Ear Hustle

A Black Man Strolling His Baby In The Park Has Police Called On Him By A White Woman For Being “Suspicious”

#SWBWABB!! (Strolling While Black With A Black Baby) Since when has it become a crime to stroll your baby in the park…oh we forgot unless you’re white a simple stroll with your baby in the park is not a normal thing.

Donald Sherman of Washington D.C stayed home from work with his son who was not feeling well and thought a stroll in the park would do them both some good.  According to his account of what occurred he had been strolling about 30 minutes with his son when a park security officer got his attention and informed him about a complaint they received about a “suspicious” man strolling through the park with a baby.  Sherman recalls the only person he passed on his stroll was a white woman on the park’s bike path.

According to the park security officer she stated the person who made the complaint declined to confirm the race of the “suspicious” person in the park.

What the hell is wrong with people? Like black people don’t have the right to walk in the park with their children without some closet racist white person getting all up in their “privileged whiteness” and wasting the time and resources of the police making bogus calls about blacks.   Law enforcement need to start holding these “afraid” white folks accountable for making these bogus calls.  Maybe a night in jail or a police record may hit home for these phone keyboard nutcases.

Read more as reported by The Root:

Photo Credit Donald Sherman (Facebook)

Well, it looks like the epidemic of well-meaning white folks (I guess) calling the police or security on black people as they go about their lives is par for the course in 2018 America.

It is becoming increasingly clear that although the whites have always had an irrational fear of black people, as they move in closer proximity to them (i.e., via gentrification), they also bring their biases—along with ironic dive bars and astronomical rents.

If you are even a semiregular reader of The Root, you have seen in the last month or so (since the “Starbucks incident”) that this type of shit happens every day—that these attacks (because be clear: When you call the law on black people in America, it is an attack) happen with frightening regularity to black folks from all walks of life.

This time, a black father was pushing his son in a Washington, D.C., park, and a white woman saw fit to notify park security about “a suspicious man walking the bike path with a baby.”

It should make no difference that that man, Donald Sherman, is a professional, a lawyer, because to some folks, he will always be a scary black guy.

Sherman explained in a May 10 Facebook post that on the day in question, his son was not feeling well, so he stayed home with him.

Photo Credit: Donald Sherman (Facebook)

After some time, baby Caleb seemed better, so he took the little guy out for some fresh air at Kingman and Heritage Islands Park, man-made islands in the Anacostia River, not too far from his gentrified neighborhood. Sherman wrote:

30 minutes into our stroll I got flagged by a security officer in one of those cars marked “Special Police” on the side. I was a bit confused as to whether she was looking for me to stop but she honked twice and pulled over so I got the picture. She told me that she received a complaint from someone who said there was a “suspicious man” walking on the bike path with a baby. She said that when the complainant was asked to describe my race, she declined.

What is clear to anyone with eyes, however, is that Sherman is dark-skinned while his son is not, perhaps prompting the woman to think that a black man somehow stole a white baby. I guess.

Sherman noted that the only person he saw on their walk was “a white lady on a bike who veered off as Caleb and I were walking in her direction” and that she was the one who “saw fit to report me to security.”

Thankfully, Sherman reported that his interaction with the security officer was “pleasant” and that she just wanted to let him know what happened.

But being a black man in America, we know it could have been a very different situation.

“If this complaint had been made to a different security officer or an actual cop, things could have gone very differently,” he wrote. “This is exactly why we have to talk about white privilege and why black lives matter. Because at any point doing anything anywhere my safety and my child’s safety could [have] been in jeopardy because [of] some well-intentioned complaint.”

Let’s break out the flowchart one mo’ gin for those who obviously need it:

Photo Credit: Wesly Peterson (Facebook)

Maybe it’s time to start prosecuting folks for these meritless calls—at least to 911.

Source: The Root

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