I was making a recipe that needed a lot of lemons so I just sent out a general
email on the neighborhood email group and said if anyone has extra lemons
could I please come get some and everyone was like overwhelmingly yes like you
know come and one woman in particular who lives three blocks over let me know
that just come by anytime that she had so many lemons and she was like don't
worry about it even if my car is not here if I'm not home just come on in the
yard so I didn't hesitate to do that I took a lot of lemons and so I thought I
saw some movement in the house so I just wanted to knock on the door and say thank
you and when I knocked on the door the woman I could see her through the the
window in the door she was on the phone and she was saying no I'm absolutely
not going to open the door I had to park up the street from my house and got out
of the car walking and it was less than half a block up walking back to women
walking up the street looked up saw me coming down the street they walked out
into the middle of the street walked down past a few cars until they got past me
and then came back onto the sidewalk so by the time I got to the porch I'm
literally shaking because I just realized you know what they just did I
think it's a little bit unnerving to be walking the dog around the block and
just knowing that there's probably someone across the street in their house
just looking at you thinking what are they doing there why are they there and
I'm always every single day when I'm just out of the car or out of the house
just on the street somewhere I just think like it's I don't really want to be
here right now it's a little uncomfortable. The neighbors for racial justice
formed it's been a couple years now and it formed out of this need for
better communication I think on the list serves that you know whether it's
next door the individual neighborhood Google groups that we have going there
seems to be a lack of moderation around the profiling that was done through
these emails. Well the profiling you hear you know you'll see it on say the
Clint Friends website African American 510 medium bill bald clean-shaven or
beard and the first thing you I think about is that that sounds like me. The
kinds of emails or they call them high crime alert messages that come across on
the neighborhood lists are sometimes the descriptions are so general and vague
it'll just say you know there's a black man or a brown-skinned woman you know
walking slowly by my house beyond the alert for suspicious activity and I'm
like it could be me walking to the grocery store. The scenario I'm concerned
about is someone you know looks out their window sees a person they of color
that they don't recognize and or they're just you know having a bad day or
they're nervous about something or they're off their meds or whatever and
they decide to call the police and or private security and then that's just
not you know that the potential you know the risk you know of being stopped by
the police is not it's not risk-free and it's not something that you know any
person of color would want to be exposed to unless it was absolutely necessary.
You know my biggest fear is someone actually calling the police on me and
then here I am running through the neighborhood early in the morning and
you just don't know what'll happen you know you think the worst you know you
think the worst sometimes. There have been a few neighbors that have said you
know I absolutely agree with you and and they warned me just don't engage the
crazy that's out there but you know it's it's hard not to because when I see
something that goes out to the entire neighborhood my first impulse is to to
counterbalance that. If you have very few fearful people who are posting and
becoming more afraid and they're heavily armed there's real potential for them to
get worse and harm themselves or someone else and there's no monitoring of
that there's a presumption that if you're posting about this that you were
that you're sort of not the criminal. I don't wear a hoodie I don't put when I
leave in the morning to go run sometimes I used to put my hoodie on but if I know
I'm not parked directly in front of the house and I have to walk up the block to
get to my car I won't put my hoodie on. I don't wear my hoodie up in the
neighborhood I don't walk even the grocery stores two blocks away I drive to the
store yeah I think it absolutely has changed my my my patterns of walking I
go to the park to walk I don't walk here. I think next door is making a real
mistake in sort of their format in that they're they'll allow you to sell stuff
and they allow you to talk about crime and I think if you're talking about
building community there's no section for education for family for a dialogue
about how do we create a safe space for teenagers how do you transition
teenagers to being adults and let them make mistakes without being incarcerated.
You'll hear you know can you be a little bit more specific not so generic on the
description can you tell us what the suspicious behavior was why did you
think this person you know was doing something in the neighborhood that they
shouldn't be here and what you end up with is this hostility because you know
another black person might respond and basically then they're attacked on the
email string are you being too sensitive hypersensitive about you know what
we're saying. I would suggest that people start by describing the suspicious
behavior what is it that seems out of line what like what's the cause for
concern so you think someone's casing your house like can you describe that
versus starting with some kind of like fear-based description of oh there's a
big black man and he's walking by my house I mean a person has every right
to walk in front of your house right so I would say consider your neighbors of
color make sure that you're not describing one of them just going about
their daily actions because if the cops were to be called on us like you're
putting our safety in danger. They just use a generic suspicious behavior and
personally I would like to know what is that suspicious behavior because if I'm
part of the neighborhood and I'm gonna be looking out for suspicious behavior I
want to I want to be able to validate what you saw. It's important to just be
aware of the fact that you making this call can bring harm to someone else so
I would start there second there are more you know more and more I guess you
call it guidelines or checklists you know informations coming out that a lot
of it some of it well I'm gonna say a lot of it some of it provided by the
police about how to properly report you know incidents if you will and that
typically focuses they typically focus on behavior. But what I've noticed a lot
is people don't even look me in the face so if you don't look me in the face
you can't even give the proper description of what I look like so that's
I think that lends to the generic profiling because people aren't looking
at people you know they're just seeing a silhouette. I mean I moved here from the
south and I didn't have these kinds of experiences there like to move to such a
diverse area the Bay Area is known to have such a wonderfully culturally and
ethnically diverse community and to have these kinds of experiences it's just
unthinkable I'm just I'm shocked I'm saddened and and I'm starting to get
resentful I'm starting to think I need to move.
