City of Emeryville's Comfort Zone:
Racist Stereotyping
All Black People Implicated As Crime Suspects
No Other Physical Descriptions Offered
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| Emeryville Police Chief Jennifer Tejada 'Black females are suspects in the Gap robbery'. |
December's listing is from the Emeryville Police crime blotter published by the City of Emeryville every month. The December Bay Street robbery with its two Black female suspects is added to the November robbery the City alerted us to at 6399 Christie Avenue with its three "Black male" suspects and the 3839 Emery Street shoplifting case involving a "Black female", both cases offered in the Emeryville Police Department crime statistics blotter posted on the City's website.
In all these cases, no other descriptions are offered by the City other than the 'Black' race and gender of the suspects. It's likely enough to get many citizens to look at all Black people more suspiciously. And that's seen as a good thing by the City of Emeryville. We know this is true because they wouldn't have posted the crime blotter in November and December without physical and other descriptions of the crime suspects otherwise.
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| Emeryville City Manager Carolyn Lehr 'Black males and Black females are crime suspects in Emeryville. Help us find them'. |
Watch this space.
From Emeryville's December crime blotter:
Robbery: In District 5 at The Gap, 5690 Bay St., four females concealed clothing in a bag and attempted to leave the store without paying. As the employee grabbed the merchandise from one of the suspects, the suspect punched the employee. The suspects then fled the store with the loss. LOSS: Miscellaneous clothing. Suspects: #1 Female, unknown race, wearing a white pom pom hat, long braids, and a light colored jacket. #2 Black female with short red hair, no further description. #3 and #4 Black females, no further description.
People can use the info provided by the police to help find the suspects. The first two suspects are given plenty of description and # 3 & 4 are associates. This isn't racist. It's a good description of crime suspects. What should the police have said? #3 & 4 didn't exist?
ReplyDelete"Black females"? What are we supposed to do with that information?
DeleteThe police should have noted suspects #3 and #4 were not described.
I don't get it. Are you trying to say that it is racist to use a descriptor of skin color? Or that you want more description such as the black female #2 had short red hair? Maybe any more info might sensationalize the crime, which in my opinion is serious, due to the assault on the employee.
DeleteWhat's not to get? Governments are not allowed to be racist. People are legally entitled to be racist but not governments (in the US). All are equal in the eyes of the law here. We've known this since 1954 when the Supreme Court ruled in the Brown V Board of Eduction case that there are no second class citizens. So try as Emeryville might to get citizens to be suspicious of Black people, they're not allowed to do that.
DeleteAnd then of course there's the whole thing independent of the law, do we WANT our government to be racist? I say NO, we don't want that. So we want the government to stop with the behavior that singles out Black people for mistreatment. In order to feel empathy, hard for many I know, just try to imagine that there might be a Black person that's not a criminal. Now imagine how this kind of stereotyping done by her government might make her feel...her government is saying she's probably a criminal...more likely than if she were White. Perhaps you can see how it might make her feel badly. Then there's the idea that the government is not here to make people feel badly. Maybe thinking about this like this can nudge you a little out of your comfortable default insistence that Emeryville must inform us that all Black people are suspects if there's been a crime committed by a Black person. Maybe?.....Maybe not.
I love reading the Tattler, because your point of view is so interesting. So, if I understand you correctly, if I get robbed and assaulted, it is ok for me to tell the police that the perpetrator was black (if he or she indeed was), and by doing so, if I am white, that would make me racist. Then, if the police decide to tell the public of the incident, they are racist’s. In my opinion, this is not racism and has more to do with the way white liberals perceive blacks.
DeleteI'm interesting? You're interesting. I love listening to White people drone on and on about 'reverse racism' and how they don't have nearly enough privilege because it's so interesting to see such blinkered sociopathic and narcissistic behavior on display for all to see. I love it like how I love cruising slowly past a freeway fatality or a train wreak. It's impossible not to look. The problem of course, even though it's so interesting, is when too many of you guys get too fired up because then we get Trump. It's gunna get interesting around here indeed.
DeleteI agree with you, you made my point.
DeleteEverything you see that happens in this world makes your point. You made my point.
DeleteIf I may clarify: if I were the white victim of a crime and described the perpetrator only as black, how helpful is that? Now comes the question of why description was so limited. Was it poor visibility, trauma, or perhaps a kind of cultural blindness, which we must admit is at least possible? As individuals we are imperfect, and that's life. In our civic life however, it is our duty to avoid these imperfections, lest we institutionalize them.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteHomeland Security should vet all white people, and if found to be members of the KKK, deport them to whatever European country they emanated from.
ReplyDelete