It was somewhat disconcerting for my cousin, a cop in Washington, D.C., to attend my book event at Politics and Prose in March. Not really for me, since I knew he was coming. But when he walked in towards the end of my talkβin full vested, booted and armed cop gearβthe atmosphere shifted, and I watched the (mostly black) audience, whoβd been, to that point, watching me, watch him; all with the same question on their faces: βWTF is he doing here?β
I was tempted to speak on his presence, to assure everyone that heβs my fam. The implication being that since heβs my family, you donβt have to worry about him. Heβs cool. (In hindsight, I probably should have.) But even now, Iβm not sure how alleviating that would have been, because I donβt know if they wouldβve believed me. Not that he was my cousin; but that they donβt have to worry. That he was cool. And, well, Iβm not sure if I believed that either.
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Of course, I want to believe that my cousin is one of the cops we donβt have to worry about. One of the cool cops. One of the good apples. And I feel the same way about my three other cousins in law enforcement. Theyβre my family. My people. My blood. Iβve shared chili dogs, sleeping bags, and summers in New Castle, Pa., with them. I was a groomsman in oneβs wedding 11 years ago, standing seven feet away from him as he married another cop. I still remember attending anotherβs high school graduation party 27 years ago, and how sore my toes were at the end of the night from standing on them during all the group family pictures.
But Iβm sure Amber Guyger has cousins who love her, too. Iβm sure the officer who shot Atatiana Jefferson through her window and killed her has cherished memories of family reunions and wedding receptions, too. And I presume that each of them has family whoβd consider them to be cool too. βOh, I know sheβs a cop. But sheβs my cousin. Sheβs cool.β
Does it matter that the cops in my family are black, and is it true that this blackness makes them safer to the rest of us than white police officers are? I used to think so. I used to believe there were clear distinctions between black copsβand not just the ones in my family, but the ones Iβve hooped with, the ones who frequent the same coffee shops I do, the ones who work the door at Whole Foods and know my nameβand the ones who are legitimate dangers to us.
And I still want to believe that.
But Iβm actively endangering the lives of other black people when I ask them to be less skeptical, less cynical, and less guarded around cops; even the ones I happen to personally know and love. Because considering them to be good applesβand asking other people to share that considerationβrequires a level of cognitive dissonance that asks that we (that I) consider one set of insignificant and insufficient data (I happen to know them) and ignore the rest. It is safer, it is smarter, it is right to be wary of all in uniform. To be suspicious of all in uniform. To consider all in uniform to be bad apples. This doesnβt mean that theyβre bad people; just that, as long as theyβre in uniform, as long as they possess the power and privilege to shoot and kill us, as long as Atatiana Jefferson and Botham Jean and Sandra Bland and Antown Rose and Mike Brown and Tamir Rice are dead, it doesnβt matter.
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