This started as a post about Starbucks. About the sadness and outrage I felt at the arrest of Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson in a Philadelphia Starbucks on April 12th. About the helplessness I felt knowing that although I would never have to worry about being arrested for simply waiting for my friend to arrive at a coffee house, many others would. About how I was wrestling with whether a boycott of Starbucks was the appropriate response, whether it would actually make an impact.
But then just days ago, I opened my Twitter feed and discovered another video that had surfaced. I watched, sickened, as Chikesia Clemons was wrestled to the floor and handcuffed by three officers at a Waffle House in Saraland, Alabama. During the process, her breasts were humiliatingly exposed. But no nationwide outcry went up for boycott or justice. And what I wanted to say became a bit more complicated.
I had a conversation with family friends (all white suburbanites) about the Starbucks arrest a few days after it happened. While I was incensed, I was shocked with how little outrage they appeared to feel about the event. I voiced my disbelief and anger at the treatment of these two men. They only had questions.
“Did they order anything?”
“Didn’t they know that restrooms are only for paying customers?”
“Did the police ask the men to leave?”
“Did the men refuse to leave even when they were asked?”
I imagine (although I can’t know for sure) that their responses to the incident at Waffle House would have been similar: questions rather than a defense. It was as if they couldn’t quite wrap their mind around the idea that a police officer or store manager would act in an unjust way. Believing this would in some way shatter what they knew about the world and so they seemed to be grappling for an explanation that would explain the discomfort away.
Their questions pulled me back to another question I’d heard earlier that week, a question posed by a young lady in my senior Theology class:
“Ms. Conway, why do you think it is that no matter how well we present ourselves, how nice we dress or polite we act, white people always seem kind of afraid when a black person talks to them?”
She asked this question with a mixture of resignation, frustration, and exhaustion in her voice. What could I possibly say in response? I found myself trying to speak for (or perhaps defend) all white people - a position that’s neither comfortable nor realistic. All I could come up with is that we live in a segregated world and that human beings often fear the unknown. I felt like I was making excuses.
Because the reality of the situation is that I don’t really understand why white people react this way.1 I only know that we often do. The reality of the situation is that this type of behavior doesn’t deserve to be excused. The reality of the situation is that skin color is not a good reason to be afraid of someone who presents themselves well, acts politely, and dresses nicely. And the reality of the situation is that things like this do not happen to white people. Asking to use the restroom without ordering a drink will not get us arrested. Arguing over the price of plastic silverware will not get us wrestled to the floor and handcuffed.2 Waving around a BB gun like 12-year-old Tamir Rice did will not get us killed seconds after police arrive on the scene.3
I don’t believe the reaction of my white family friends was a result of them being cruel or blatantly racist individuals, and I don’t present their stories to criticize them or suggest some moral flaw in their character. While I was frustrated by their response, I also believe it came from a reality of not knowing what it’s like to be black in America. If you are a white person who has interacted mainly with other white people, it’s hard to see the larger picture. This is likely why in a Huffington Post poll almost half of white Americans (48%) responded that the arrest of Nelson and Robinson was an isolated incident but more than half of black Americans (57%) viewed the actions of the police officers as rooted in a larger societal problem.
The difference between these responses seems endemic of the two worlds writer Mikki Kendall described in a recent piece for The Washington Post. Black Americans and white Americans inhabit different realities. Rashon Nelson, Donte Robinson, Chikesia Clemons and other black men and women live in a world where often “every public space is fraught with the possibility of mistreatment.”
In the other world, the one inhabited by white men and women, you can visit Starbucks stores across the country, sit for hours at a time, and never once be challenged about your presence. How do I know this? Because this is exactly what “Starbucks observer” and author Byrant Simon did while writing his book Everything But the Coffee: Learning about America from Starbucks. Simon, who is white, told NPR that after visiting over 300 stores, he observed two groups of people who were confronted about whether or not they had bought anything: black men and people who appeared to be homeless.For white Americans, myself included, this split reality might only be noticed if you intentionally slow down and look for it. My ability to see these two worlds, as I mentioned in a previous piece, has evolved as I’ve listened to the voices and stories of my (mostly black) students. I have not always seen it, but now that I know that this split exists, I want to help others see it too.
So I challenge all of my white readers to consider this - any time you see a black man or woman portrayed or arrested on the news, check your bias. Imagine you are the one in this situation -- if you behave the exact same way, does it yield the same results? Examine your immediate assumptions about the situation - what do you assume about the outcome and individuals involved and why do you think this is where you mind goes? Consider other possible explanations. Listen to black men AND women when they share their stories. And finally, speak out when you see injustice happening.
We need to be like Melissa DePino and speak up for the victims of institutional racism. After witnessing the arrest of Nelson and Robinson, DePino spoke out both on social media and in television interviews, defending the men and reiterating the fact that they did nothing wrong or inappropriate. And although I’d rather live in a world where the testimony of a white witness wasn’t the trump card in any given situation, the reality is that what white people say matters. The reality is that we have the power to protect our black brothers and sisters if we are willing to do so. Let’s use it.
1 I recognize that not every white person would react this way, but for the sake of simplicity, I have to speak in general terms here.↩
2 I’ve read more about the arrest of Chikesia Clemons since I began writing. Witness and police testimony suggest that the story is more complicated that it first appeared- that she was potentially intoxicated and belligerent. Be that as it may, I still feel comfortable in asserting that had she been a white woman, the outcome would have been much different.↩
3 I use Tamir Rice’s story here because he was shot and killed in Cleveland, where I teach, in a park not far from where some of my students live. He represents, in this case, any black man or woman who has been a victim of police brutality.
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