WHY BLACKS WON'T TALK TO POLICE

If You Ask The Teens In My Class, They'll Tell You It's Because They
Feel Targeted Themselves

Following the church shooting on November 19, police are once again
berating the community for not sharing information on the gunmen in
their midst. True enough, much of this terrible violence happens in
the presence of witnesses who are afraid of retribution if they talk
and who have little reason to trust police. As I read the weekend
papers, I was reminded of what I've learned from my students about
how much repair needs to be done before police find minority youth in
a cooperative frame of mind. Take this exchange in my workplace grade
11 law class last year. At one point in our discussion, I recounted
the story of how I was stopped in Stuttgart, Germany, because I was
black and in Nairobi, Kenya, because I looked like a foreigner with
money. I ended by telling my students how great it is that "here in
Toronto I can walk the streets without fear of being stopped by the police."

I must have been having a memory lapse. Immediately I noticed a
bewildered expression on a number of students' faces, most of them
black. Some wondered if I was talking about the same city they know too well.

"I get stopped all the time!" said Tyrell (all names have been
changed), his face resigned.

"I can't remember how many times I've been stopped and searched by
the police, and only one time they found an open beer bottle in my
pocket, cuz I'm a pretty good boy, you know," (laughter from the
class) said Leroy, who is known to never back away from a good fight.

I asked for a show of hands of how many had been stopped by police
for no apparent reason. Seventeen of the 19 males raised their hands.

Said Jason, "This one time four officers in two cruisers parked
side-by-side were chatting, and my friends and I said, "Let's just
pass them without looking at them.' One of us just glanced at them,
and they all got out of their cruisers and stopped us. They kept us
for about an hour, searching our pockets."

"What did they find?" I wanted to know.

"They found a small quantity of marijuana, but they let us go because
we complied."

The stories were endless, often inconvenient but nevertheless
unsettling little episodes. The students admitted that police have a
difficult job, but not surprisingly, they couldn't find justification
for being randomly stopped. Random means profiled to them. It's
irrelevant that police searches may net the odd knife, small
quantities of pot or open beer bottles. They don't want to be
targeted because of their skin colour, address or style of dress.

I would not be surprised if I didn't see many of my students rushing
to help police with a much-needed investigation.

But the strange thing about the classroom revelations is that, a few
months later, I myself was stopped by a policeman on a bike. I'd just
bought my morning coffee from a donut store known to be a hangout for
drug dealers and users. I was about to drive off after placing my
light jacket on the seat beside me when a very young officer tapped
on my window, motioning for me to roll it down.

"Can I see what is written on the back of that jacket?" he asked.

"No. Why?" I asked.

"Someone who fits your description robbed a store."

"Officer, doesn't my grey hair suggest to you that I am over 50? Do I
really fit your description?"

"Yes, all kinds of old men get involved in robberies," he said. I was
not exactly sure what to make of the fact that he called me an old
man. Still, I refused to show him the jacket, which prompted him to
ask for my driver's licence. After checking on me using his radio, he
told me to leave. I got out of my car to ask for his full name. He
refused, but turned sideways to offer me a full view of his badge number.

When I shared the story with my class soon after, they couldn't
contain their laughter.