By Shirley Paul, Attorney and Community Advocate Jauwan Hall, Sergeant, Army National Guard; Anthony Beckford, Co-Founder, Black Lives Matter Brooklyn;Jarvis Houston, Owner, Qeften; Ameshia Cross, Radio Personality and Political Commentator;Commissioner Stephanie Moore, Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners;T. Russell Green III, Comedian and Writer;Abe Jenkins, Civil Rights Activist;Renny Smith, Executive Director, Family and Friends of the Wrongfully Convicted; Tomika Talley, Owner, Atlanta Outdoor Movie Theater
The summer of 2018 saw a horde of White persons aka “White Callers” calling the police on Black people engaged in behaviors that would otherwise not have been read as suspicious or even worthy of any police involvement had the actors been White.
In 2018 alone, there were at least 90 calls to the police by White people reporting on Black people merely for existing that were captured and/or spread on social media platforms. These calls include living while black in Starbucks, playing golf, eating at the Waffle House, sleeping in university common rooms, making purchases, moving into apartments, going for walks, barbecuing, doing their jobs, swimming in pools, playing basketball, playing at the park, mowing the lawn, getting into their cars, bird watching, selling bottled water on a hot summer’s day …and sadly, the reports continue to grow to this day.
While the practice of summoning the police on Black people is not a new phenomenon, it is time to set in place safeguards or better yet consequences for White people who abuse 911 to use law enforcement to intimidate Black people from living their lives. Legislators on the city, state and federal levels must present and pass the 911 Anti-Discrimination bill making it a hate crime when 911 callers make a false accusation based on race.
The threshold for calling 911 should be when an emergency transpires. Too often White people have racially weaponized police reporting of Black people to capitalize on law enforcement’s mistreatment of us.
In 1987, a black father, Bancroft Hall, pulled his vehicle into the private driveway of a home where his daughter was having a playdate in a predominantly White neighborhood in Milton, Massachusetts. Upon his arrival his daughter was not yet ready and he sat in the vehicle and read his newspaper while he waited. A neighbor saw him and believed him to be “out of place” and called the police reporting a suspicious car in her neighbors driveway with a black occupant. That call led to his daughter being struck in the face and thrown to the ground and him being handcuffed and arrested.
Sadly, 33 years later we continue to see the consequences of these calls vary. We’ve seen bias training as an outcome for one but all too common some of these interactions between law enforcement and Black persons end fatally – incidents like Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, Jonathan Crawford and Trayvon Martin, to name a few.
911 is an emergency telephone one number intended for use in emergency circumstances except for one caveat, it is an emergency summoning number for Whites ONLY when the mere presence of a Black person brings them any sort of discomfort. The White woman who called the cops on the Black people in Lake Merrit Park in Oakland, California told those Black victims “she knows her rights, that the rights state if she tells the police if she has a problem with us (black people), then we are going to jail.”
Most recently, Amy Cooper, called the police on a Black man bird watching and told that victim, “I’m going to call the cops and tell them that an African American man is threatening me.” Both of these women boldly asserted their prejudice and comfortably summoned law enforcement to the rescue to mistreat and/or cause serious harm or death to innocent Black people engaging in everyday activities. White callers believe that the police should and will detain any black person just because they are uncomfortable with the Black person existing. This is not only a dangerous practice by White civilians but even more detrimental as law enforcement responds to these incidents and further satisfying the white supremacist ego and ideology.
For Black people false accusations such as “hello 911, I would like to report a Black person…” can lead to incarceration, severe injury or even death. In this current political climate, we cannot afford to continue to arm white supremacists to help their agenda, but rather we have to enact legislation to deter White callers and make it loud and clear that racially motivated offenders will be held accountable. Thanks to social media and cell phones, White callers have been exposed, however, having a safeguard in the law to hold White callers accountable for making false accusations will not only deter the behavior itself but will also allow law enforcement to divert their attention to actual emergencies.
False accusations and the murder of innocent Black people are very much connected. More importantly, it is a reflection and reminder that in this America, Black Lives do not matter and that institutional racism and White privilege must be upheld at all cost. We should be able to barbeque at a public park, visit friends and patronize a business without being questioned. We should be able to enjoy the safety of our own homes. We should be able to BREATHE! These are basic human rights, but for those of us that bare Black skin our rights are always somewhat arbitrarily applied. These 911 calls amount to more than just a waste of police time and resources. These 911 calls are acts of discrimination, intimidation and hate. Again, dialing 911 should be to report a dangerous incident, crime, or emergency, not used as a racially motivated weapon against men, women, and children of color.
Living while black is not a crime, but making a false report – especially one motivated by hate – should be. Every single state and municipality should adopt and pass legislation making it a hate crime to call 911 on innocent Black people engaged in everyday activities. Join the national campaign today by calling your local representative.
