Letter to My Dear White Friend

Hi Dear White Friend,

First, I want to say thank you again for inviting me to have a conversation with you about Police, Racism, Black Lives Matter, Police Brutality, Criminality, and Mental Health. We are living through a time of great exposure of pain and suffering as a result of a 400+ year history of a society built on an un-even playing field for its members. While this uneven playing field exists for gender, religion, sexual orientation, ability, class, education level, nationality, primary language, etc., I am going to center my reflection on the uneven playing field for Race- Racism- and mental health, which has been stigmatized.

I reviewed the articles and Facebook posts you shared with me about the tragedy in Paso Robles last week and the opinion piece from Tucker Carlson at Fox News in which he offered data from the Washington Post, the FBI, and unknown sources. I also thought about the officer that was killed in-the-line-of-duty in Santa Cruz recently, your concerns about defunding the police, your open-ness to talk about White Privilege, and the different conversations you are having with your adult children and husband related to race.  

To say this situation is complex and complicated is an understatement. To say that there is a right and wrong way to heal and move forward is incomplete. There are things that are definitely wrong and there are things that are definitely right. I believe the solution to healing our society is multifaceted and includes many rights and pathways to resolution for many wrongs.  

To be more concrete in what I mean...maybe?😉

PASO ROBLES: The man responsible for the tragedy in Paso leaving Police Officers and citizens dead and injured suffered from schizophrenia, Asberger's, and ADHD according to his father. His father also shared that his son's mental illnesses included want sounds like paranoia, hallucination, and delusion. The system (our Society) in which this man lived with mental illness made it so that he was criminalized and not a human who was sick. It sounds like he was met by police based on his criminal history.  Police are not trained to be mental health treatment providers. On a neurological level, this man was not operating with a fully engaged Pre-Frontal Cortex, which is the part of the brain that reasons, makes decisions, thinks of the future and consequences. When police come to the scene, the brains of most, if not all people present are operating with the negativity bias and fight/flight/freeze. Operating from this place means our brains start an automatic response that pumps stress hormones throughout the body, further blocking the Pre-Frontal Cortex from engaging.  The opportunity for a violent-free outcome decreases.  

Mental Health practitioners and other professionals such as conflict resolution mediators, mental health crisis responders, and mindfulness practitioners to name a few are trained in de-escalating and treating people with mental health challenges, including mental illness. One potential healing solution could be to re-allocate funds from law enforcement to expand community protection with the expertise of other professionals. Another possibility would be to re-distribute funds within a law enforcement budget to include mental health, restorative justice, and mindfulness "officers."  I'm sure there are more solutions.

SANTA CRUZ: The man accused of killing Sheriff Deputy Damon Gutzwiller and a federal security officer was allegedly part of an extremist movement aimed at starting a civil war. The extremist movement called Boogaloo Bois is described as an extreme right-wing libertarian anti-government militia. (check out this BBC article and The Mercury News article). It could be that this man's actions would've happened regardless of the current protests against race-based violence by the police. Or it could be that this man, along with his alleged Boogaloo accomplice have capitalized on the current social climate. Evidence suggests that extremist groups "on both sides" are capitalizing on our current social climate creating an unsafe and violent situation for the majority peaceful protesters, myself included, who are exercising their constitutional right.

What do these situations have to do with the Protests, Police Brutality, Racism, and BLM? These situations highlight the threats of violence that police face every time that they show up to their chosen job. Police officers at some point in their life made the decision to go to the Police Academy or other Law Enforcement Training, apply for to the Police Department/Sherriff’s Office/Highway Patrol, and work as a Law Enforcement Officer.  

In another instance, Black People in America don't necessarily choose to be black. They don't wake up one day and decide to go to the Black American Academy, apply to the Black Community of America, and work as a Black person.  Yet, Black People in America face threats of violence every single day.  Going for a jog (Ahmaud Arbery), sleeping in her own bed (Breonna Taylor), selling CDs without a permit (Eric Garner), walking with a hood on at night (Trayvon Martin), allegedly using a fake $20 bill (George Floyd), sleeping in his car in a fast food parking lot (Rayshard Brooks), to name a few of the threats of violence, including being killed, Black people in America face everyday.  

I'm White (as you know). I jog weekly, I sleep in my own bed, I've held a garage sale without the proper permit, I've walked with a hood on at night, I've used a fake ID, I've slept in the car of a friend when we had too much to drink and didn't want to drive, and another time when we didn't have a place other than our car to sleep. In some of those instances I encountered police. In none of those instances I even received a citation, let alone felt afraid for my life.  

Why is that? Is it because I was kind, obedient, tolerant? Not in every situation. I mouthed off when I got caught with a fake ID. I sneered about being taken away in a "Paddy Wagon" having no idea that this term is offensive. The officer was stern and said if I “kept up my mouth” he'd take me in. My friends (also White) convinced him that I was "just drunk" and they'd take me home. He took the ID and left.  What would the outcome have been if I was Black?

The data in the Tucker Carlson opinion piece are from sources with limitations.  I'm not saying they are bad sources. I'm suggesting that the data Mr. Carlson quoted is based on raw numbers that give little context to a bigger picture.  In the data world, having context is what gives real meaning to the data. Here is an example of what I mean from US Census Bureau statistics- In 2019, African Americans made up less than 14% of the population, but accounted for more than 23% of the fatal shootings by police (BBC article). In picture form, this looks like:

The red bars are the percentage of people by ethnicity killed by police shootings.  The blue bar are the population percentages by ethnicity. The key take-away in the yellow box is the red bar is longer than the blue bar for African Americans by a lot. This graph highlights that something is wrong in terms of police treatment of African Americans compared to other races/ethnicities in our society, which illustrates one way in which Racism is ever present in America.  

I mentioned above negativity bias and flight/fight/freeze. Negativity bias in a nutshell is that our brains evolved over thousands of years from the beginning of mankind to first assess for threat. Back then threat was anything that was different. As humans evolved, that negativity bias was in a way hardwired into our systems, which means it operates in the background of our brains continually scanning for threats. Only today, "threats" include anything different even when we know because of our Pre-Frontal Cortex that they aren't in fact threatening. When we aren't aware of this pre-wiring, the negativity bias can be triggered without us even knowing, which leads to the flight/fight/freeze response that I explained above.  

Centuries of Racism at a systemic level have continually reinforced that People of Color, and especially Black People, are a threat, are to be feared.  We have been socially conditioned by these Racist Systems. The good news is we can train our brains to become aware of negativity bias and respond differently. This brain training can result in positive neuroplasticity, which needs to be part of the conversations we are having societally about solutions. White people in particular have a responsibility to focus on understanding how we've been socially conditioned to be racist, even on an unconscious level, and to build new "muscles" in our brains.    

You shared about your self-reflection, conversations with your adult children, conversations with your husband about how to know when a potential employee has implicit/unconscious bias, and requested any recommendations for learning more. Here are some:

Books

· Combined Destinies: Whites Sharing Grief About Racism by Ann Jealous and Caroline Haskell

· The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

· White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Rob DiAngelo

· How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

Podcasts

· Scene on Radio, second season Seeing White 

· Amicus episode Race, Police, and The Law

· 1619

· Mental Health Matters with Marty

Compilation of Resources

· Anti-Racism Resources from William Paterson University

· A Detailed List of Anti-Racism Resources by Katie Couric, Medium

· First, Listen. Then, Learn: Anti-Racism Resources for White People by Julia Wuench, Forbes

Training & Learning Opportunities for Anti-Racism

· Leadership for Diversity Institute by National Coalition Building Institute International (NCBI): Virtual training on August 4, 5, 6. Early bird rate $799.

· Online Equity Courses by Whites for Racial Equity: Self-guided and free.

· Koru Teacher Training by The Center for Koru Mindfulness: Online 4-day teacher trainings. Cost from $1395 to $1795. 

I hope I haven't ended our conversation with all of this information, my reflections, and thoughts.  I care deeply about our community- locally, nationally, and internationally.  I care deeply about bridging the divides that are so exposed right now.  I look forward to hearing from you and really appreciate your willingness to initiate this conversation.

Sincerely,

Jayne