Excessive Use of Force

by Loretta P. Prater

  In parenting my own children, I would not have been so concerned about prejudicial feelings of specific individuals, except that I believed those attitudes could result in negative and violent behaviors toward my sons. These attitudes, identified collectively as hatred, could prompt actions that actually lead to the harming or death of targeted individuals. On July 17, 2015, a white, twenty-one-year-old male entered the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, with the pretense of participating in a weekly prayer service and Bible study. After an hour of engaging with the black people in attendance, he rose and announced that he was there to kill black people. His actions resulted in the shooting deaths of nine innocent people. One of the massacred was Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, the forty-one-year-old pastor and a state senator of South Carolina. These actions sparked a renewed call for the Confederate flag to be removed from South Carolina’s state capital mall. Numerous retailers, including Walmart, voluntarily removed items from their stores that featured the flag. Besides the 45-caliber gun used in those killings, hatred was the biggest factor that resulted in the demise of those innocent citizens, ranging in ages from twenty-six to eighty-three.17 Subsequently, a jury convicted the killer and he was sentenced to death.18

  One only has to recall documented actions of Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members as examples of other tragic outcomes of racial profiling.19 Persons born since 1965 may have little or no knowledge of these past injustices. They may be unaware of the hatred spewed by that organization or how racial attitudes can influence laws and policy.

  Some may not realize that interracial marriage was once a crime. If blacks and whites married, they were subject to arrest for a felony and subsequently punished in prison for one to five years. This antimiscegenation law existed in some states until as late as 1967.20 It ended with the landmark Supreme Court decision of the Loving v. Virginia case, in support of the marriage between Richard Loving, a twenty-three-year-old white male, and Mildred Jeter, a seventeen-year-old black female. They had married legally in Washington, D.C., in 1958 but were arrested when they returned to their Virginia home. Their one-year prison sentence was suspended if they agreed to leave the state for twenty-five years. Ethiopian-Irish actress Ruth Negga was nominated in 2017 for an Academy Award for her performance in the film Loving.21

  Unfortunately, the KKK is not in the past and is very present today. The group’s attitudes resonate even among law enforcers. The KKK provides a convenient framework for hatred and is known for its intolerance and violence. The organization was first formed as the Invisible Empire of the South in 1866 in Pulaski, Tennessee, my home state. Its first leader, or Grand Wizard, was Nathan Bedford Forrest, a former Confederate general. Although the group claims to be a Christian organization, it has been labeled as the oldest among American hate groups. Its secret membership is nonexclusive in regard to occupations. Originally, African Americans had been the group’s target, but the KKK’s intolerance has been extended to other persons of color, Jews, and persons who prefer same-sex partners.22 Basically, members focus on any group that is different from them.

  I consider the KKK a terrorist group, because they use intimidation in the form of violence, such as lynchings, burnings, bombings, shootings, and other acts that sometimes lead to the death or injury of innocent people. Often, they are not held accountable for these deadly deeds. Over the years, Klan membership has fluctuated, but the organization still has an estimated five to eight thousand self-reported members.23 One deeply disturbing act was the September 15, 1963, bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church that killed four young girls in a Sunday School classroom in Birmingham, Alabama.24 In my opinion, that was an act of domestic terrorism. As recently as March 2013, the KKK planned a rally in Memphis, Tennessee, to protest the city’s decision to remove the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest from one of its parks.25 It has also been reported that the group raised money in support of Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed unarmed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9, 2014.26

  From a social science research perspective, I will admit that it is challenging to prove “cause and effect.” Do I believe that the KKK was directly involved in Leslie’s death? Absolutely not, but I do feel that sentiments common among KKK members are comparable to beliefs held by some law enforcement officers. When there are unfounded negative assumptions applied to one group, especially young African American males, that is a basis for concern. From visual observations, there is no denying that Leslie was a young African American male. Certainly, there is no way for me to prove that Leslie would be alive today if he had been an unarmed Caucasian thirty-seven-year-old male in obvious need of assistance.

  From personal observations, readings, historical accounts, and other media sources, I felt that our two African American sons would need to be educated about the potential dangers of being an African American male in America. Their mere combined gender and racial status could attract negative attitudes toward them and, subsequently, cause them undue harm. The reality of this fear was evidenced early in their lives. During most of their childhood, we lived in what society describes as a predominantly white neighborhood. In fact, our family was the first black family to move into a particular subdivision of Hamilton County in Chattanooga, Tennessee. No, we were not exclusively seeking to move into a “white” neighborhood. At that time in the mid- to late 1970s, in the eastern part of the county, most of the new residential housing was in the communities of East Brainerd. Even today, that region is still a popular area for single-family housing, although the neighborhoods are much more diverse now than when we moved there in 1976.

  When we moved to East Brainerd, Leslie was in the fourth grade, and Stefan was in kindergarten. The public schools in East Brainerd had a good reputation for excellence, which appealed to us. During that time in Hamilton County, there was no mandated kindergarten in the public schools. So, Stefan attended a private Catholic school kindergarten in downtown Chattanooga, and Leslie attended a public elementary school in East Brainerd. Dwight and I have always supported public education. From our experience, we received an outstanding elementary and secondary school education in public schools, and I was teaching in a public school.

  As a young couple, with very young boys, we were initially not focused on overt racial issues. So, I will admit, we were naive about the potential impact of our young sons being racially isolated in predominantly white school settings. Prior to our move to East Brainerd, Leslie had been in an urban school setting with mostly other African American students. Stefan was in a private-home preschool setting, with other African American children. Moving into the county, I later realized, precipitated a culture shock to their social system. This realization was especially glaring when, years later and after they were young adults, I was looking through some of their elementary school pictures. In most of those pictures, my sons were the only African Americans in the picture. While examining those pictures, I only had to shake my head and ask myself, “How could we have missed that?” We were concerned with giving our sons a better physical neighborhood environment and opportunities to attend schools with a good reputation for educating students.

  There is an opportunity cost to such decisions that impacts African American children and their parents. I should have been sensitive to the fact that we were still living in the South, with prevailing attitudes that racial segregation was preferred to integration. Those attitudes prevailed in other parts of the United States as well. However, like other parents, we still wanted our children to have the best possible education. Within a few years, I will admit that I had to question whether moving into the county at that time was the best decision for our sons’ overall emotional health and well-being.

  Interestingly, Stefan encountered a racial incident when he was in the private Catholic kindergarten. Considering he was only five years old, I didn’t think we needed to talk to him about racial attitudes. I thought Dwight and I had m
ore time to prepare for “the talk.” I soon realized that I was wrong. I recall the day when Stefan, as an innocent kindergarten child, came home and announced that he knew what he wanted to be when he grew up. My mind immediately pictured him in some well-meaning profession. With anticipation, I was excited to hear of his choice. He continued by saying, “When I grow up, I want to be a white man.” I was shocked and saddened, but I tried to hide my horror from him. I knew that pursuing such a goal would engender some serious self-esteem issues and maybe even black self-hatred, a concept that has been researched by numerous scholars.27 I gained my composure and calmly asked him, “Why do you want to grow up and be a white man?” He responded, “Mary Kathryn and I want to get married when we grow up, and she said that her mother said that she could not marry me, because I was black and she was white.” I must admit that I was relieved by the simplicity of his motive. So, I calmly responded, “You and Mary Kathryn don’t have to be of the same skin color to get married, but if her mother wants you all to be the same, go back to school tomorrow and tell Mary Kathryn to tell her mother that she wants to grow up to be a black woman.” Assuming that Stefan relayed this message to his “girlfriend” and that Mary Kathryn obeyed, I wish I could have seen her mother’s facial expression after hearing of Mary Kathryn’s plans. Interestingly, when Stefan did marry, he married a white woman.

  In early childhood, the prominent groups in Stefan’s world of understanding were boys and girls, men and women, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, and teachers. He did not identify persons according to membership within racial or ethnic groupings. That realization would come later. I am reminded of a question posed in an Undoing Racism workshop I attended years ago, with black and white participants. The presenter asked, “When did you know you were black or when did you know you were white?” The only people in the room who immediately responded were black people. We all could recall the incident or circumstances that clearly identified us as being black. The white participants had no response and appeared confused by the question.

  The white participants might have been less confused if they had read Black Like Me. The book is a case study of John Howard Griffin’s research. He was a southern white man who wanted to know what it was like to be a black man. With the assistance of a physician, he used medication to darken his skin. He wrote about how the same people responded to him differently as a white man than they did when they thought he was a black man. Basically, feedback was positive as a white man and negative when he masqueraded as black. He wrote about his revelation and new understanding of white privilege, the existence of which many still deny.28 Because of the benefits of white privilege, people cannot understand why Rachel Dolezal, a white woman, would pretend to be a black woman during her employment with the NAACP.29 It is far more common for interracial fair-skinned black people to “pass” as white, such as portrayed in the 1959 movie Imitation of Life, starring Lana Turner. The original 1934 film of the same name starred Claudette Colbert. Imitation of Life has been named as one of the twenty-five most important films on race.30 In America, if one examines statistics of employment, education, housing, bank accounts, health status, or any measure chosen, it appears that there are benefits to being white.

  When Stefan completed kindergarten, he was enrolled in Westview Elementary School, a public school in the county. This was the same school Leslie attended. Both boys soon confronted negative racial attitudes. When Stefan was in the first grade, he came home one day and reported to me that he was washing his hands in the bathroom and one of his classmates said to him, “Why are you washing your hands? You are black and you will always be dirty.” Stefan was hurt and confused because he didn’t understand why his classmate referred to him as being black. He had heard the term from Mary Kathryn, which he had probably forgotten, but still didn’t understand the social construct applied to racial identity. By another societal label, Stefan is described as fair skinned or “bright,” a term used by many to refer to African Americans with light complexions. As a young elementary school student, he identified the color of black as being the color of his black crayon, for example, which caused him to be further confused as to why his classmate would call him black. His skin was not the color of his black crayon or his black shoes. Imagine our struggle, as parents of a six-year-old, trying to explain racism in America. Again, we had thought we would have more time to prepare for those discussions. For the second time, we were so wrong. I had to wonder, “When did the parents of the white child in the bathroom incident socialize their son to hate?” I firmly believe that babies are born without these negative attitudes.

  Leslie also experienced childhood racial profiling incidents. To my knowledge, the most memorable problem he faced was on the school bus as a middle school student. Because our family was the only African American family in the subdivision, he was the only black child on the bus that picked up students in our neighborhood. To further complicate matters, middle school and high school students rode the same bus. He was a sixth grader, but he was harassed by students who were juniors and seniors in high school. This was also during the time that the mini-series Roots was first aired on television. The high school bullies used a lot of the terms from Roots, which gave them an enormous amount of hostile material in their efforts to humiliate and intimidate Leslie.

  When Leslie reported these incidents to us, I immediately scheduled a meeting with school system administrators to voice a complaint. After the discussion at the meeting, their ineffective solution was to reserve a seat for Leslie behind the driver, rather than holding the guilty students accountable for their actions. Of course, their ridiculous attempt at a solution did not work because other students expressed resentment of this special treatment. The bus was overcrowded and some students were forced to stand. Yes, I know that safety is compromised in that daily dangerous practice, but that is what happened. Even if some students entered the school bus prior to Leslie’s arrival, no one else could sit in his seat behind the driver. That seat was reserved for “the black kid.” This special treatment infuriated students even more, especially the high school students.

  As a parent, when your child is hurting, you are hurting. So, we had to resort to a desperate measure. The school officials may have had good intentions, considering their limited ability to problem solve, but their solution was not working for us. They made no plans to punish the bullies or to contact the parents of those few high school students. I always felt that the bullies should have been suspended from riding the bus, at least until their behavior changed. I discussed the matter with the mother of one bully, with the anticipation that she would reprimand her son. After I explained her son’s actions to her, she replied that I should have thought about potential consequences before I moved into a “white” neighborhood.

  After that discussion, I knew for certain that I needed to resolve this problem and could expect no help from school officials or the parents of the bullies. My desperate, but effective, solution was that I voluntarily removed Leslie from that bus route. We had an African American friend who lived in another county subdivision. I would take Leslie to their house and he caught the bus with other African American children. On my way home from work in the afternoon, I would pick him up from their home. He experienced no bullying on that bus route. Dwight was working out of town, so I was the lone parent with this responsibility.

  Stefan didn’t have the bus problem because only elementary school children rode that bus. Thus, he continued to travel on a different bus that picked him up and returned him in front of our house. Recently, there is much talk and attention given to the topic of children being bullied in school or en route to school. Believe me, this is nothing new. In the 1970s, we didn’t have the use of social media to more easily communicate these horrors. However, advanced technology has facilitated the unfortunate horrible incidents of cyberbullying.31 This action is the latest destructive mechanism used by cowardly bullies.

  Leslie exp
erienced more racial profiling as a teenager. He had no interactions with officers from the Chattanooga City Police Department or the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department prior to his adolescent years. If research reports that African American males are more likely to be confronted by police officers than other people are true,32 then I suppose Leslie was likely to have a confrontation with police officers at some point in his life.

  When Leslie began to drive, he was stopped and followed numerous times by police officers near our residence for merely attempting to get home. These stops were especially frequent when he returned home after dark. Like most teenagers, he had a part-time job and attended school and social activities, which meant that he sometimes arrived home after sunset, especially during the winter months, when darkness came early. He became aware that police perceived him as threatening because of his skin color and that his white friends in our neighborhood were not stopped by police officers when they returned home after dark. Sometimes he would be a passenger in their vehicles and witnessed that there were no incidents with the police. Because police officers stopped him for no apparent reason, he knew that our fears for his safety were valid. His experiences support research findings that black men have the highest probability of being stopped and harassed by the police.33

  Racial profiling is exactly what Leslie experienced as he drove to and from his home. Without any of us realizing it at the time, he was a victim of what has been previously described as the “symbolic assailant.” This person is someone who, because of skin color, dress, language, or possibly manner of walking, is perceived by the police as posing a threat.34 Leslie was impeccable in his dress, usually wearing the most popular name-brand clothes at that time, such as Izod shirts. He spoke proper English and did not walk with the stereotypical bounce. I recall that he had even been accused by some African American youth of “talking white” because he used Standard English. However, he was still a black teenager. He was visibly a minority male.