When White People Call the Police on Black People

Clockwise from top left: Kelly Fyffe-Marshall, via Instagram; Dave Sanders for The New York Times; Melissa DePino, via Twitter; Myneca Ojo, via Facebook

#African-American #BlackAmerican #Police #whitePrivilege #WhitePeople

By Daniel Victor -nytimes.com

What makes the police encounters chilling is how routine they are.

They happen while black people are going about their everyday lives, only to be interrupted by someone calling the police for the thinnest of suspicions.

In the past month, more than a handful of such interactions have attracted widespread attention on social media — and, in turn, in national outlets like The Times, CNN and The Washington Post.

“It happens so frequently to people of color that we don’t often think of it as a big deal or as particularly newsworthy,” said Paul Butler, a Georgetown University law professor who is the author of “Chokehold: Policing Black Men.”

He added, “It’s humiliating and aggravating and upsetting, but the idea that it’s national news is unexpected.”

It’s also encouraging, he said. Half of the African-Americans surveyed last year by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health said they had personally experienced racial discrimination in police interactions.

But until recently, the cellphone videos of these everyday interactions weren’t constantly going viral, and the news stories were far less common. Now routine police interactions, those that don’t end in an arrest or violence but still leave people shaken, are entering national consciousness in a way they have not in the past.

Here are six instances in just the past month that have exploded on social media and made national headlines, and what the people were doing when the police were called.

Napping in a dorm lounge

Lolade Siyonbola, a graduate student in African studies at Yale, fell asleep while working on a “marathon of papers” Monday night. At 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, a woman who lived in the dorm turned on the lights and called the Yale police, telling Ms. Siyonbola she wasn’t allowed to sleep in there. Several officers arrived, and Ms. Siyonbola showed them the key to her apartment and her ID.

A Yale spokeswoman said the officers followed procedures, but Kimberly M. Goff-Crews, the university’s vice president for student life, said in an email to students she was “deeply troubled” by the episode. On Thursday, Yale made a point to emphasize that officers had told the caller that this was not a police matter.

Shopping for clothes

Three teenagers looking for last-minute deals before a prom were trailed by Nordstrom Rack employees in suburban St. Louis on May 3. When they left the store carrying the items they bought, they were met by the police outside. The officers let them go after looking at their receipts and inside their bags and car.

Nordstrom Rack’s president called the three men to apologize. A company spokeswoman said in a statement the employees didn’t follow policy, which directs employees to call the police only in emergencies.

Leaving an Airbnb

Three black people loaded suitcases into their car after staying at an Airbnb in Rialto, Calif., on April 30, but they were halted by the police after a neighbor suspected they were burglars. They were questioned by officers as a helicopter flew overhead.

The renters are suing the Rialto Police Department, which said in a statement it was “confident officers treated the involved individuals with dignity, respect and professionalism.” Airbnb said in a statement that the guests’ treatment was “unconscionable.”

Touring a college campus

The everyday suspicions are not limited to African-Americans. Other minorities face increased scrutiny. On April 30, two Native American brothers were touring Colorado State University when a parent reported them to the campus police, saying their behavior and band T-shirts were suspicious. Officers pulled them aside and questioned them for about four minutes before releasing them to rejoin the tour, but the guide had already moved on.

The university said it was “sad and frustrating from nearly every angle,” and offered to reimburse the prospective students for the trip and bring them back as V.I.P. guests.

Golfing

An owner and employees of Grandview Golf Club in Dover Township, Pa., called the police on a group of black women who they said were playing too slowly on April 21. Officers left the golf course after they “quickly determined that this was not a police issue,” said Mark L. Bentzel, chief of the Northern York County Regional Police Department.

No charges were filed, and one of the women, Sandra Thompson, said on Facebook that “the police were respectful.” Jordan and J.J. Chronister, co-owners of the golf club, said in a statement that “the interaction between our members and our ownership progressed in a manner that was not reflective of our company’s values or expectations for our own professionalism.”

Sitting in a Starbucks

Two black men, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson, were waiting for another man for a business meeting at a Starbucks in downtown Philadelphia on April 12. An employee asked them to leave, and called the police when they refused.

The men settled with the city of Philadelphia for $1 apiece and a pledge to spend $200,000 to help young entrepreneurs. Starbucks apologized and reached a confidential financial settlement with the men, and said it would close all its stores in the United States on May 29 to give 175,000 employees anti-bias training.

Five Simple Ways to Start Communicating More Mindfully

#Communication #HealthyRelationship #Mindfulness If you've ever practiced mindfulness, you're probably already aware of the many benefits it offers for the willing and dedicated practitioner. When we open ourselves to this practice, we create the potential for our lives to be transformed in ways that might seem subtle but are truly life-altering. Though many of the benefits of mindfulness are personal and internal—improved concentration, expanded sense of awareness, increased patience, and enduring states of tranquility, to name a few—some important aspects of the practice can positively affect our external experience as well. Take communication, for example. Using mindfulness in our communication with others can improve our relationships and help us navigate even the most difficult conversations. If you already have a practice of cultivating mindfulness, a little intention is all you’ll need to start applying it to your communication. If you haven’t yet developed a pra...

New fascinating insights on the psychological effects of Hugging

#Hug #Hugging #Emotions #Stress #Mood #BlackMaleTherapist #Psychotherapy #MentalHealth During the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns and restrictions, one of the things many people missed most was getting hugged by their loved ones. This led to an increased interest in the positive effects of hugging in the psychology research community and several studies published over the last year have yielded new insights on what it means to us to be hugged. Here are four of the most interesting new insights into the science of hugging. 1. Getting hugged by others, but also hugging yourself, reduces stress hormones A recent study by researcher Aljoscha Dreisoerner from the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, and his team focused on the positive effects of hugging on stress (Dreisoerner et al., 2021). Interestingly, the scientists not only investigated how getting hugged by other people could reduce stress, but also whether hugging yourself (e.g., when other people are not ...

The Unique Benefits of Teletherapy.

#BlackTherapist #Teletherapy #Triple5LightTherapy.com #AfricanAmerican #Therapist b y Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S. Teletherapy is seen as an inferior alternative to in-person therapy. But while it has some drawbacks, online therapy has plenty of pluses, too. First the drawbacks: Some clients miss their therapist’s office, which they associate with safety and healing, said Jodi Aman , LCSW, a psychotherapist in Rochester, N.Y. Technical difficulties—from poor internet connections to visibility issues–can interrupt sessions. Finding a private, quiet space at home can be challenging. Still, many people prefer teletherapy. As psychologist Regine Galanti , Ph.D, pointed out, the biggest myth about teletherapy is that it’s “a plan B approach.” Many of Galanti’s clients have been doing online sessions for years. Her teen clients, in particular, like attending therapy in their own space. Teletherapy is also convenient. “[I]t removes time barriers for people to ...

5 Communication Tweaks That Increase Intimacy

#Communication #trust #Empathy #Attachment #mirroring #reciprocating #apology #defensive #Psychology “Working on our communication” is one of the most commonly cited reasons couples seek relationship counseling. This is not surprising. Often, over time, even the best of relationships can fall victim to negative communication patterns. This is especially true for couples who find themselves under a lot of stress because, naturally, when our coping mechanisms are overtaxed, we default to older—more primitive and less mature—ways of coping (cf. Weinberger & Stoycheva, 2019). A colleague used to say that when we are distressed, we become caricatures of ourselves—i.e., our worst qualities become exaggerated. It gets harder to employ our most thought-out and balanced ways of interacting with the world. However, several tweaks only require a little time or effort, just repetition, and attention to our automatic behaviors that we can make to improve our connection with our partners. ...

Triple5Light Therapy

Search This Blog