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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 5, 2011)
12 street roots Aug. 5, 2011 Black, professional, well-educated. And stopped by the cops BY JOE MARTIN C O N T R IB U T IN G W R ITER n 1959, a white Texan by the name of John Howard Griffin undertook a most unusual experiment: by ingesting an oral medication and exposing himself to ultraviolet rays his skin went from white to black. He did not gaze into a mirror until the process was complete. When he finally did so he was thunderstruck: “The transformation was total and shocking. I had expected to see myself disguised but this was something e lse .... I looked into the mirror and saw nothing of the white John Griffin’s p a s t ... The Griffin that was had become invisible.” And in that moment he stepped into another universe where nothing had changed, and yet everything had changed for him as a person. Suddenly he was perceived as a black man in America. Griffin’s six weeks as a man with darkened skin in the American South were chronicled famously in his book “Black Like Me.” How different would Griffin’s experience be today? The essays that comprise “Twelve Angry Men” give urgent testimony to the ongoing emotional and social currency of race in our time and of blackness in particular. Of the 12 authors assembled, most are professionals who have achieved considerable status in academia, journalism, the arts and the legal profession. All have Stories of encounters with police for simply being black. While the notable Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. is not one , of the contributors to this volume, his infamous run-in with Cambridge Pplice Sergeant James Crowley made the headlines and is recounted in the book’s introduction by another black Harvard professor, Lani Guinier. Gates was trying to get into his home when a neighbor reported that a prowler might be trying to break iiitb the house. Gates would be arrested on his porch for disorderly conduct when he protested Crowley’s interrogation. Crowley is white. Eventually President Obama brought Gates and Crowley together for a beer and a discussion at the White House. Writes Guinier: “Hollywood could not have I Twelve Angry Men: True Stories of Being a Black Man in America Today. Edited by Gregory S. Parks and Matthew W. Hughey. m ug shot after being arrested as a prowler at his own home. asked for a more cinematic display of the many ways we each “read” race against the backdrop of history, culture, and our individual capacity to exercise power or wield authority.” Veteran journalist Solomon Moore details his experience with racial profiling when he wasresearching a story on gang life for the New York Times. Over the years he states that he has been stopped by police, for no ostensible reason, on numerous occasions. One paitietilar njght in 2007, he was in the * initial stage of a conversation with about a dozen black men on a sidewalk in Salisbury, North Carolina. These men didn’t know Moore and they were wary of him. “I’m a reporter. I’m trying to talk to you about your neighborhood.” He was in the process of showing them his reporter’s identification Support every persons right to fresh and healthy food. Donate to Sisters O f The Road through July and your donation is m atched 2 to 1—turn your $10 in to $30! Help us keep the cornbreadcomin’! Thank you from the community at Sisters O f The Road. SISTERS OF THE ROAD /J K www.sistersoftheroad.org 133 NW 6th Avenue in Old Town Chinatown Portland I ROSE CITY RESOURCE H H I it July-November 2011 . Portland, Oregon 5 — i The new Rose City Resource is now available. For copies, write us at ■ pdxrosecityresource@ gmail.com. www.rosecityresoarce.org The most important 104 pages you’ll fin d under one cover! when three police cars suddenly showed up. One officer was black, another female. The third cop, a tall white man, ordered Moore to approach him and Moore was summarily “shoved face down on the sheet metal and cuffed,” He was let go but angrily said to the officers: “This is America. I have a right to talk to anyone I like, wherever I like.” Unmoved by this assertion, the cops drove off leaving him to resume his conversation with the locals who had observed the drama. Moore’s credibility was not enhanced much in their eyes. One young man told him, “Man, you know what would have happened to us if we had talked to them that way? We’d be in jail right now.” Even a respected Major League ball player like Joe Morgan, now a TV and radio commentator, can get seriously hassled and even roughed up for doing nothing remotely illegal. He writes of the day in 1988 when at the L.A. airport he went to a phone booth to make a, call. Morgan had just been chatting pleasantly with some friendly fans who recognized him and were thrilled to be speaking with this well-known athlete and celebrity. “As I was dialing my number, a guy put his hand on my shoulder and forcefully whirled me around.” When one of the fans protested what was happening — , “That’s Joe Morgan, the broadcaster, the baseball star. I was on the plane with him from Oakland.” — the fan was told to get lost or face arrest too. “Over the next hours, the nightmare deepened, and it was,all because. I was just another black man.” Morgan would file a lawsuit against the LAPD. A jury awarded him more than $500,000 in damages. A perusal of this readable collection reveals starkly that the dream of a genuinely post-racial society is yet a distant vision. However, it will enlighten many—— -— —---- conscientious citizens who never have to worry if the hue of their skin might alone cause frustrating, frightening, and sometimes violent encounters with forces of the law. Reprinted courtesy o f Real Change News, Seattle, Wash. M other N ature ’ s E arth F riendly B aby P roducts Large selection of cloth diapers & wraps, natural baby & mama care products, baby slings & carriers, organic cotton baby clothes, wooden toys, personal service 2627 S E C l in t o n S t . 503-230-7077 I chose to advertise in Street Roots because I know its readers believe in helping people who are trying to help themselves. I’ve spent a number of years abusing meth and alcohol. I’ve spent halt of the last 17 years clean/sober and most of It was spent Inside a correctional facility In Iowa. I’ve written a book about my experiences. “1065131” by Jason Breedlove is available at Pow ell’s, Reading Frenzy and on Kindle.
