Walking While Black
I went to some trouble to find the original link for the piece about Walking While Black that introduced me to the concept. This is the link and it doesn't work for ME:
Like AT ALL. I can't get a 404 or "this page has moved" or anything like that. It just doesn't load while locking up my browser for what feels to me like eons.
Granted, patience is NOT my strong point, but I spend a lot of time online and this is not normal behavior.
It was originally introduced to me years ago on Metafilter --
https://ask.metafilter.com/267493/Personal-Responsibility-My-Ass#3884257 -- when I was homeless and I gave up my car well before that while I had a corporate job in Columbus, Georgia.
I've found other pieces on the subject of Walking While Black. It's a somewhat common meme.
The first one I read -- dead link above -- was supposedly written by a Black lawyer living in The Deep South, I think Atlanta, and his car ran out of gas or something and he got out to walk home in his upper class, overwhelmingly White neighborhood and the cops soon showed up because a Black man walking in a White neighborhood is suspicious behavior.
Never mind he LIVES there, he needs to explain himself to the cops.
But he's a lawyer and he knows his rights and what the police can and can't expect of him, so he was more or less politely screwing with them. I don't really think that's a best practice, but I do understand feeling like he wants to make a point and this is a good opportunity.
I'm fine with some things he did, like not answering stuff he's not actually required to answer. But I think he made a point of walking up to his own house and sitting on the porch without immediately going in just to be a dick knowing they would have a problem with that.
I think this is NOT a good means to try to prove to the police they need to respect Black people while doing their job. It blurs the line between important metrics the police need to use and racial bias in a way that doesn't help the police figure out a better method.
You do not have to be Black to have the cops called on you for walking in America. This blog was obviously named after the meme Walking While Black to evoke the idea that pedestrians are treated like criminals just for being pedestrians, but has kind of pivoted and I'm trying to do something more constructive with it than just bitch about how badly the US routinely treats pedestrians.
However, I'm a White woman who is ethnically mostly German, Irish and French and a tiny part Cherokee while Natives assume I'm a pretendian and take umbrage with me talking about being part Native -- in other words, the world wants to scream in my face "YOU ARE WHITE" -- and I get the cops called on me for walking while American.
Frequently, it's because I'm sitting somewhere and catching my breath.
We don't want poor people and little old ladies walking to the grocery store and we don't provide adequate bus service or benches to sit on and woe to any poor schmuck sitting in the grass or something, you SUSPICIOUS gray haired obvious criminal carrying groceries. If you are not an Olympic athlete prepared to jog home energetically without stopping to catch your breath, YOU, too, can have the cops called on you for Walking While American, regardless of ethnicity or other characteristics screaming that you are an innocent person just living your life and minding your own business without a car.
I'm aware some people are genuinely imagining they are being helpful and don't feel comfortable stopping to talk to a total stranger and think it's safest for everyone if the authorities handle it.
But let me ask you: Would you appreciate it if someone called the cops on your grandmother for walking home with groceries in the heat and sitting down in the grass because unless it's a downtown over a century old, we rarely have benches anywhere?
If it is a bench, it's probably a bus stop and the bus drivers don't want you using bus stops as a place to sit if you aren't actually waiting on a bus and can call the cops on you for it. They have valid reasons for that and I'm not saying they are bad people, I'm just saying a lot of the benches that do exist are intended for a specific purpose and just sitting your old fat butt down to BREATHE is not it.
The police are not likely to pick you up and drive you and your groceries to your destination. If someone doesn't appear to be convulsing and foaming at the mouth and you don't want to stop your car and check on them, please get therapy or a new hobby instead of "helpfully" sicking the cops on pedestrians in the US who are frequently poor and feel intimidated by the police and worry this will go sideways for stupid reasons.
And it can.
I was homeless in San Diego County and walking in a bicycle lane next to a steep drop off and someone sent the cops to "check" on me. You know: Out of concern for my welfare.
Yes, you're not really supposed to walk in a bicycle lane. LOTS of people walked in that particular bicycle lane because there was no sidewalk on that side of the road and crossing the multi-lane street to get to the sidewalk was extra walking and a pain in the butt.
Yes, it was potentially dangerous. Guess what? Walking next to ANY road is potentially dangerous, even on a sidewalk. I reviewed an accident claim where a pedestrian was hit by a drunk driver while walking on the sidewalk.
But because a police officer stopped and spoke to me and verbally warned me he could ticket me for being there, I would be automatically ticketed if I was stopped a second time. So thereafter I had to go to the trouble of crossing the street and walking on the sidewalk to try to make sure this didn't stupidly escalate because of people "trying to be helpful without sticking their own neck out."
I did, in fact, briefly spend a few days in a city with benches randomly placed in addition to bus stop benches. I sat on one while waiting for a bus because they looked identical to bus stop benches.
Fortunately, the bus driver inferred correctly I was trying to catch a bus and sat on the bench instead of standing at a bus stop with no bench a few dozen feet away. I'm probably not the only person who did that at that particular stop.
If you want to make a more pedestrian-friendly environment and add benches, I will suggest two things:
1. Have standards clearly distinguishing random benches from bus stop benches. Don't use the same style of seating for both.
2. Don't have "standing only" bus stops with no seating a few dozen feet from a random bench.
That's infuriating if you are old or disabled or tired and want to sit down and wait for the bus and can EITHER sit down OR wait for the bus. PICK ONE.
If the city is paying for random benches and bus stop benches and only wants to put ONE in that area, put it at the bus stop.
Because I will check the schedule and sit down on a bus stop bench and get up before a bus comes. I'm unlikely to get in trouble if I'm not causing drivers to stop unnecessarily because they think I'm waiting for the bus.
And I'm certain that if you do it the other way and have a random bench nearby and no bus stop bench, that bench will get COUNTLESS glares from angry people standing at the bus stop and this will NOT improve the social fabric of your city while the poorest people wonder why the people in charge are such JERKS and wonder if they did that solely to be a sick burn.
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