'You know why the lady called the police': Black people face 911 calls for innocuous acts
MEMPHIS — Sitting in his car outside a boarded-up house on a recent Saturday morning, Michael Hayes went through the mental checklist of things he does to make sure suspicious people know he is an enterprising young real estate investor, not a burglar or a drug addict.
He readied his business cards. He grabbed a sign with his business website and phone number to plant in the front yard of the brick house on Douglass Avenue. He cued up the contract that the homeowner signed allowing Hayes to go inside and take pictures for potential investors. He even had the owner on the phone as he worked one of the boards loose. And, as always, he exhibited a polite and respectful demeanor to anyone he met.
None of it was enough.
Before that afternoon was over, Hayes — a 31-year-old father, former teacher and an entrepreneur with a growing portfolio of rehabbed homes for sale — would have to justify his presence to a screaming neighbor and the police officers summoned to the scene.
He had committed no crime, and the police did not arrest him. But many of the millions of people who saw the video he recorded of the conflict say his transgression wasn’t what he did, but who he is: He was real estate investing while black.
“You know why the lady called the police on me,” he said, looking directly into the camera. “I don’t look threatening.”
In recent weeks, a host of viral videos have shown black Americans engaged in innocuous activities that led to 911 calls. On May 12, members of a black sorority were questioned by a state trooper while picking up litter on a Pennsylvania highway. Four days earlier, a Yale University student was interrogated by police after her dorm neighbor called the police because she was napping in a common area. And a week before that, a neighbor reported a burglary in progress as a group of black women left their Airbnb in Rialto, Calif.
The incidents have given rise to the hashtag #LivingWhileBlack and often end with a black person being interrogated by police or being carted off in handcuffs. In the worst cases, the incidents have escalated to body slams or even gunshots.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/living-while-black-viral-videos-raise-concerns-about-everyday-racial-profiling/2018/05/29/d4bd630a-5b74-11e8-8836-a4a123c359ab_story.html?utm_term=.edb065570b5a&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1
= new reply since forum marked as read