Author: Tim Wise

After a recent article I wrote excoriating the Cincinnati police for their well-documented brutality against black residents (including the shooting of an unarmed young man wanted for seatbelt violations), I received many angry e-mails from folks proclaiming that I just didn’t know how difficult it was to be a police officer. They insisted I shouldn’t be so quick to judge cops who shoot criminal suspects. Hesitation in the face of danger could cost an officer his or her life, not to mention the lives of innocent bystanders. When a criminal brandishes a weapon (or even when he doesn’t but is thought to have one), the police have little choice but to shoot, said my detractors — no exceptions.

Yeah, well, tell that to the Nashville police department. Apparently it is quite possible to hold fire and defuse a dangerous situation when one feels like it. It is quite possible not to shoot a suspect, even when he definitely has a gun and is firing it directly at officers and their cars. All that is required for police to show this restraint is that the suspect must be an officer himself.

Recently, 13-year police veteran Sgt. Mark Nelson, distraught over being dumped by the female officer he’d been dating, went to the apartment of her new boyfriend (also a cop) while both were inside. He attempted to gain entry, fired bullets randomly into the air, and when police arrived, proceeded to shoot at three officers and put bullet holes in their vehicles. He then threatened to shoot down a news helicopter and held an entire neighborhood hostage for four hours — all this just down the road from an elementary school.

Now imagine that this overwrought, bullet-spraying individual had been a civilian — especially a young black man. How long do you think it would have taken for police on the scene to drop him in a hail of bullets? In a nation where black men are shot for brandishing wallets and cell phones, it doesn’t take a genius to guess that the time needed to “resolve” the situation would have been well short of 240 minutes.

But in Nelson’s case, his fellow officers insisted that he posed “no real threat” to them or the general public. After calm and rational negotiation, he laid down his weapon and was taken into custody.

Apparently, who constitutes a real threat is in the none-too-objective eye of the beholder. Unlike the black officer who was beaten senseless a few years ago by white Nashville cops who didn’t recognize him as “one of their own,” Nelson was immediately considered family. Never mind that he pointed and discharged his weapon at his brothers in blue — Mark Nelson was a friend, a colleague, and white. So the danger that would likely have been assumed had he been dark and a civilian was dismissed. He was cut slack.

How nice it would be if we could say the same about Timothy Thomas in Cincinnati, or Amadou Diallo in New York, or Tyisha Miller in Riverside, California, or hundreds more I could name had I the space to do so. Hell, in the case of Nashville police, two young men (one white and one black) were recently shot in the back of the head for trying to back up their cars and escape arrest. And why? Because their vehicles were seen as threats to the officers’ lives.

Funny how some folks are seen as dangerous and others aren’t; some worthy of harsh treatment and others not. Consider recent goings-on in the state of Florida.

With the convictions of Lionel Tate and Nathaniel Brazill for murder (both black, both just into their teen years, and both going away for a long time) the Sunshine State has demonstrated that so far as they are concerned, one can never be too young to go to prison. However, apparently one can be too white to go there. Late last year a Tampa judge refused to send a 41-year-old white drug felon to prison — despite his having violated parole — for no reason other than he was white and thin and would be “impossible to protect” in the Florida State Penitentiary. In other words, he would most certainly be gang-raped by black men, who apparently are never too thin or too weak for a jail cell. According to the judge, “I’m not going to send a man like this to Florida State prison. That is cruel and unusual punishment in my book.”

Don’t get me wrong: I certainly don’t fault a decision to send a drug offender to rehab instead of prison or to hold fire in the case of Mark Nelson. Both were humane and appropriate decisions. But in these cases, said decisions were made for entirely inappropriate reasons. Drug offenders shouldn’t go to jail, not because they are white but because imprisonment is an absurd response to drug use or abuse. Whenever possible, criminal suspects shouldn’t be shot, not because they are white or fellow police officers but because of a little thing called due process and the need to restrain law enforcement from becoming judge, jury, and executioner.

Unfortunately, the humanity and restraint shown in these incidents are mostly extended to those lacking a certain degree of pigmentation. Our perceptions of danger and deviance skew the treatment meted out to folks all throughout the various stages of the criminal justice system. A recent study at Washington University in St. Louis found that the mere presence of dark skin increases the probability that an object in the subject’s hand will be misperceived as a weapon.

In New York City white drug offenders, though they make up the majority of drug users there, make up less than 10 percent of the persons locked down for a drug offense and utilize nearly three-quarters of the treatment facility beds.

And still, white Americans wonder why their black and brown counterparts question the fundamental fairness of our criminal justice system? But why ask why? The answers become more and more plain every day. They are as blatant as the daily headlines. And it takes a special kind of color-blindness not to notice them.

Tim Wise is a Nashville-based writer and activist. You can e-mail him at letters@memphisflyer.com.

I can think of no other way to say this, so here goes: We white people need to pull our heads out of our collective ass.

Two more white children are dead and 13 are injured, and another “nice” community is scratching its blonde head, utterly perplexed at how a school shooting like of the one in Santee, California, could happen. After all, as the mayor of the town said in an interview with CNN: “We’re a solid town, a good town, with good kids, a good church-going town — an all-American town.”

Yeah, well maybe that’s the problem.

I said this after Columbine and no one listened, so I’ll say it again: White people live in an utter state of self-delusion. We think danger is black, brown, and poor, and if we can just move far enough away from “those people” in the cities we’ll be safe. If we can just find an “all-America” town, life will be better, because “things like this just don’t happen here.”

Well, bullshit on that. In case you haven’t noticed, “here” is about the only place these kinds of things do happen. Oh sure, there is plenty of violence in urban communities and schools. But mass murder, wholesale slaughter, take-a-gun-and-see-how-many-you-can-kill kind of craziness seems made for those safe places: the white suburbs or rural communities. And yet once again, we hear the FBI insist there is no “profile” of a school shooter. Come again? White boy after white boy after white boy, with very few exceptions to that rule (and none in the mass-shooting category), decide to use their classmates for target practice, and yet there is no profile? Imagine if all these killers had been black: Would we still hesitate to put a racial face on the perpetrators? Doubtful.

Indeed, if any black child in America — especially in the mostly white suburbs of Littleton or Santee — were to openly discuss their plans to murder fellow students, as happened both at Columbine and Santana High, you can bet your ass that somebody would have turned them in, and the cops would have beat a path to their doorstep. But when whites discuss their murderous intentions, our stereotypes of what danger looks like cause us to ignore it — they’re just “talking” and won’t really do anything. How many kids have to die before we rethink that nonsense? How many dazed and confused parents, mayors and sheriffs do we have to listen to, describing how “normal” and safe their community is and how they just can’t understand what went wrong?

I’ll tell you what went wrong, and it’s not TV, rap music, video games, or a lack of prayer in school. What went wrong is that white Americans decided to ignore dysfunction and violence when it only affected other communities and thereby blinded themselves to the inevitable creeping of chaos, which never remains isolated too long. What affects the urban “ghetto” today will be coming to a Wal-Mart near you tomorrow, and unless you address the emptiness, pain, isolation, and lack of hope felt by children of color and the poor, then don’t be shocked when the support systems aren’t there for your kids either.< What went wrong is that we allowed ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of security by media representations of crime and violence that portray both as the province of those who are anything but white like us. We ignore the warning signs, because in our minds the warning signs don't live in our neighborhood but across town, in that place where we lock our car doors on the rare occasion we have to drive there. That false sense of security -- the result of racist and classist stereotypes -- gets people killed. And still we act amazed. But, listen up, my fellow white Americans: Your children are no better, no nicer, no more moral, no more decent than anyone else's. Dysfunction is all around you, whether you choose to recognize it or not. According to the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Health and Human Services, it is your children, and not those of the urban ghetto, who are most likely to use drugs. That's right: White high school students are seven times more likely than blacks to have used cocaine; eight times more likely to have smoked crack; 10 times more likely to have used LSD; and seven times more likely to have used heroin. In fact, there are more white high school students who have used crystal methamphetamine (the most addictive drug on the streets) than there are black students who smoke cigarettes. What's more, white youth ages 12 to 17 are more likely to sell drugs: 34 percent more likely than their black counterparts. And it is white youth who are twice as likely to binge drink and nearly twice as likely as blacks to drive drunk. And white males are twice as likely to bring a weapon to school as are black males. And yet I would bet a valued body part that there aren't 100 white people in Santee, California, or most any other “nice” community, who have ever heard a single one of the statistics above. Even though the statistics were collected by government agencies using these folks' tax money for the purpose. Because the media doesn't report on white dysfunction. A few years ago, U.S. News ran a story titled: “A Shocking Look at Blacks and Crime.” Yet never have they or any other news outlet discussed the “shocking” whiteness of these shoot-’em-ups. Indeed, every time media commentators discuss the similarities in these crimes, they mention that the shooters were boys, they were loners, they got picked on, but never do they seem to notice a certain highly visible melanin deficiency. Color-blind, I guess.

White-blind is more like it, as I figure these folks would spot color mighty damn quick were some of it to stroll into their community. Santee’s whiteness is so taken for granted by its residents that the mayor, in that CNN interview, thought nothing of saying on the one hand that the town was 82 percent white but on the other hand that “this is America.” Well, that isn’t America, and it especially isn’t California, where whites are only half of the population. This is a town that is removed from America, and yet its mayor thinks they are the normal ones — so much so that when asked about racial diversity, he replied that there weren’t many different “ethni-tis-tities.” I’d like to think that after this one people would wake up. Take note. Rethink their stereotypes of who the dangerous ones are. But deep down, I know better. The folks hitting the snooze button on this none-too-subtle alarm are my own people, after all, and I know their blindness like the back of my hand.

Tim Wise is a Nashville-based writer and activist.

I can think of no other way to say this, so here goes: We white people need
to pull our heads out of our collective ass.

Two more white children are dead and 13 are injured, and another
“nice” community is scratching its blonde head, utterly perplexed at
how a school shooting like of the one in Santee, California, could happen.
After all, as the mayor of the town said in an interview with CNN: “We’re
a solid town, a good town, with good kids, a good church-going town — an all-
American town.” Yeah, well maybe that’s the problem.

I said this after Columbine and no one listened, so I’ll say it
again: White people live in an utter state of self-delusion. We think danger
is black, brown, and poor, and if we can just move far enough away from
“those people” in the cities we’ll be safe. If we can just find an
“all-American” town, life will be better, because “things like
this just don’t happen here.” Well, bullshit on that. In case you haven’t
noticed, “here” is about the only place these kinds of things do
happen. Oh sure, there is plenty of violence in urban communities and schools.
But mass murder, wholesale slaughter, take-a-gun-and-see-how-many-you-can-kill
kind of craziness seems made for those safe places: the white suburbs or rural
communities. And yet once again, we hear the FBI insist there is no
“profile” of a school shooter. Come again? White boy after white boy
after white boy, with very few exceptions to that rule (and none in the mass-
shooting category), decide to use their classmates for target practice, and
yet there is no profile? Imagine if all these killers had been black: Would we
still hesitate to put a racial face on the perpetrators? Doubtful.

Indeed, if any black child in America — especially in the mostly
white suburbs of Littleton or Santee — were to openly discuss their plans to
murder fellow students, as happened both at Columbine and Santana High, you
can bet your ass that somebody would have turned them in, and the cops would
have beat a path to their doorstep. But when whites discuss their murderous
intentions, our stereotypes of what danger looks like cause us to ignore it —
they’re just “talking” and won’t really do anything. How many kids
have to die before we rethink that nonsense? How many dazed and confused
parents, mayors and sheriffs do we have to listen to, describing how
“normal” and safe their community is and how they just can’t
understand what went wrong?

I’ll tell you what went wrong, and it’s not TV, rap music, video
games, or a lack of prayer in school. What went wrong is that white Americans
decided to ignore dysfunction and violence when it only affected other
communities and thereby blinded themselves to the inevitable creeping of
chaos, which never remains isolated too long. What affects the urban
“ghetto” today will be coming to a Wal-Mart near you tomorrow, and
unless you address the emptiness, pain, isolation, and lack of hope felt by
children of color and the poor, then don’t be shocked when the support systems
aren’t there for your kids either.

What went wrong is that we allowed ourselves to be lulled into a
false sense of security by media representations of crime and violence that
portray both as the province of those who are anything but white like us. We
ignore the warning signs, because in our minds the warning signs don’t live in
our neighborhood but across town, in that place where we lock our car doors on
the rare occasion we have to drive there. That false sense of security — the
result of racist and classist stereotypes — gets people killed. And still we
act amazed.

But, listen up, my fellow white Americans: Your children are no
better, no nicer, no more moral, no more decent than anyone else’s.
Dysfunction is all around you, whether you choose to recognize it or not.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and the Department
of Health and Human Services, it is your children, and not those of the urban
ghetto, who are most likely to use drugs. That’s right: White high school
students are seven times more likely than blacks to have used cocaine; eight
times more likely to have smoked crack; 10 times more likely to have used LSD;
and seven times more likely to have used heroin. In fact, there are more white
high school students who have used crystal methamphetamine (the most addictive
drug on the streets) than there are black students who smoke cigarettes.

What’s more, white youth ages 12 to 17 are more likely to sell
drugs: 34 percent more likely than their black counterparts. And it is white
youth who are twice as likely to binge drink and nearly twice as likely as
blacks to drive drunk. And white males are twice as likely to bring a weapon
to school as are black males.

And yet I would bet a valued body part that there aren’t 100
white people in Santee, California, or most any other “nice”
community, who have ever heard a single one of the statistics above. Even
though the statistics were collected by government agencies using these folks’
tax money for the purpose. Because the media doesn’t report on white
dysfunction.

A few years ago, U.S. News ran a story titled: “A
Shocking Look at Blacks and Crime.” Yet never have they or any other news
outlet discussed the “shocking” whiteness of these shoot-’em-ups.
Indeed, every time media commentators discuss the similarities in these
crimes, they mention that the shooters were boys, they were loners, they got
picked on, but never do they seem to notice a certain highly visible melanin
deficiency. Color-blind, I guess.

White-blind is more like it, as I figure these folks would spot
color mighty damn quick were some of it to stroll into their community.
Santee’s whiteness is so taken for granted by its residents that the mayor, in
that CNN interview, thought nothing of saying on the one hand that the town
was 82 percent white but on the other hand that “this is America.”
Well, that isn’t America, and it especially isn’t California, where whites are
only half of the population. This is a town that is removed from America, and
yet its mayor thinks they are the normal ones — so much so that when asked
about racial diversity, he replied that there weren’t many different
“ethni-tis-tities.” I’d like to think that after this one people
would wake up. Take note. Rethink their stereotypes of who the dangerous ones
are. But deep down, I know better. The folks hitting the snooze button on this
none-too-subtle alarm are my own people, after all, and I know their blindness
like the back of my hand. n

Tim Wise is a Nashville-based writer and activist and can be
reached at tjwise@mindspring.com.