Over the past month or so, highlighted by the Starbucks arrest, there have been a string of reported incidents of white people calling the police/authorities on black people engaged in benign everyday behaviors. While there has been discussion whether a segment of the white population (including plenty who would probably identify as Democrats or even liberals, like the "feminist" graduate student at Yale who reported a black student who was napping in a dormitory common room) is increasingly "emboldened" to question/confront/report blacks, my conversations with black friends and colleagues suggest this is nothing new. So maybe it's just a coincidence that there has been a string of incidents, or maybe the MSM and social media are just more focused on it now and its current prominence is just a matter of curating the news. Regardless, having the police/authorities called on you when you're engaging in benign everyday behavior appears to be at least a semi-common lived experience for many black people, and the psychological impact of that is further enhanced by the black community's understandable fear (whether based on lived experience or media reporting) that too many police officers are too quick or too willing to shoot or otherwise visit violence upon blacks when responding to incidents.
There's been lots of discussion and debate about whether and to what extent police officers and police departments are being held accountable and should be held accountable for disparate harm visited upon blacks.
To what extent can/should private individuals be held accountable for visiting harm upon blacks, even if the harm is limited to having to spend 20-30 minutes explaining/defending your right to be where you are, doing what you're doing? As a pattern over time, that has to be psychologically and spiritually draining. Potential remedies could include serial reporters of #__ingwhileblack being charged and prosecuted under public nuisance laws, or could include civil rights organizations helping negatively impacted blacks to bring civil lawsuits under common law or statutory tort laws such as "malicious prosecution", "malicious use of process", "defamation", or "infliction of emotional distress". All of those potential remedies can themselves be subject to abuse, of course, but I think they're worthy of thought. Then there's what I'll call the "Fresno Bob approach" of extra-legal punitive action, which includes public shaming or shunning of white people who call the police/authorities and otherwise confront/berate/humiliate black people engaged in benign behavior.
There's been lots of discussion and debate about whether and to what extent police officers and police departments are being held accountable and should be held accountable for disparate harm visited upon blacks.
To what extent can/should private individuals be held accountable for visiting harm upon blacks, even if the harm is limited to having to spend 20-30 minutes explaining/defending your right to be where you are, doing what you're doing? As a pattern over time, that has to be psychologically and spiritually draining. Potential remedies could include serial reporters of #__ingwhileblack being charged and prosecuted under public nuisance laws, or could include civil rights organizations helping negatively impacted blacks to bring civil lawsuits under common law or statutory tort laws such as "malicious prosecution", "malicious use of process", "defamation", or "infliction of emotional distress". All of those potential remedies can themselves be subject to abuse, of course, but I think they're worthy of thought. Then there's what I'll call the "Fresno Bob approach" of extra-legal punitive action, which includes public shaming or shunning of white people who call the police/authorities and otherwise confront/berate/humiliate black people engaged in benign behavior.
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