Black Lives Still Matter, Con't

Long-time readers of ZVTS will recognize that I've long held the theory that a significant number of white Obama voters turned on President Obama and the Democrats after he defended Trayvon Martin and Black Lives Matter.  For these voters, the fact that Barack Obama recognized that his election was not the end of racism in America was too much of an admission for them to handle.  

It was an unforgivable crime in their eyes that kindled resentment and revenge on Hillary Clinton in 2016.  "We elected a black president, what more do you people want?  Maybe four years of Donald Trump will teach you gratitude for what we allow you to have!" is the kind of thought process I'm talking about here.

The answer to that question is "We'd like to work at our employer's place of business without the police being called on us for the crime of being black."

The rising sophomore at Smith College was quietly eating her lunch in a campus common room when a police officer approached her Tuesday afternoon.

A college employee had called police to report someone who “seemed out of place” in a Smith building that was being used for a summer program. But when campus police arrived, they found a Smith student, taking a break from her campus job.

There was “nothing suspicious about the student’s presence,” the school said in a statement released Wednesday about the incident, the latest example of police being called to investigate black people in everyday situations.

In two posts to Facebook on Tuesday, the woman identified herself as the student in question. She wrote that a white college employee had reported her to the police as a “suspicious black male.”

“I am blown away at the fact that I cannot even sit down and eat lunch peacefully,” she wrote in one post. “I did nothing wrong, I wasn’t making any noise or bothering anyone. All I did was be black.”

The student was working on campus this summer as a teaching assistant and residential adviser, according to her Facebook page.

“It’s outrageous that some people question my being at Smith College, and my existence overall as a woman of color,” she wrote. The student did not respond to requests for comment.

Amy Hunter, the college’s interim director of diversity and inclusion, said the school “does not tolerate race- or gender-based discrimination in any form.”

“Such behavior can contribute to a climate of fear, hostility and exclusion that has no place in our community,” she wrote in a message sent to students, faculty, staff, and alumni Wednesday morning, said Samuel Masinter, a college spokesman.

When police are called for situations like this, there is always the non-zero chance that it turns deadly.  Black people can die when it does.  Any confrontation between a black person in America and the police can potentially lead to death.

"But that's true for any police interaction, that's why law enforcement officers risk their lives every day with every move they make!"

So do black people in America.

In only one of these two situations is the risk voluntarily accepted.