Racism through experienced eyes
By Michael BeDan
The Metropolitan
Words, if allowed, can be far more dangerous than sticks and stones.
A woman skates through a blinking then solid, ãDonât Walkä signal at California and 15th Street.
Cops see only one thing when they see a black person?
ãNo skating on the mall,ä the cop says as the woman blurs across the 16th Street Mall and continues up Curtis Street, again on skates.
She nods and skates. The cop rolls up on his motorcycle. She tells him she is going to the bank and since she isnât actually skating on the mall (sheâd simply skated across it), she is not doing anything wrong.
She was wrong.
A handprint bruise on her dark arm and 14 hours with a crack-whore in Denver County Jail proved it.
Jail made her cry. The three cops that arrested her for ãinterference,ä ãdisobeying lawful orderä and ãskating on the mallä made her angry.
Black people hate black people, too.
ãSellout bitch,ä says one of four black men in an Oldsmobile as it creeps up Pearl Street.
She turns. Her husband turns. They were on skates, holding hands, on Pearl Street. Sheâs black. Heâs white.
White men canât ...
Eleven white men crowd into the corner of a newsroom off campus. A man asks, ãWhat has two arms, two legs and says Îho de do, ho de do?â ä
The small crowd ponders ...
ãA nigger running for an elevator.ä
A burst of laughter. More laughter. And a quick glance to make sure one man hadnât heard the joke. The manâs wife is black.
Back to the jail.
Her mother sent $200 to bail her daughter out of jail. She said she wished her daughter would learn to shut her mouth.
ãShe needs to remember that sheâs black. Cops can do whatever they want.ä
Her daughter had to buy a new pair of Rollerblades because the cops kept hers for evidence. The skates were her only transportation. Sheâs a journalism graduate with a 3.8 GPA in graduate school.
And sheâs heard it all before. About how sheâs being too sensitive and misreading people. Sheâs heard about how enlightened people are in 1998.
She doesnât believe it.
Neither do I.
But you probably think Iâm biased because sheâs my wife.
But what if she was your wife? Or sister? Or daughter? Or friend?
