Ferguson shooting: An Indian American mother worries for her son

By Sonia Chopra

I had a familiar feeling — a weight in my stomach, nausea rising to my throat — as I heard the news of another black unarmed teenager shot dead in a small town in Missouri recently.

Michael Brown, 18, was only a few days away from starting college. He was walking down the street on Saturday, when a police officer gunned him down.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) is trying to determine exactly what happened. Accounts differ. Police say the teenager hit the officer. Other witnesses say he was walking home from a convenience store and was stopped by an officer for walking in the middle of the street. They say that he raised his hands over his head as he was told to do and the officer shot him multiple times.

The town of Ferguson is 29 percent white and 69 percent black. But the balance of wealth, power and political clout is tipped in favor of the white population. The Mayor and the police chief are white. Out of the 53 officers assigned to the town, only three are black. Five of the six City Council members are white and the school board has six white members and one Hispanic.

Anger, outrage and disgust are boiling over. On Tuesday, President Obama tweeted that the death of Brown was “heartbreaking”. On the same day Christopher Hayes, of MSNBC tweeted, “I interviewed the key witness to the Michael Brown shooting last night. The police haven’t. Think about that.” It has been retweeted 17,300 times since. This tense situation has led to four days of protests.

America has been here before.

In February 2012, an unarmed black teenager Traven Martin was shot dead by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain. Martin’s face was partially obscured by a black hoodie and he was carrying a bottle of iced tea and Skittles, a small box of candy. He looked “suspicious.” Zimmerman was acquitted of the crime in July 2013.

A few weeks ago, on July 17, Eric Garner, a 43-year-old Staten Island man, died from a chokehold by a police officer who was trying to arrest him, for allegedly selling loose cigarettes.

Law enforcement insists they do not do racial profiling and focus on suspicious behaviour. But these incidents seem to suggest otherwise. Racial profiling or the use of an individual’s race or ethnicity as a key factor in whether to make a traffic stop or an arrest clearly still continues though it destroys the lives of innocent people and breeds distrust between minorities and law enforcement.

While these incidents described are instances of blacks shot or killed by predominantly white police officers, there are hundreds of incidents, documented in court papers and media reports, of racially profiling other minority groups. Mostly Hispanics, I must add.

It is a routine that is played out with sickening regularity in law enforcement investigation, by local, state and federal officers. Assume that the dark skinned person is suspicious, perhaps even guilty.

As an Indian immigrant, I am used to ill treatment and rudeness by police. In Kolkata, where I grew up, I knew that the police were corrupt and arrogant and heard many horror stories of false arrests and beatings. I never ever dared to raise my eyes at police. I never ever had to deal with the cops there and never wanted to. I carried my fears all the way to the United States.

Even today, I dread being stopped by police at traffic stops or at routine checks. I comply with their instructions, with polite obedience but at no time do I feel safe or secure. They make me feel afraid and guilty, even though I am doing nothing wrong or illegal. Worse, as a mother of a 17-year-old teenager, who is darker than the average white teenager, I am absolutely terrified about my son being stopped by police for any reason.

I am so concerned and worried about him that I routinely sit him down and tell him about these incidents.

I tell him that if he is too covered up, he may look like a black teenager. God forgive me for saying it as if it’s a bad thing but I have to protect my son.

Don’t wear a hoodie like Martin was doing, don’t walk on the road in a random pattern like Brown did. Don’t do anything to attract attention, I tell him. They are naturally suspicious of black kids, especially those whose faces and hands are covered up. They assume the worst. They think these young men are concealing weapons or drugs or at the least are doing something illegal. They will stop them to question and given the really bad history of suspicion and distrust, arguments turn very ugly very fast.

They can detain you, they can handcuff you and arrest you. Your life can change forever in minutes. Please don’t let that happen.

If you are stopped at any time, please listen to the officer, don’t argue back, comply with instructions, be cooperative, don’t show attitude, and don’t ask questions.

My son tells me I have the right to ask why, I have to know why I am being stopped.

Later, I tell him, you can ask later, when your Dad and I come there, okay, promise me. We will be there for you, we will take you to the officer’s supervisor, we will talk to him. He nods but I see in his eyes that he does not believe me. He does not agree. Perhaps he doesn’t get it.

“I mean this is not the Soviet Union,” he argues with me.

“The cop will be fired. They would not dare,” he tells me. I think about Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery who went to report on the unrest there, and was detained, assaulted and arrested on Wednesday. He had every right to be there. He tried his best to comply with the instructions he was given. But he was arrested.

“Yes, maybe eventually but I rather we not be in the situation at all.”

My son shakes his head impatiently at me. He does not believe me. He is American by birth, educated in its schools, he is taught the Constitution guarantees right to all. He feels entitled and he is passionate about equal rights for all.

He does not think like me, like a dark skinned immigrant, who knows that no matter what, there is unfortunately racial profiling. But he does promise me that he will do nothing to provoke anyone and he will be polite and cooperative if he is stopped by security or police.

I trust him but I worry about him. I worry for all children of ethnic races. At night, I lie uneasy about these incidents. Did these children not know about racial profiling? Did their parents not talk to them? Still they were killed. Still bad stuff happened to them.

Who is next? Are we safe? Are our kids safe?

I have no answers.