Check out this one minute clip
from the movie "Thelma and Louise"
HOWEVER, LIFE IMITATES ART
WITH A VENGEANCE
WHEN YOU'RE A BLACK WOMAN
LIVING IN A PREDOMINANTLY WHITE SECTION
OF SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA
Who would'a guessed that a black woman locking herself out of her own home would look so much like a scene from Thelma and Louise?
~~~~~
Fay ells had just gotten back home after playing soccer and found that she had locked herself out of her apartment. Soon after the locksmith got her inside, the Santa Monica police came to arrest her for breaking in.
A white man decided he didn't recognize her, called the police and leading edge of white supremacy came to get her, guns drawn like they were looking for Thelma, Louise, and their AK-47 toting twin sisters.
When Wells was dragged outside in handcuffs she counted a total of 19 police officers
It also didn't matter that Fay Wells was a lone black woman. Nineteen cops? Were they racing to see who would get to shoot somebody?
You tell me, okay? Why would 19 cops show up for a break-in? Why do you have your guns out for a "maybe."
"Maybe" somebody is breaking in, right? Maybe. A 911 call is a "maybe," yes? A 911 call is not a sure thing, right? That's why you don't show up to a possible break-in involving 1 or 2 people with your guns out. A 911 call is a "maybe." That lack of sureness is also why a cop should never pull his gun out and shoot it at boy 2 seconds after he steps out of his squad car onto a playground, right?
Wells has been fighting the Santa Monica police department, trying to get answers for what happened. Last I read she couldn't even get all the names of the cops that were there during her arrest. She got 17 of the 19 names from the Santa Monica Police Department and the list of names that she was given doesn't match the list Santa Monica Police Department sent to the newspaper editor that requested the same information.
Is there any question in your mind as to what happened to Skip Gates not long after President Obama was elected. Remember when the President said the police responded "stupidly?"
The police in Massachusetts basically arrested Skip Gates for getting mouthy when the white officer, clearly suffering Slave Master Mentality, started ordering Skips about in his own home AFTER that cop knew Gates hadn't broken in.
I can't find the link, but be advised that I got the slave-master-mentality impression from Officer Crowley's rendition of events (in a police report ?), not Skip Gates' version and not from any "liberal newspaper" either. Officer Crowley made it clear that he thought he had the gawd given right to boss a little, old, black man on a cane around.
When Crowley's white wife was interviewed for a newspaper she inadvertently made sure everybody understood the same thing-- master mentality arrives in her husband with the putting on of his uniform. I believe she used the words something like 'my husband demands respect when he's in uniform.'
Sandra Bland is dead due to Slave Master Mentality as well. Encinias may register as white but he's pale enough to pass, and he passed as white with flying colors the day her arrested Bland.
I hope to see that Wells is interviewed by a black magazine or a black news outlet soon because I'd really like to know more details about how she fits herself into the Black Lives Matter narrative.
I wonder if the Santa Monica police department's treatment of her stripped away any class protections she thought she had? I wonder if she was surprised by the fact that everything she said to them about belonging there, about being in her own home just evaporated into the air. She must have felt like her voice was being sucked away into a black hold where nobody could hear it.
I'm actually surprised more black people don't become more violent in such situations. The police are dragging you out of your own home like you don't belong there, where you have bills with your name on them, pictures of your own family, and passwords on your computers to prove that you belong there, even a receipt from the locksmith. And still nobody listens when you're clearly saying,
All it took for Sandra Bland to die was say she had the right to smoke in her own car after the cop had finished giving her the ticket. Who can defend such behavior except those who truly believe they own you?
I hope Wells was only surprised by the number of officers that showed up and not the event itself. Black adults who are poorly mentally prepared for white assaults can go one of two ways. They can suddenly become outraged into protest action or they can become so disillusioned that they are hateful and suspicious of all white people, forevermore. And I think I've seen that the latter is more likely.
In some ways, I'm very glad that my parents felt like they were forced, by the times we were living in, to talk to me about race from a very young age. I was five or six the first time I had nasty racial experience with other children. I was probably twelve before a white adult went beyond giving me nasty looks or refusing to touch my hand when giving me change.
It hurt me very much to be told about white racism so young. But I feel like you're more flexible when you're young because you allow yourself to be sad. The older you get the more you tell yourself the behavior of others doesn't matter and "I don't care anyway." In other words, you respond to hurts by making yourself harder and tougher instead of crying once you get a little older.
On the flip side, I keep wondering if it wouldn't be better to raise black children in an exclusively black environment sans any white imagery until they are seven or eight or nine -- old enough to have a very strong base for their self-esteem, old enough to see their own black looks as the most beautiful normal but young enough to cry and admit they are hurt when they are hurt by sexism, racism, and the petty evil that comes out of the human heart so often.
In other words, I wonder if black children wouldn't be better off learning a stronger sense of self before learning empathetic acceptance of the other. I've been wondering this for years now. I still don't know
But I don't wonder about older children and adults being surprised by the depth of white racism in this country. I can't recall ever having seen a naive black adult move into accepting overt and covert racism for what it is in a mature and reasonable way. There's either a brittle hatred of all white people or three-quarters of the reality of white racism is stuffed into a box and hidden away. I feel like you can't help either extremist. It's like they're destined to suffer from B-PTSD* for the rest of their lives.
So, I hope Fay Wells was mentally prepared for what happened. And I hope we get to hear what she does with this experience in the future.
Santa Monica Police Department Contact Information
310.395.9931 • police@smgov.net
WHEN YOU'RE A BLACK WOMAN
LIVING IN A PREDOMINANTLY WHITE SECTION
OF SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA
Who would'a guessed that a black woman locking herself out of her own home would look so much like a scene from Thelma and Louise?
~~~~~
Fay ells had just gotten back home after playing soccer and found that she had locked herself out of her apartment. Soon after the locksmith got her inside, the Santa Monica police came to arrest her for breaking in.
A white man decided he didn't recognize her, called the police and leading edge of white supremacy came to get her, guns drawn like they were looking for Thelma, Louise, and their AK-47 toting twin sisters.
When Wells was dragged outside in handcuffs she counted a total of 19 police officers
"It didn’t matter that I told the cops I’d lived there for seven months, told them about the locksmith, offered to show a receipt for his services and my ID.
It didn’t matter that I went to Duke, that I have an MBA from Dartmouth, that I’m a vice president of strategy at a multinational corporation.
It didn’t matter that I’ve never had so much as a speeding ticket. It didn’t matter that I calmly, continually asked them what was happening.
It also didn’t matter that I didn’t match the description of the person they were looking for — my neighbor described me as Hispanic when he called 911.
What mattered was that I was a woman of color trying to get into her apartment — in an almost entirely white apartment complex in a mostly white city — and a white man who lived in another building called the cops because he’d never seen me before."
laist.com
It also didn't matter that Fay Wells was a lone black woman. Nineteen cops? Were they racing to see who would get to shoot somebody?
You tell me, okay? Why would 19 cops show up for a break-in? Why do you have your guns out for a "maybe."
"Maybe" somebody is breaking in, right? Maybe. A 911 call is a "maybe," yes? A 911 call is not a sure thing, right? That's why you don't show up to a possible break-in involving 1 or 2 people with your guns out. A 911 call is a "maybe." That lack of sureness is also why a cop should never pull his gun out and shoot it at boy 2 seconds after he steps out of his squad car onto a playground, right?
If the white guy across the street
had ACTUALLY seen
a black or Hispanic woman
with a gun breaking into an apartment
I still don't understand why 19 cops responded
NINETEEN?
Oh yeah. I forgot. Black and brown people have superhuman demon-like strength according to Darren Wilson. I forgot. My bad. Nineteen is totally reasonable.
Wells has been fighting the Santa Monica police department, trying to get answers for what happened. Last I read she couldn't even get all the names of the cops that were there during her arrest. She got 17 of the 19 names from the Santa Monica Police Department and the list of names that she was given doesn't match the list Santa Monica Police Department sent to the newspaper editor that requested the same information.
Is there any question in your mind as to what happened to Skip Gates not long after President Obama was elected. Remember when the President said the police responded "stupidly?"
The police in Massachusetts basically arrested Skip Gates for getting mouthy when the white officer, clearly suffering Slave Master Mentality, started ordering Skips about in his own home AFTER that cop knew Gates hadn't broken in.
I can't find the link, but be advised that I got the slave-master-mentality impression from Officer Crowley's rendition of events (in a police report ?), not Skip Gates' version and not from any "liberal newspaper" either. Officer Crowley made it clear that he thought he had the gawd given right to boss a little, old, black man on a cane around.
When Crowley's white wife was interviewed for a newspaper she inadvertently made sure everybody understood the same thing-- master mentality arrives in her husband with the putting on of his uniform. I believe she used the words something like 'my husband demands respect when he's in uniform.'
Sandra Bland is dead due to Slave Master Mentality as well. Encinias may register as white but he's pale enough to pass, and he passed as white with flying colors the day her arrested Bland.
I think Mike Brown is dead for the same reason, Slave Master Mentality. I believed the friend when he said Wilson hit Brown with the door and it hit him in the face. Can you imagine the master in "12 Years A Slave" responding any differently than Darren Wilson apparently did? I can't.
I hope to see that Wells is interviewed by a black magazine or a black news outlet soon because I'd really like to know more details about how she fits herself into the Black Lives Matter narrative.
I wonder if the Santa Monica police department's treatment of her stripped away any class protections she thought she had? I wonder if she was surprised by the fact that everything she said to them about belonging there, about being in her own home just evaporated into the air. She must have felt like her voice was being sucked away into a black hold where nobody could hear it.
I'm actually surprised more black people don't become more violent in such situations. The police are dragging you out of your own home like you don't belong there, where you have bills with your name on them, pictures of your own family, and passwords on your computers to prove that you belong there, even a receipt from the locksmith. And still nobody listens when you're clearly saying,
'This space is mine. I pay rent here. You are the ones that don't belong here'
All it took for Sandra Bland to die was say she had the right to smoke in her own car after the cop had finished giving her the ticket. Who can defend such behavior except those who truly believe they own you?
I hope Wells was only surprised by the number of officers that showed up and not the event itself. Black adults who are poorly mentally prepared for white assaults can go one of two ways. They can suddenly become outraged into protest action or they can become so disillusioned that they are hateful and suspicious of all white people, forevermore. And I think I've seen that the latter is more likely.
In some ways, I'm very glad that my parents felt like they were forced, by the times we were living in, to talk to me about race from a very young age. I was five or six the first time I had nasty racial experience with other children. I was probably twelve before a white adult went beyond giving me nasty looks or refusing to touch my hand when giving me change.
It hurt me very much to be told about white racism so young. But I feel like you're more flexible when you're young because you allow yourself to be sad. The older you get the more you tell yourself the behavior of others doesn't matter and "I don't care anyway." In other words, you respond to hurts by making yourself harder and tougher instead of crying once you get a little older.
On the flip side, I keep wondering if it wouldn't be better to raise black children in an exclusively black environment sans any white imagery until they are seven or eight or nine -- old enough to have a very strong base for their self-esteem, old enough to see their own black looks as the most beautiful normal but young enough to cry and admit they are hurt when they are hurt by sexism, racism, and the petty evil that comes out of the human heart so often.
In other words, I wonder if black children wouldn't be better off learning a stronger sense of self before learning empathetic acceptance of the other. I've been wondering this for years now. I still don't know
But I don't wonder about older children and adults being surprised by the depth of white racism in this country. I can't recall ever having seen a naive black adult move into accepting overt and covert racism for what it is in a mature and reasonable way. There's either a brittle hatred of all white people or three-quarters of the reality of white racism is stuffed into a box and hidden away. I feel like you can't help either extremist. It's like they're destined to suffer from B-PTSD* for the rest of their lives.
So, I hope Fay Wells was mentally prepared for what happened. And I hope we get to hear what she does with this experience in the future.
 |
Fay Wells, who is the vice president of strategy
at a multinational corporation, penned a piece in The Washington Post today, detailing the harrowing ordeal that took place on Sept. 6 and how she is still shaken up. She writes, "I'm heartbroken that the place I called home no longer feels safe." ~~~~~~~
The police department's response, issued by a black female police chief, tries to divert attention from the only thing that matters - sending 17 to 19 police officers and a K-9 unit for a break-in and how it is the officers that knocked on Wells' door couldn't resolve it AT THE DOOR instead of dragging her outside in cuffs. Any idiot can call the police. One idiot did, racist or not. The police response is the problem.
And I really thought we'd established that the swarm technique is a bad technique with the beating of Rodney King. Maybe that's not what I think it is -- sending 5x as many cops as is necessary to get the job done The NAACP had already been to Santa Monica to discuss its poor handling of other cases. They Santa Monica PD is supposed to be producing a report on their handling of minorities in a report next year. |
Santa Monica Police Department Contact Information
310.395.9931 • police@smgov.net
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