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I get pulled out of bars & restaurants for questioning every 2-3 yrs. I keep my hands visible at all times. My ID is in a tiny pocket so it’s not mistaken for a weapon. I approach the convo like I’m a retail manager trying to placate a customer. I know I have it easy. https://twitter.com/waltribeiro/status/1276217976916754433
Some of my earliest memories are of unnecessary police violence. I’ve seen my father handcuffed as an officer asked my Chinese-American mother whether we were being kidnapped. She got livid so they detained us longer. When they let us go, dad got mad at her for not knowing better
I’ve sat on the side of the road while my dad and three uncles were handcuffed and forced to their knees while officers searched our car only to find the groceries we had just bought. When we got back in the car nobody said nothing because that’s just the way it is
I can’t remember how many times cousins came back home bloodied because cops handcuffed and beat them only to let them go afterwards knowing that they wouldn’t report shit.
In the 90’s my dad had a job servicing ATM machines for a major bank. He did everything by the book & was employee of the year. Still, 8x a teller hit the silent alarm and the police would show up, guns drawn. He developed a bad heart & had to quit
And again, this is most of the easy, long ago shit.
If anybody wondered why I’ve been quiet about a bunch of this stuff the past few weeks, it’s because watching this play out in the media isn’t easy. There’s a lot of pain and shame in my family because of this, even when it isn’t their fault
But know that when you go out and march, when you donate to a cause, when you challenge racist behavior or policies at work, in a very real way, you do this for me and I love you for this.
I wasn’t planning on writing about this but here I am.
If you don’t mind me continuing, here are the other effects:
It shows up in the fact that I created an agency that tries to make room for “everybody” because I don’t want people to feel the pain of feeling lesser.
It shows up in the fact that I created an agency that tries to make room for “everybody” because I don’t want people to feel the pain of feeling lesser.
It shows up in how charismatic I might seem in conference rooms or on a stage — techniques I’ve learned from needing to make sure that folks felt comfortable.
It also shows up in really stupid shit like the fact that when I bought my first car in a decade I got a station wagon because it looks like “white people camouflage”
