'Calling the Police' Is White People's AppleCare for Black People

[MrScorpio]

Damon Young
Today 11:42am Filed to: WHITE PEOPLE

You’d think learning that Sarah Braasch—the woman who called the police on Yale graduate student Lolade Siyonbola for #NappingWhileBlack—is a philosophy Ph.D. candidate who’s studied gender and law would add something to this story. A surprise, perhaps, that a person who has undoubtedly encountered lessons on unconscious bias and systemic oppression would be so transparently racist. Or maybe even a shock that someone so educated could do something so, well, stupid.

But nah. Hearing about her academic background is no different from discovering that her hair is brown or that her favorite movie is Die Hard With a Vengeance. It adds no context, provides no insight and doesn’t even begin to nudge the needle in either direction. We know, already, that racism—anti-blackness, specifically—follows white people wherever they happen to be, as if anti-blackness uses Waze to locate and track them. Yale, Yellowstone National Park, the year 2018—it doesn’t matter. For white people, being racist is Liam Neeson in Taken:

I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you.

That said, I strongly doubt that Braasch felt a genuine fear for her life. Just how I don’t believe that the white woman who called the police on the men in that Philly Starbucks did, or even that the white woman who harassed the men in Oakland, Calif., for #CookingOutWhileBlack did. Instead, they all felt uncomfortable. And not necessarily a discomfort that comes with mortal fear, but the way you might feel uncomfortable or annoyed if your Spotify playlist keeps crashing or if your new MacBook Pro can’t connect to your home Wi-Fi. For them—and for (too many) white people, in general—the police serve a similar function.

https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/calling-the-police-is-white-peoples-applecare-for-black-1825954790?utm_source=vsb_theroot_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

[brush]

1. Cops serve as their racism valet. What could go wrong?

Tamir Rice, John Crawford and on and on and on and on.

[MaryMagdaline]

2. Her education and activism do move the needle for me

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that she has read many articles about and has been made aware of the extensive use of police 911 calls to punish black people ... and that she knows that black people are at risk physically when police are involved.

She has mens rea. Guilty AF

[madaboutharry]

3. The only way this is going to stop

is if law enforcement begins to issue citations for these "Apple Care' calls and making the public learn the difference between an emergency requiring the police and feeling "uncomfortable" about black or brown people being in their field of vision.

[Eliot Rosewater]

4. There you go again using that HOT button word, the "W" word

I kid, I kid.

You see I NEVER use it anymore because of the monstrous amount of UNWANTED attention it brings me.

I am confidant that if all roles were reversed, that group you mention would burn down every single standing building in this country if what was and has happened to BLACK people happened to them.

Did I say "them?"

I meant us, I am one of them.

[brer cat]

5. I don't think they are afraid or even very uncomfortable.

What they have is an arrogant sense of their "place" and who is allowed/not allowed to share it. That police dance to their tune is appalling, but privilege has power and they wield it to enforce their exalted bubble.