Protests and Police

The following is Excerpted from Human(Kind): How Reclaiming Human Worth and Embracing Radical Kindness Will Bring Us Back Together by Ashlee Eiland

Scrolling through Facebook and Instagram in the wake of the rally and protests in Charlottesville in August 2017 was enough to make my stomach churn.

The rally on Saturday was organized in opposition to a plan by local officials to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee, the Confederacy’s top general, from Emancipation Park in Charlottesville. at plan prompted a similar protest in May, led by the white nationalist Richard B. Spencer, as well as a Ku Klux Klan rally in July. . . . However, the forces behind the rally run much deeper than the removal of statues. Right-wing extremism, including white nationalism and white supremacy, is on the rise, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. And a string of killings in recent months raised the specter of far-right violence well before last weekend.*

I wasn’t hungry. I couldn’t sleep. All I could see when I closed my eyes was a soft orange glow reflecting on white faces filled with rage. I couldn’t tell if the images were from the civil rights movement or now. I couldn’t tell if these people were strangers, friends, nobodies, or high school acquaintances. It was all a blur. Yet as I rocked my seventeen- month-old son and rubbed lotion into my baby girl’s chocolate skin, the blurred images sharpened into focus and I realized just how thick the fear really was.

A friend texted me to ask if she could come over. She must’ve known how I was feeling. She came over with her two sons and occupied space with me that I temporarily had no idea how to ll.

I remember showing up to work the Tuesday after the rally and looking at everyone with a different filter, wondering, Did you think it was just as awful as I did? Did you say anything? Did you lose sleep like I did?

Then, as my husband and I walked our kids to the park, went for jogs around our riverside town, or left our neighborhood for custard, the flags started sprouting from the sides of the houses. One by one they grew, first one, then two, then three Confederate flags flown proudly from windows and flagpoles.

At the local library, I turned around from perusing the parenting section just long enough to see a man click on a video at one of the public computer stations. The video was of a woman talking directly into a camera with a Confederate flag flying behind her.

Fear.

There was a couple we’d seen a few times on walks and at our neighborhood park. They wore camouflage hats and jackets, and they never spoke a word to us. And that was after we’d spoken to them and our kids had played together.

More fear. Less sleep. Just paralysis.

I received notes of encouragement from the women with whom I’d traveled to Israel and Palestine, the same ones who’d demonstrated solidarity with me at the Shabbat meal.

Our church tried hard to find words of prayer and solace, words that condemned hate but didn’t divide us.

In the midst of it all, fear was rising, suffocating me, making it hard for me to breathe and show up every day.

As I watched news and monitored social media with trepidation, I noticed one relationship that had already been strained was now more tense than ever: the relationship between the black community and members of the police force. In recent years, officers had been indicted or charged in the deaths of black individuals including Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Samuel DuBose, Philando Castile, and Terence Crutcher—yet only three convictions were served.**

Now, here we were, two sides warring with officers caught in the middle. Not only did I fear for my own life and the lives of my husband and kids, but I also now distrusted law enforcement more than ever before.

If I were in danger, would they protect and serve me?

Or would they see me as unimportant and disposable—a life that might have certain rights but that certainly doesn’t matter?

I tried to think of all the honorable and brave men and women I knew who had served, both from my past and present—but somehow, their faces and names did little to allay the aftershock of hate.

The next day, I did the one thing I knew I could do.

You have to draw closer, I told myself. Keep being fearful and holding people at arm’s length, and it won’t be the guns or the closet racists that kill you. It’ll be your own paranoia and fear.

I didn’t know where to start. I asked myself whom I feared the most.

Cops, I admitted. I felt vulnerable and judged myself a little. But, to keep myself accountable, I texted my husband saying I wanted to have the cops over.

He was more than a little concerned. Being a black man who grew up on Chicago’s South Side, he knew firsthand the ramifications of one innocent misstep in an interaction with the police.

But he gave me his support—and so I took action. I posted on Facebook,

Open house: Dessert, coffee and (optional) prayer this afternoon at our home for any local law enforcement who want a space to voice how Charlottesville impacts them and how they “stand with” minority groups in their communities. We’re with you, too. We want to understand. Proximity, dialogue and perspective matter! Message me for address/time if interested.

I almost wet my pants while typing those words, but I kept going—posting a similar message to our police department’s Facebook page.

Friends came over to sit with us and be with our kids as we waited.

I’d baked chocolate chip cookies with my daughter and brewed coffee, the whole time telling myself this would never work and I was over-simplifying a complex issue.

This won’t fix anything, Ashlee, I thought to myself. Why do you think ever-loving treats will fix anything?

But it was too late. I’d already taken a risk. I’d taken the risk to hold space and have conversation with people I’d already admitted I feared. I’d taken the risk in expressing my intention to people who knew cops, loved cops, were cops. I was sure “real” racial reconciliation and justice advocates were probably rolling their eyes at my sweet, sweet naiveté.

Who was I to think this would fix a single thing?

Midthought, a knock came at the door.

Two on-duty officers who’d parked their car down the street from our house actually showed up to talk to us. My husband and I answered as our friends sat on the couch, silent as church mice—making sure we could concentrate and they could hear.

We went outside to our porch, closing the door behind us. With a shaky voice, I spoke: “Officers, I—I mean, I know it’s been a hard week . . . um, in our country. And, um . . .”

I stammered on and on, forgetting words and feeling foolish but somehow expressing our sorrow for what had transpired and our desire to know more about how events like Charlottesville affected their roles and responsibilities. We talked a little about community relations, and they made it clear, in few words, that they realized we were one of very few black families in the neighborhood. They talked about how quiet our community was and how they hadn’t really needed to intervene in any major ways, which, admittedly, made my heart sink.

But the flags! I wanted to protest.

When my daughter walked out with a tray of cookies.

The conversation shifted from rallies and protests to baseball and our upbringings. It wasn’t long, but in looking these officers in the eye, in imperfectly expressing my truth and my concern—in offering a rickety olive branch in the form of confections and coffee—I couldn’t fear them. I turned around and went back into my house.

Perhaps it was still true that I feared racists and unchecked power. I still cringed every time we passed by the Confederate flag waving wildly in a neighbor’s yard. But I no longer feared those two police officers who knocked on my door and ate the cookies we’d baked. I couldn’t fear them, because I’d met the fear with risk. As simple as it sounds, the risk was worth it. Even if just for that reason alone.

Shortly after the visit, the police department sent my kids police stickers—and then that Christmas we exchanged Christmas greetings through the mail.

We didn’t see those officers again, but I knew they were around, somewhere. And I knew that just as we’d shared space with them, they’d shared space with us.

These days, taking a risk to step closer and share space can seem so small and insignificant: not grand or creative enough, not loud or witty enough. Risk can be a bold statement. Or it can be a quiet and bumbling peace offering, something we stumble and trip and stagger our way through, just trying to take a half step toward courage and harmony.

In this way, when it gets us closer to humanity and the stories that humanity tells, risk, no matter how small, is the greatest display of defiance.

Rather than stay comfortable behind our computer screens and newspapers, risk pulls us into the open, vulnerable and unsure, and helps us combat our fears with real human flesh.

Whom do you fear? What’s her story?

Whom do you distrust? What’s his greatest pride and joy?

Perhaps the cookies and coffee that day were pointless. Maybe they didn’t make a difference at all.

But I slept just a little better that night.

We still ended up moving to a different neighborhood, partially because we felt unsafe. And we still have injustices to expose and mourn, not the least of which is how to explain systemic racism to my black son and daughters. I still cry when I hear breaking news of another black life lost. I still bite my tongue when white privilege flies freely around the room in cafés and conference rooms.

But the point is, the risk was for that day. For that day—just that day—the small risk was enough. We can be tempted into thinking that divisions and dissention require large and sweeping offerings of our well-crafted and clever selves. But what if we’re too tired for clever? What if we’re too ignorant for ingenious? What if all we have is a weary heart and a lot of fear? What if we’ve had enough and that means having nothing at all?

That Sunday afternoon the cookies and coffee were enough. Truly, they were all I had. And they were enough for me to grip tightly to hope in humanity and say I think I can make it to tomorrow now, brave enough to find a way.

And the thing about it was, I don’t think I was the only one who took a risk that day. Two officers—two men who risk their lives every day— took a small but great risk too.

_______

*Maggie Astor, Christina Caron, & Daniel Victor, “A Guide to the Charlottesville Aftermath,” New York Times, August 13, 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/08/13/us/charlottesville-virginia-overview.html

**Jasmine C. Lee and Haeyoun Park, “15 Black Lives Ended in Confrontations with Police. 3 Officers Convicted,” New York Times, October 5, 2018, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/05/17/us/black-deaths-police.html

Excerpted from Human(Kind): How Reclaiming Human Worth and Embracing Radical Kindness Will Bring Us Back Together. Copyright © 2020 by Ashlee Eiland. Published by WaterBrook, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. Used by permission.

This excerpt was featured in the June 14th edition of The Sunday Paper. The Sunday Paper inspires hearts and minds to rise above the noise. To get The Sunday Paper delivered to your inbox each Sunday morning for free, click here to subscribe.