When I was a young boy my dad made an observation about the police. One day there were news reports in which some black youths alleged they were physically assaulted by police without provocation. My dad said, “You know, I have never just walked down the street and been attacked by the police.” Dad’s implication was clear—if someone is manhandled by the police they must have done something to deserve it.
You see, dad sincerely believed that his experience was normative and indeed for him and most whites it probably is. This should not be surprising. My family’s social circle was 100% white, as was my dad’s workplace and my school environment. We only came into conversational contact with other whites, who like my dad, could not recall ever just walking down the street and being accosted by the police. We all reinforced each other’s experience.
When I went to college in Wyoming all my friends were white. Later, I came to graduate school in St. Louis. There I came into contact with some black professors who related stories about being hassled by police for no reason. And we remember the case of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates arrested by police trying to get into his own home.
In St. Louis I began to talk with blacks about race. But I’m embarrassed to say that it took events in Ferguson for me to really realize that if a person is black and especially black and poor they can be accosted by police on a weekly basis.
Suddenly I began to “get it” at a gut level, which sadly my dad did not have a chance to do. Events in Ferguson began to open my eyes to some differences in growing up white and growing up black.
Will events in Ferguson prompt other white people to see more clearly?
I hope so.
