{"id":2001,"date":"2005-12-12T09:06:49","date_gmt":"2005-12-12T16:06:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/12\/13\/being-while-black\/"},"modified":"2005-12-12T09:06:49","modified_gmt":"2005-12-12T16:06:49","slug":"being-while-black","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=2001","title":{"rendered":"Being While Black"},"content":{"rendered":"

Via BlueOregon<\/a>, a cop in Washington state was apparently fired for “Policing While Black<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Attorney Trumble’s brief also includes excerpts from a deposition given by Ridgefield resident Jaclyn Emter, who said City Manager Fox told her Oct. 2 that he fired Mealing the previous week.<\/p>\n

“I said, ‘Well, why did you fire him?’ ” Emter said in her deposition, according to Trumble’s legal brief. “And he said, ‘Because he’s black.’ “<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Meanwhile, Pam at Pandagon<\/a> reports on a WalMart customer who was harassed for buying gift cards while black.<\/p>\n

two Hillsborough County sheriff’s deputies appeared. One grabbed Pitts by the arm. He objected to the rough handling and asked if he was being arrested. “We need to talk with you about this forged check that you brought in here,” Pitts quoted one as deputy saying. The deputy said later Wal-Mart had called and reported that Pitts had committed a felony.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But there was no forged check, and no felony – apparently, just some WalMart folks who couldn’t believe that a black man was paying for a large order with a corporate check.<\/p>\n

Of course, these things – such as driving while black<\/a>, shopping while black<\/a>, biking while black<\/a>, walking while black<\/a> – are all commonplace enough so it’s no longer even news. They’re all subcatagories of what Derek Jennings calls Being While Black<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A while ago, I commented that judging by infant and maternal mortality statistics<\/a>, Blacks and whites in the US live in different countries; whites live in a first-world country, Blacks in a developing country.<\/p>\n

When I lived in a predominantly Black area of Portland (of which there aren’t many), I noticed the same sort of thing. I’d walk the streets unharassed, but I’d be walking past police stopping and questioning Black folks every day. As a white person, I live in the USA, land of the free and home of the slogan. But a lot of blacks in effect live in a totalitarian state “behind the iron curtain” in a cold war movie – you know, the sort of movie where police constantly stop ordinary citizens and demand to see their papers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Via BlueOregon, a cop in Washington state was apparently fired for “Policing While Black.” Attorney Trumble’s brief also includes excerpts from a deposition given by Ridgefield resident Jaclyn Emter, who said City Manager Fox told her Oct. 2 that he … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-race-racism-and-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}