, and this is a rich history of
white supremacy, bigotry and
racism that we see today. How do
you handle it? So glad my son is
just 10 years old. And while I
maybe five, ft three my son is
already well over my height.
Just 10 years old and you speak
to me very personally and the
idea of what it's like when you
have to figure out how the world
is going to see your child and
for the better part of many
years now we have fixated on the
discussion about how police are
seeing our children, as if the
only quote unquote conversations
that black parents are having
with their children is not about
books. It's not about learning.
It's not about love and the
prime Ms of wonderful future
that is always confined to place
but I gotta tell you, it often
is about how the world at large
cities that the fact that he was
present at the door as any
Amazon delivery or my girl scout
daughter selling cookies may
have been something said I'm so
afraid as to shoot and aim to
kill in the head and as a mom, I
am constantly struggling with
how I explain this to my
children and how I prepare them.
Does it mean that I make them
all the more courageous and all
the more outspoken and brave and
have the bravado or do I make
them humble and a little bit
softer, so that they are
perceived differently? That's
not a decision I ought to have
to make. And, you know, 11 thing
that I immediately think about
is look as reporters were often
times in the field. We actually
have to go knock on the doors of
a lot of these places in places
that sometimes don't have a lot
of black people, so I am
stepping up onto this front
porch doing my job. But I know
that I stand out that I could be
perceived as a threat. So I can
tell you whenever I ring a
doorbell just to take an extra
precaution, I stepped almost all
the way off the porch. I looked
to my left and right, just in
case someone comes as to the
door. In the manner that that we
saw here, because sometimes as
we saw in this case, there are
no words there are no there is
no time for discussion. There is
no opportunity as as as we have
to do sometimes to make someone
feel comfortable through
conversation, especially as
reporters and I think when I
look at this case, obviously
this is one that I followed
closely professionally, but you
know, it's sometimes you have to
take that reporter head off when
I examine kind of the scenario
that this teenager was put in,
watched you get arrested on
television. Yeah nothing.
Besides being present in this is
seen as a reporter where I think
you had a visible media past.
I'm not mistaken. There were
other reporters there. Yeah but
you were singled out well, and
that's that, I think is a is a
good example. I'll take my
reporter hat off for a second
here to talk about that. And
just say that you know when it's
happening to you in the moment
you're just trying to get
through the moment because you
don't know what slight move is
going to trigger some reaction,
some internalization that these
officers or whoever might have
had a community member may have
had and it wasn't until after I
get back. One of our colleagues
Josh Campbell is white, white
man right reporter. He was
nearby and he said, you know, I
just talked to the cops told him
who I was. They let me go about
my business and in that moment
those those are moments that you
cannot really put into words
because it's been laid out for
you. In a sense, the solution.
Where do we go from here, Eric?
Well, you know, I think America
has a rich. Comfort uh and
really, and just both being
culturally and across
institutions being comfortable
in treating black children as
subhuman, uh and really treating
and seeing black humans. Black
people in this space allows for
people to lie or or or rely on
the notion of I'm in fear and
that it's just for people to
cause harm to this population.
Um we were mentioning the height
or age of adulthood when you
look at black boys and girls as
early as 13 years old. That's
when American society starts to
look at black children as
adults. I think there's a
reckoning. That's the solution.
There's a reckoning that needs
to happen in America. And I
believe the teams that I'm part
of the teams of other grassroots
organizations, really pushing
legislation changing policy
changing how the landscape has
been built to fundamentally
shift. Um. And undo the legacy
of white supremacy. That's what
we're seeing. Alright Eric