So as I began to explore what I wanted to do with my life I really became so focused
on the different access to resources and opportunities that different people have.
And how that influences what happens generation after generation after generation.
So I was always fascinated by power, I was always fascinated by, you know, what makes
places the places that they are.
Who decided that?
And, where's the money going?
And so, when I went to urban planning school, I think I was somewhat of an outlier.
There were a lot of people there who were drawing maps and writing reports and doing
all these technical functions, but not ever stopping to think about fundamentally, where
are our resources going?
And how are those decisions being made?
Ended up enrolling in a two year City and Regional Planning Master's degree.
And I thought, 'Great, this is where we'll really get down to these issues that I've
been living through my whole life.'
And, when I got there nobody wanted to talk about power.
Nobody wanted to talk about how places became they way they are, talk about money, talk
about resources, talk about decision making.
There were a handful of us and in my cohort group of 30+ those of us who were asking those
questions, we were all students of color.
One was from Latin America, one was African American, one was Filippino, there was myself
and one was Chinese.
And there we were, the five musketeers.
And we had a group we called Student of Color in Planning where we were trying to fill in
the gaps of what we saw the actual underpinning to everything we were learning was, but that
no one was talking about.
Boy is born.
He is beautiful, as everyone is.
He is brown, like his parents.
He is loved.
He grows.
One day coming from school cops stop boy.
Cops do not love boy, tell boy so.
Call him stupid.
Bad.
Stupid.
Ugly.
Brown.
Black.
Brown.
Ugly.
Call him stupid.
Bad.
Ugly.
T.V.
tells boy what cops say, true.
Teachers show boy, they believe what cops say, true.
News say, tube say, people say, seem like even steeples say, what cops say, true.
Boy blue.
You know, when I get the occasion and I don't get it very often to sit down and do trainings
or workshops with law enforcement officers.
One of the things I do, usually in the first five minutes, is to ask them.
What's the very first thing you think when you see a young Black or Latino male driving
a nice car in your community?
And almost invariably and with very few exceptions, including among the officers of color, they
will respond, 'probably a drug dealer.'
I will then ask them, next question.
When you see a young white male, same age, driving the same kind of car in your community,
what is the first thing you think?
And, almost every time, without exception, including among the officers of color.
They will say, 'spoiled little rich kid, Daddy probably bought him a car.'
Now, on the one level, you know, we've been together for five minutes, me and these cops
and we've got a two hour--three hour workshop coming and they're already outed themselves,
fundamentally, as racist in the sense that they've acknowledged their perception, which
is solely based on skin color, is one that is negative toward--in this case-- black or
brown kids.
How is that gonna manifest?
Well, logic tells you, that if you're a police officer who has that reaction, you may not
like the spoiled rich kid--in fact you probably don't--but you're not gonna hassle him because
you're afraid his daddy might have some power.
On the other hand, if you think the black or brown kid is a dealer, you're gonna stop
him, you're gonna search him, you're probably not gonna find anything, according to the
data.
But now you're gonna have his name in the system, you're gonna be on the lookout for
his car, you're able to in effect, tag him as a possible wrongdoer.
And then that's how these folks get caught up, young black and brown men, in particular,
in the system being harassed over and over and over again.
While the white folks, according to the data, are the ones more likely to have drugs in
their car, more likely to bring drugs through airports, the ones that are the least suspected
are the ones that are actually the ones most likely to be guilty.
So you have the combination of personal bias and the reality then of systemic mistreatment
and then the irony of it all, is that it actually leads you astray and doesn't allow you to
do your job effectively.
If you're a cop and thinks the black or brown kid's got drugs and the white kid has drugs,
you're not even doing your job well.
So, at some level, you know, these personal biases not only effect systemic behavior,
but, they actually have profound larger social consequences, in that, our criminal justice
resources are really deployed in the completely wrong areas.
Brown boy blue.
Forgets he is loved.
Love does not love him.
To him, only bad love him.
Only black love him.
Cops say, black bad.
T.V.
say, what cops say is true.
Brown boy blue.
Gets his own face misconstrued is what t.v.
say is true.
Brown boy gets hot, burning red hot.
Brown boy, red hot, get pushed and popped passed point of control.
No one to hold him.
Just scold him.
Mold him into what cops say true.
T.V.
say, what cops say true.
But brown boy just blue.