, just saving anyone they could. That's beautiful, comforting, but not a complete cure for the terrorism I've witnessed for 29 years. The beating of Donovan Jackson on July 8th regresses us right back to September 10th, when Cincinnati, the Bronx and racial profiling were the hot issues, and it takes me back to that vigilant teen keeping cops a quarter mile away.