I Was Reported to Police as an Agitated Black Male =?utf-8?Q?=E2=80=8A_-_for_Simply_Walking_to_Work_=

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: October 11, 2018 19:16:10 JST
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] I Was Reported to Police as an Agitated Black Male 
> =?utf-8?Q?=E2=80=8A_-_for_Simply_Walking_to_Work_=
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> I Was Reported to Police as an Agitated Black Male — for Simply Walking to Work
> A Black employee at the University of Massachusetts Amherst opens up about the racial profiling incident that rocked 
> the campus and upended his life.
> By Reginald Andrade, Consumer Manager of Disability Services, University of Massachusetts Amherst
> Oct 10 2018
> <https://medium.com/aclu/i-was-reported-to-police-as-an-agitated-black-male-for-simply-walking-to-work-68306345ff6>
>
> Last month, I walked across the campus of the University of Massachusetts Amherst to get to work. It was an ordinary 
> stroll. But to a bystander, the sight of an educated Black professional going about his day was apparently cause for 
> alarm.
>
> That bystander called the police. My workplace was shut down. I was, and remain, humiliated.
>
> Racial profiling at predominantly white institutions is nothing new, and this wasn’t the first time that I had to 
> grit my teeth through a degrading interaction with police at the university. But this time, it made the news.
>
> The day had started off normally, with my morning exercise routine at the campus recreation center before work. I was 
> still in a positive mood during my daily stroll from the campus recreation center to my office at the Whitmore 
> Administration Building, where I work as a case manager for the university’s disability services office. Over the 
> years, I’ve helped hundreds of UMass Amherst students with physical and intellectual disabilities get the resources 
> they deserve. It’s a role I take pride in, and I give it my all every day.
>
> But on September 14, campus police were waiting for me when I arrived at the reception desk at Whitmore. I had no 
> idea why but I knew it couldn’t be good. My heart started pounding.
>
> Two university detectives sat me down me in an office and closed the door. Bewildered, I asked what was happening. 
> They refused to answer, as they peppered me with questions.
>
> “What time did you wake up?” “What were you doing at the campus recreation center?” “Did you come into the building 
> agitated?” I felt confused, powerless, and scared, but made sure to maintain my composure. I remembered that even 
> unarmed Black people disproportionately get killed during police encounters, and it was incumbent on me as an 
> innocent Black man to show that I wasn’t a threat.
>
> It wasn’t until the end of their interrogation that they revealed why I was being questioned. Someone had called the 
> university’s anonymous tip line, reporting that they had seen an “agitated Black male” who was carrying a “a heavy 
> backpack that is almost hitting the ground” as he approached the Whitmore Administration Building. I — the “agitated 
> Black male” — apparently posed such a threat that police put the entire building on lockdown for half an hour.
>
> I have no idea how the caller come to the conclusion that I was “agitated,” considering they hadn’t interacted with 
> me. I do know that Black people are often stereotyped as angry, armed, or dangerous.
>
> I’ve had to answer to the police before for being a Black man at UMass Amherst.
>
> I remember the time that someone reported me to the police for listening to an audiobook in an empty classroom when I 
> was an undergraduate at the university.
>
> And the time, just four years ago, when someone decided that the sight of me entering my own office to drop off work 
> supplies on a Saturday was reason to call the cops.
>
> The surveillance and policing of my behavior has taken a toll on my mental health. I feel paranoid and unsafe on a 
> campus that claims to be inclusive. It feels like any move I make, no matter how ordinary, can trigger a stressful 
> encounter with the cops.
>
> It’s not just here in Amherst. It’s also down the road, where a Black Smith College student was reported to police 
> for eating in a common room. And in New Haven, where a Black graduate student had the police called on her for taking 
> a nap in her dorm building. Also at Colorado State University, where two Native American teenagers were reported to 
> 911 for joining a campus tour.
>
> And just think of all the stories that haven’t gone viral.
>
> People who carry out their racial biases by calling the police have the luxury of staying anonymous. The targets of 
> their calls don’t have that privilege. Before picking up the phone, people should ask themselves: Would I be making 
> this call if the person were white? If no one is in danger, am I ok with the fact that this police call could follow 
> the person for the rest of their life?
>
> [snip]
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp



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