Hey Friends,
John here. So much being said about race and policing in America lately, but many voices aren’t being heard; voices like my friends Scott and J.T. Scott adopted five multiracial children. J.T. is a black police officer. They were sharing their stories on social media and I think they deserve to heard. I hope you’ll take a few moments to hear their stories.
Scott: Most parents would understand when I say that having a child is a “life disrupting event”. After that bundle of joy brings you 2AM feedings and diaper changing, you realize it’s just the beginning. My life was changed dramatically in so many ways by each of my 7 children. Two of my kids “came into the world the usual way” and five were adopted—four all at one time: a sibling group of 3 sisters and a brother. Talk about a change! The interruption went far beyond daily routine, time demands, and financial demands. Five of my kids are from other races, including combinations of black, Mexican, and white.
Another life-altering event was meeting my best friend James Taylor. J.T. had two professions, a police officer and a minister. Lieutenant Taylor and Reverend Taylor—quite a combination. J.T. retired a few years back from protecting his community but continues to serve his church and community as a minister. We have travelled extensively, to every continent. We’ve had lots of discussions about lots of things. Our backgrounds couldn’t be more different, but our values couldn’t be more similar. We would like to share our story and a Facebook reply I sent to my son. We hope you will read it with an open mind. If you are like most people, you have an opinion already formed about this crisis. As you read, please don’t just rush to your corner of the boxing ring, but think about how you can be a part of developing solutions in the crisis that has come to the forefront of our culture regarding policing and shootings of black men.
J.T.: After having been raised in a dysfunctional, low-income family I worked my way through college and obtained a BA in Public Administration and graduated Cum Laude. I then joined the Raleigh Police Department. During the initial process, it became clear that it was going to be necessary to work harder than my white colleagues to be viewed as an equal, so that’s what I did. In my career, I worked hard, earned a Master of Divinity in evening school (Summa Cum Laude) and was promoted through the ranks to Lieutenant.
As an “insider” in the police department, I have seen first-hand how when an officer needs to use deadly force that officer’s life is never the same, even in justifiable incidents. I had a colleague who was working in a crime-ridden area of our city. The command was given for a suspect to “get down”, and the man in a heavy coat continued walking. When the command was repeated, he reached inside his coat and turned around quickly, using a motion that one would use if he was preparing to shoot. My colleague fired and the man was killed. In the coming days, months, and years, I watched my friend become more and more uncertain. His “what ifs” in that situation expanded to all areas of life. He become depressed, and sunk into excessive drinking to numb his pain. The downward spiral contributed to the premature end of his career and caused him and his family much suffering.
From my observations as both a career police officer and minister, I’ve had the opportunity to observe the best and the worst in people. In a life-threatening situation, a person acts based on what is deep inside. What is deep inside is the resulting combination of upbringing, education, and training, along with the fears that you have repressed. All of these instantaneously come into play subconsciously to create an action. There is no time to rationalize. The life-threatening moment is not the time when the decision is defined. It is defined far ahead of that time.
After I retired from RPD, I began using Facebook to keep in touch with my former colleagues. I always got along well with friends in the department and found that overt racism in the department was extremely limited. However, as I read some Facebook posts, I came to realize that a few officers who genuinely liked me and who I liked, had covert racist ideas. I was shocked to read posts that indicated how people really felt, and even though I’d spending years with them I never knew. In thinking about the current crisis in policing, to find solutions we must be radically honest and deal with our own internal issues. Race and any form of thinking of someone as “other” than us, will shadow our perception and change our action when there is no time to think. That action could be devastating for both a citizen and ourselves.
Scott: I would say most white people are fairly oblivious to issues of race, and not just racial “otherizing”. We just don’t see it. When it’s pointed out, we often still don’t see it and so sometimes we deny it. Then it becomes a pattern. We sometimes lose an openness to question our own background and how we see the world. We think that our way of seeing is reality, when in fact we are missing an entire segment of reality.
That is usually referred to as internalized racism when it’s applied to racial differences. We white people often bristle against the feelings of guilt we associate with that label, because we wouldn’t ever knowingly do anything to harm a black person. And, what’s a little humor? Can’t people take a joke? For many, the word “Racism” becomes a “fighting word”. Perhaps just realizing that anytime we think of someone as the “other” or different from us, we have a subconscious brain reaction, would help. A simple acknowledgement that reality is different than we’ve seen it, no shame attached.
As the father of a black son, I’ve been able to feel the fear that black parents feel. My son is young and sometimes rash. I’m terrified. He could easily be misinterpreted and shot. My son lives in Minnesota, where a shooting just occurred. I read his Facebook post describing how he felt that day; how he felt scared to go outside for fear that he would be shot. After all, if a “respectable therapist” (his words) in North Miami was shot, the risk for him was even greater. He has a respect for police, but wondered if the officers that are having these tragic errors in judgment are “bad cops” or “incompetent”.
I highly value police and good policing. I value people. I think we are framing the problem wrongly, and that is perpetuating the problem. We need a new discussion. Although my response to my son is highly personal, I think it should be public. I am willing to open my heart to all of the Internet if it is possible that one life could be saved and one cop’s life won’t be forever damaged because of an irreversible error of judgement.
Here is my response to my son:
I’m so sorry this is how our country is.
You might not remember this, but you were about 6 or 7. Our family had recently watched a movie that involved American slavery as a major theme. You and I were walking near our home in Four Oaks, hand in hand. You looked up at me with your huge beautiful eyes, looked me in the eye and said, “Daddy, if you were alive back then would you have owned slaves? Would you have treated them well?”
I was crushed, because if I was alive then and I lived in the south and I was in similar economic circumstances, the answer probably would have been yes. Of course, nobody can answer that question for sure, but that question opened my mind in a way that has changed my life forever. It taught me that I am capable of both great love and great evil. And I need to choose every day. On that day I chose to “never own slaves”. I chose to always seek to understand the plight of anyone on the side of the oppressed. I chose to use that understanding and any resources I have to speak against oppression, rather than for it. I haven’t always done that well, but I’m growing. And I will keep on that path until the day I die.
There is another option to cops either being bad or incompetent. It is part of the human condition to fear anyone we see as “the other”. Our brains are likely wired that way through millions of years of evolution to stay alive. We didn’t need to fear people in our tribes, but we better fear the other tribe.
So, if a white cop, who might be a decent guy and wouldn’t ever overtly act to discriminate against a young black man, has an encounter with a young black man and internally he sees that man as “other”, and if he is not aware of that (as most young people aren’t aware) there is a pathway to disaster.
I think the way our society is framing this whole discussion is not helpful. We’ve made it “cops vs. blacks”. That reinforces the notion of the “other”. Much better for young cops to somehow have an experience where someone asks them, “Would you have owned slaves? Would you have treated them well”? I don’t think a cop who shoots someone ever goes home happy. I think the cops who shoot young black men, and especially those who kill them, are forever damaged. I think that whether convicted in a court of law or not, they are convicted by their own soul, and they will forever live out a sentence. (I do believe they should be convicted in a court and sentenced, but that’s not my point here). I think their families are changed too. Nobody is a winner on the day a young black man is shot. Certainly not that black man and his family, certainly not black people in general, and certainly not society. The cop that did the shooting or any other cop aren’t winners either, knowing that he or she might be the victim of retaliation. The solution has to be in opening the eyes of cops to see that when they are in the heat of a life-threatening situation, they will act on their internal “gut feel”. There will not be time to process. So, it’s so very important that their internal “gut” is aware of how they see black people, or anyone that feels like the “other”. Over time, that “gut” can change, and it starts with awareness of oneself and an openness to be changed.
But I think it’s that openness and awareness that is so important. Because if we divide up into sides, we are just re-entrenching society into “otherizing”—and that is the cause of the problem in the first place.
The best gift you and your siblings of color gave me was the beginnings of an understanding that “the other” is an illusion. It’s a made-up construct that doesn’t apply anymore. It might have kept the human species safe in times past, but it’s counter-productive now. We are all humans and all connected. Anything we do or say that doesn’t recognize that reality is a lie, and we are deceiving ourselves to the detriment of not only ourselves but those around us.
And, for those of us who are Christians, that is what I believe it means for us to Love One Another. It’s the absolute core of the Gospel.
So, thank you for your gift. I pray constantly that you are safe, and most times I pray that with tears in my eyes because it seems on most days like I’m asking for a miracle. I love you.
How about if we change the national discussion? We really all have the same goal here: safe communities and justice for everyone.
Nobody wants unarmed black men shot.
We are on the same side.
