The Threat of Young Blackness in the Age of Trump

12-year-old Reginald Fields cutting grass in Ohio

These past few days have been some genuine scorchers here in the Hamilton, New Jersey area where I live and work.

On Monday, as the temperature and humidity made it feel like it was in the upper 90's, I marveled at the members of the grounds crews working outside on the landscaping of the residential apartment community where I work.

From the vantage point of my mercifully air-conditioned office, I had nothing but sympathy and admiration for their ability to operate equipment in such sweltering conditions.

So it was a little weird reading a New York Times story about a 12-year-old boy named Reginald Fields (pictured above) having the cops called on him because he was cutting a woman's lawn on a hot summer day for some extra money in a Cleveland, Ohio suburb.

I was immediately struck by the absurdity of an enraged white neighbor calling the police on a self-motivated and enterprising young black boy exercising some initiative and work ethic.

For all practical purposes, that was me once.

Cutting grass was my first summer job as a 12-year-old boy growing up in the suburbs of Bethesda, Maryland and it never would have occurred to me that someone might have considered me suspicious for doing so.

As WABC News-5 in Cleveland reported last Thursday, a woman named Lucille Holt-Colden was visibly impressed when she saw 12-year-old Fields with his organized array of lawn-cutting equipment and asked the youngster to cut her grass.

Reginald Fields with his siblings and cousins who
make up "Mr. Reggie's Lawn Cutting Service" 

But when he brought his gear and his cousins and siblings (pictured left) who collectively make up "Mr. Reggie's Lawn Cutting Service", a white neighbor who owns the property next to Ms. Holt-Colden's home called the local Maple Heights Police Department.

Why?

Because she alleged that Reggie's lawnmower had strayed onto a tiny section of their half of the yard.


Now in the current American political climate, where Trump has essentially sanctioned racial, ethnic and religious bigotry, and encouraged archaic, small-minded thinking, I can't say it's surprising that a white person would call the police on a young black boy for something as petty as running a lawnmower over a section of their grass by mistake.

But it is a truly sad and rather pathetic indicator of the effect that Trump's toxic influence has had on civil discourse in this country.

Honestly, if you have an issue with someone's lawnmower straying onto your lawn, why not just walk outside and just take a few minutes to politely show the kid the boundary lines of the property?

After all, there's no fence or line of shrubs or trees that clearly mark the boundary where Ms. Holt-Colden's property ends and the as-yet-unnamed neighbor's begins.

I'm willing to bet that the afore-mentioned neighbor voted for Trump and has a red MAGA somewhere in her house. 

Lucille Holt-Colden and Reggie Fields  [Photo - NY Times]

Now beyond the question of the lack of basic civility, as I've mentioned in previous essays on this blog, it's fair to ask at what point members of local law enforcement are going to start getting tired of going out on calls because some bigot wants to try and use cops to enforce or legitimize someone's marginalized views on race and ethnicity?

If you want to harbor prejudice against someone, fine, this is America.

The Constitution protect's your right to believe what you want.

But don't pick up the phone and call the cops to try and cloak your repugnant personal beliefs in a veneer of legitimacy or legality - that phone call struck me as a bit gutless.

Regardless, the positive aspect of this story is the overwhelming response that the story's explosion on social media has had on the broader community, and on the life of Reggie Fields.

After more than a million people viewed a video about the incident that Lucille Holt-Colden posted on Facebook, she set up a Go Fund Me Page for Reggie seven days ago to help raise $1,000 for him and his crew of siblings and cousins to buy some lawn cutting equipment.

As I'm writing this, the Go Fund Me page has already raised over $48,000 from people all over the U.S. and from folks from as far away as Scotland.

Seriously, take a couple minute to click the link above and scroll down and read some of the comments from people of all ethnicities and nationalities and read their comments.

As a result of Ms. Holt-Colden's decision to share this story on social media, Reggie now has enough to start a college fund for himself.

Writer Brent Staples

My sense is that this kind of response offers a valuable snapshot of what the vast majority of American people think about the kinds of petty bigotry that Trump delights in cultivating.

While the overwhelmingly positive response from the larger American and global community is a clear signal that most people found the neighbor's decision to call the police on Reggie repugnant, it's indicative of a much broader issue here in this country.

One that has nothing to do with intentional Russian interference in the U.S. electoral system, or the Trump family and members of his campaign being complicit in conspiring with a foreign power to undermine democracy in order to enrich themselves financially.

The decision by that neighbor to call the police clearly points to how some Americans still view what writer Brent Staples calls "young male blackness."

Back in 2012, in the wake of outrage over racist psychopath George Zimmerman stalking, confronting and murdering unarmed African-American teenager Trayvon Martin, Staples wrote a piercing op-ed in the Sunday New York Times.

Titled, "Young, Black, Male, And Stalked By Bias", his thought-provoking and widely-shared essay sparked conversation, timely introspection on race in America, and offered insight into how some people view young men of color.

As Staples noted:

"Young black men know that in far too many settings they will be seen not as individuals, but as the "other", and given no benefit of the doubt. By the time they have grown into adult bodies - even though they are still children - they are well versed in the experiences of being treated as criminals until proved otherwise by cops who stop and search them and eyed warily by nighttime pedestrians who cower on the sidewalks." 

Staples' observations cut to the heart of recent incidents that have taken place in America, where white people have faced ridicule on social media after calling the police on African-Americans engaged in perfectly routine activities.

Allison "Permit Patty" Ettel calling 911 on an
eight-year-old girl selling bottled water

Take San Francisco resident Allison Ettel for example (pictured left).

After a video of her calling the police on 8-year-old Jordan Rogers, who was simply selling bottles of water on the street back on June 22nd, was viewed on Instagram more than 1.4 millions times, she quickly earned the nickname "Permit Patty".

Audio of her ludicrous 911 call reveals her telling an operator, "I have someone who does not have a vendor permit that's selling water across from the ballpark."

Call out the SWAT team!

All kidding aside, the fallout from Ettel's behavior had some pretty serious consequences for her career and TreatWell, the company she until recently worked for.

TreatWell lost business with at least six companies after it was revealed that Ettel was the company's CEO - she was forced to resign and the company released a statement condemning the incident.

She initially lied to the San Francisco Chronicle claiming that it was only a "pretend call" until the actual 911 tape of her call went viral - Ettel then went on The Today Show claiming that 8-year-old Jordan Rogers was yelling as she tried to sell bottled water outside Ettel's (and Jordan's) home - but Rogers's mom disputes that.

Turns out Jordan was trying to help raise money to help the family go to Disneyworld.

More serious was 38-year-old Stephanie Sebby-Strempel who was arrested and charged with third-degree assault and two counts of assaulting a police officer after she repeatedly struck a 15-year-old African-American teenager in the head and chest because she claimed that he and his friends "did not belong" at a pool located in a private community in Summerville, South Carolina.

After video of the incident went viral she was quickly dubbed, "'Pool Patrol Paula" on social media.

The teenager had been invited to use the pool on June 24th by family friends who live in the community, but Sebby-Strempel began yelling at the teenager and his friends and allegedly used racial slurs as she berated the teen (who filmed her with his cell phone) and chased them from the pool.

Apparently enraged over the idea of black teens using the pool, she later slammed a police officer trying to intervene against a wall an sank her teeth into the skin of another officer drawing blood.

"Pool Patrol Paula" Stephanie Sebby-Strempel 

Aside from the jaw-dropping pettiness, there's something deeply troubling about these incidents.

Particularly in the sense that the common thread seems to be apparently-privileged middle-class white women calling police on black people.

Not because they are under physical threat, or being assaulted, or their personal property is being compromised in some way.

Like "BBQ Becky" calling the cops because a group of African-Americans were legally barbecuing in a public park in Oakland back in May, one of the many disturbing aspects of these incidents is that these women feel like laws were being violated.

As if members of law enforcement are going to show up and start reinforcing these women's personal prejudices simply because they picked up the phone.

Again, carefully consider the choice of words of Allison "Permit Patty" Ettel in San Fransisco when she she saw an 8-year-old girl with dark skin selling bottled waters: "I have someone who does not have a vendor permit that's selling water across from the ballpark."

" I have someone." Like Ettel's skin color somehow imbues her with some kind of inherent authority over people who she views as "others" - like an 8-year-old selling bottled water is a threat.

Are these women "racist"? I don't know, but it's certainly clear they have issues with skin color.

As Brent Staples observed in his New York Times op-ed back in 2012:

"Very few Americans make a conscious decision to subscribe to racist views. But the toxic connotations that the culture has associated with blackness have been embedded in thought, language and social convention for hundreds of years. This makes it easy for people to see the world through a profoundly bigoted lens without being aware that they are doing so."

Whether these women are consciously "aware" is a question that only they can answer.

But when you see American children hustling to try and  make extra money in the summer, or  a family barbecuing in a public park, and you try and criminalize those actions, it's not about what they're doing.

It's all about the lens through which you view them.

A Reasonable and Justified Manner? A Profoundly Bigoted Lens

Stephon Clark, 22, another unarmed American citizen
shot and killed by police

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra's announcement on Tuesday, that his office will step in to oversee the investigation into the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Stephon Clark by two Sacramento Police Department officers last Sunday night, does address some concerns expressed by outraged community members about the ability of SPD to conduct an impartial investigation into its own officers.

But it's hard to say how much comfort that's going to bring Clark's family members considering he was shot multiple times for holding a cell phone.

As more detailed information about this incident begins to trickle out, a familiar narrative from the Sacramento Police Department is already beginning to unfold - the now familiar claim that the two officers who fired 20 shots at Clark (including shots fired when he fell to his hands and knees) did so because they feared for their lives.

The two officers were reportedly called to the scene in response to someone reportedly breaking the windows of cars in the neighborhood, when they confronted Stephon Clark in the backyard of the home where he lived, they claim he advanced or moved towards them with something in his hand.

Seconds later an officer yelled "Gun!" and the two officers fired 20 shots; the object in Clark's hands turned out to be a cellphone.

He was shot about 60 seconds after the SPD officers on the ground first encountered him - adding to the already-suspicious fatal shooting is the fact that one of the officers can be heard telling another to mute the sound on his body camera immediately after the shooting, right before the audio cuts out.

The arc of this investigation is obviously going to take a long time, especially given the growing media attention, mounting public outrage, and the involvement of the state attorney's office.

But one of the things that troubles me about this shooting is that the officers themselves claim that they were sent to the scene in response to reports of a man breaking car windows.

21-year-old Isaiah Malailua 

Now that's clearly a crime warranting a quick police response, but is that the kind of situation that calls for discharging a weapon?

The violent response of the two Sacramento PD officers to a black man holding his cellphone in his own backyard is remarkably different from the Chicago PD's response to an armed white man arrested in Chicago's Union Station on Friday.

According to an article by Chicago Tribune reporter William Lee, a California man named Isaiah Malailua (pictured left) was arrested at an Amtrak ticket counter wearing a bullet-proof vest and carrying a 9mm handgun.


Authorities quickly apprehended him after police K-9 dogs detected the odor of explosive residue on a duffel bag that belonged to Malailua that was found in another part of the station.

Now obviously I'm not suggesting that Chicago authorities should have just yelled "Gun!" and started firing in the middle of a crowded train station - they did the right thing, they located him, surrounded him and took him into custody.

The point I'm making here is that the officers who arrested Malailua in Chicago knew he was potentially dangerous because a Greyhound bus ticket with his name on it was found inside the duffel bag with the explosive residue on it that was detected by the K-9 - they also found police SWAT gear inside the bag that he'd apparently stolen from the NYPD.

So they knew who he was, and when they found him at the ticket counter he had a handgun on him and was wearing a bullet-proof vest - that's got "potential mass shooter" written all over it.

Considering recent events and the fact that Malailua was inside a crowded major urban transit hub, authorities on the scene could have been justified in shooting him, but they didn't.

What role did Malailua's skin being white have to do with how the Chicago authorities treated him?

Stephon Clark's brother Stevante leads a protest chant
during a City Council meeting Tuesday night

Contrast his arrest with the Sacramento PD's response to reports of someone breaking car windows in a neighborhood last Sunday night - where they shot and killed Stephon Clark about a minute after encountering him.

In Sacramento, the SPD had no idea who Stephon Clark was - they saw his skin color and flipped the fuck out.

Now if I was a cop, and I'm not, a report of a suspect breaking car windows on the street could sound like garden variety juvenile vandalism.

Or worse, maybe someone under the influence of heroin, crystal meth or crack desperately looking for a quick score to sell something to get high.

It's hardly the modus operandi of a professional car thief, so someone breaking car windows sounds either desperate or stupid - it makes a lot of noise, attracts a lot of attention in a neighborhood after 9pm at night, and it increases the chances of getting busted by the cops.

Does that sound like a situation where you go in with a gun drawn ready to fire shots at the first person you see?

Or does it sound like the kind of situation where it's better to ascertain who it is and what's going on?

Granted it was dark out, but responding SPD officers had a police helicopter hovering overhead that had guided them to the general location, and based on the audio that was released, the SPD officers didn't identify themselves as police officers when they encountered Stephon Clark.

If you haven't already seen it, take a look at this body cam footage when the two SPF officer come upon Clark in his grandmother's backyard - it's not bloody or anything, you can't see the actual shooting.

No charges: Baton Rouge PD officers Blaine Salamoni
and Howie Lake, II

The officer's first words at 9 seconds into the video sound like "Show me your hands! Gun!" 

He's out of breath and says the words so fast it's hard to hear what he's saying - plus the police helicopter is hovering overhead.

About 6 seconds later the officer yells, "Show me your hands-Gun-Gun-Gun!" and both officers just start firing shots.

It's the initial contact that's troubling.

In some ways it reminds me of the initial contact that Baton Rouge PD officers Blaine Salamoni and  Howie Lake, II demonstrated when they first encountered 37-year-old Alton Sterling in front of the Triple S Food Mart in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in the early morning hours of July 5, 2016.

The two officers were responding to an anonymous caller alleging a man was waving a gun around in front of the store, they pulled up, approached Sterling (who was known to sell CD's outside the store), interrupted a conversation he was having with two women and told him to put his hands on a car.

Not having done anything illegal and not knowing what the officers wanted with them, Sterling protested and tried to pull away - at which point one of the officers pointed their loaded gun at Sterling and said:

"Bitch, I'm gonna kill you." 90 seconds later Alton Sterling was shot dead at point blank range while on the ground pinned on his back by both officers - Salamoni fired six shots from his weapon.

There was no, "Police officer, we need to speak with you." or "Show me your hands!" or "Freeze! Police officer!"

Alton Sterling seconds before
being shot by Salamoni

They literally pulled up, pointed a loaded handgun at his head and said, "Bitch, I'm gonna kill you."  - and they did.

The last time I blogged about Salamoni and Lake back on May 5, 2017 was just after the Department of Justice under Jeff Sessions announced they would not pursue criminal charges against either man.

As you likely heard, on Tuesday Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry announced that the state would not be filing criminal charges against either Salamoni or Lake.

This despite the store owner Abdullah Muflahi saying that Sterling was not waving a gun or threatening anyone, and never brandished a gun or threatened the two officers with it at any point.

Muflahi, who witnessed the shooting, says Sterling had no idea why the two policemen were even there when they threw him on the hood of a parked car and tasered him before wrestling him to the ground.

In an April 15, 2012 op-ed in the New York Times published two months after the violent racist psychopath George Zimmerman stalked, attacked then shot and killed teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida, journalist and author Brent Staples observed:

"Young black men know that in far too many settings they will be seen not as individuals, but as the 'other', and given no benefit of the doubt....Society's message to black boys - 'we fear you and view you as dangerous' -  is constantly reinforced. " 

In his lengthy statement to the press on Tuesday, after stating that probable clause (rather than an actual crime), the presence of drugs in his system and resisting an arrest for something which he was never informed, were all contributing factors in Alton Sterling being shot and killed, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry concluded "that both officers acted in a reasonable and justified manner in the shooting death of Mr. Sterling."

Writer Brent Staples

The question now facing the Sacramento City Council, the California State Attorney's Office and the Sacramento Police Department is one which members of the community who protested during a City Council meeting on Tuesday night have already raised:

Were the two Sacramento PD officers who fired 20 shots at Stephon Clark while he was in the backyard of his own home acting in a "reasonable and justified manner"?

The answer, which must come from a court of law, will obviously take time to articulate and materialize.

But it should be viewed in the context of the words of Brent Staples from his op-ed written in the wake of Trayvon Martin:

"Very few Americans make a conscious decision to subscribe to racist views. But the toxic connotations that the culture has associated with blackness have been embedded in thought, language, and social convention for hundreds of years. This makes it easy for people to see the world through a profoundly bigoted lens without being aware that they are doing so."

It's that lens that lies at the heart of the death of Alton Sterling, Stephon Clark, Trayvon Martin and so many other men of color in this country.

Tried, convicted, sentenced and executed in a span of minutes - far from any court of law, denied the right to legal counsel guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and brutally silenced before having the chance to testify on their own behalf.

And as the cases of Alton Sterling and Trayvon Martin both demonstrated, found complicit in their own deaths and cruelly forced into the unfathomable role of being silent witnesses for their own prosecution by a judicial system that views plaintiffs and defendants through "a profoundly bigoted lens."

There's nothing remotely reasonable or justified about that.