I wanted to make another post elaborating on my emotions from my original post about the evening of June 2nd for anyone out there who can’t understand why I would be driven to say “I’m extremely disappointed in LAPD and Mayor Garcetti” after the experience that I had. The feelings I felt were the raw and real emotions of a real human being who values her life and the lives of others. I posted my experience less than 2 hours after being released from custody, and I told myself that I would not sugarcoat those emotions, because I have done that too many times in the past in order to not offend people.
I want to start off by saying thank you to every single person who has called, emailed, messaged, and commented. I have read most of your messages, and I am so grateful for you all. The past 48 hours have been filled with shock, trauma, sadness, and some resurrecting hope, but I will be responding to all of your messages of love, support, and frustration soon.
I still strongly believe that us people who are seeking unity, compassion, equality, justice and love in this world are going to overcome all of the people who are seeking to keep people suppressed through hate, fear, classism and racism. Racism is learned; this world needs to unlearn it and have it removed from our systems of power and influence.
I also want to thank everyone who has offered to help me pay the impound and tow fee for my car from the incident of the evening on June 2nd. I was finally able to get my vehicle back yesterday afternoon, and it cost a total of $298.75. Everyone who knows me knows that I hate asking for or accepting donations and I like to work for every penny I receive, so that is why I never told people how they can send me money this week.
But God is good. I randomly looked at my Venmo account yesterday and found that three amazing friends found my Venmo account and sent me funds to cover the impound fee. I will keep their names private, but I will just say that two of them are young women who I went to USC with during undergrad, and the other woman is a lawyer and mentor of mine that I met through my law school who has become a friend. One of them is a white woman, and I wanted to point that out to give the world another example and image of how different races can and are coming together at a time when we are calling out the issues of systemic racism. These donations to me amounted to $345, so I will be donating the extra $47 to two charities. One half of my donation will go to the National Lawyers Guild’s LA chapter because they had volunteers standing outside of the jail once I was released and they were there to offer help to me and all the peaceful protestors who were arrested and unnecessarily injected into the criminal justice system. The other half of my donation will be going to the Essie Justice Group. Thank you, again, to everyone who offered to help me financially. You all have uplifted me during a very difficult time, and I am very grateful. I hope you can donate your funds to other organizations or people in need.
Before I go into my elaboration, I also just want to briefly share what I had to do to get my vehicle back, because it wasn’t easy. Even though I went to retrieve my car at 8 am yesterday morning, I didn’t end up getting my vehicle back until around 4-5 pm. My car was impounded at the OPG (Official Police Garage), which does not appear to be operated by the police department, but is instead a business they partner or contract with. My car is registered in my father’s name, but I also had proof that I am a validly insured driver of the vehicle, so the towing company told me I had two options: (1) My dad would have to drive all the way down from Northern California for the car to be released, or (2) I would have to work with LAPD to get it released to me. I was unaware of this information until I got to the impound, because there is no information about what it requires or costs to get your vehicle back on the OPG website. Obviously, I chose the second option. The officer that I spoke with and emailed documents to was helpful, and is an example of how all officers should be. I will mention though, when I told him that my car was impounded because I was driving during the curfew to get food, he couldn’t believe it and he was so certain I was just one of the young downtown protestors, because he said he hadn’t heard of anyone getting arrested for simply breaking the curfew. I share all the information in this paragraph just to show you how things work, because I sure didn’t know that this was reality before this week.
Okay, so back to my elaboration on my original post. First of all, I said what I said as a black woman who is the friend and family member of current and retired law enforcement officers. So if anyone read my original post and thought I was saying that all officers are bad, or thought I was inciting people to be violent towards the police, that’s not what I was saying or doing, and you should take several seats for accusing me of that. My post was calling out systemic racism and racial biases. It is no coincidence that I went through what I went through after the current president of my country had the nerve to tear gas people so that he could take a picture of a church holding a bible in his hand (I come from a family filled with preachers and gospel singers, and my great-grandfather built churches throughout California, so I am one of the many Christians who was offended when that picture surfaced this week). It is no coincidence that the very first time I get arrested in my life is on the same day when the current president has a call with state elected officials and tells them that they need to “dominate.”
Secondly, I said what I said as a person who has tried to do my small part in building better police-community relations. I don’t think this burden should be on poor and minority communities, and every person on every side has to want for things to get better. In recent years, I have started to do my small part by joining in on peaceful community walks in the Oak Park community with Sacramento police officers and leaders in the black community. I have also attended multiple community forums/panels held at my law school and hosted by black organizations where officers were present and we had open and constructive conversations about police-community relations in minority and black neighborhoods. We also discussed how we can make things better in the future. We don’t have enough of these conversations, and we don’t have all officers joining these conversations, and that is why so many people continue to experience pain, abuse, frustration and hurt to this day.
There is a non-black woman who commented on a shared thread of my original post that someone that I’m friends with had on their page. That non-black woman has an officer in her family, like I do, and she wanted to share her perspective. One thing she said is that cops “feel that Blacks are out for cops, which is reality.” I’m glad this woman said what she said, because now this can be a really great teaching moment for her and anyone else who feels the same way she does, and I hope she really learns something and grows. First of all, to say it is “reality” that “Blacks are out for cops” is a generalization that is so extreme and detrimental that I am appalled that someone would type that out, as if it is the truth. If you find yourself believing or saying things like that, please learn how to stop. If that woman is reading this post right now, I hope she understands how it is extremely insensitive when she only posts on social media about how officers are suffering right now, and fails to acknowledge or even try to understand why black people (and non-black people) are protesting and hurting. We live in a country where black people were brutally enslaved for centuries, and now have only been free for about 157 years (Emancipation Proclamation went into effect in 1863, and it still took multiple years after that for other states to fully comply) and we undeniably have been treated differently because of our skin color. Our country’s constitution explicitly stated that black people were to be considered only 3/5ths of a person for the purpose of calculating electoral representation, which means people went out of their way to put in the document that founded this nation a set of words literally translates to us being worth less than a full human being. The woman then said that the officer in her family, her husband, can’t eat, sleep or shower between shifts because he is so scared of protestors and people on the street, and is afraid he might not come home safely. If that’s the case, then as an officer, wouldn’t you want your police department to help build better relationships with the community, as oppose to becoming more militant? Being an officer is not an easy job, and it is extremely disheartening when an honorable officer loses their life on duty, and I have helped families of fallen officers in one of my previous jobs. But if an officer feels that “Blacks are out for cops,” he is no longer just prone to be aggressive towards people committing crimes, he is prone to be aggressive towards people simply because they are black, and that officer is in dire need of counseling and racial bias training before being back out on the force. There is a whole lot more I can talk about on this issue, but I will cut it short. I see some police departments making a decent effort to improve community relations, but clearly, so much more work needs to be done, and it’s going to take a lot more reform. I’m looking forward to doing my part to help make sure that reform happens.
I used to feel relatively safe whenever I drove past an officer, but after what I went through, and knowing that we have people in positions of power who are telling officers to “dominate,” I do fear for my future safety. I have created a list of things that I personally think need to be changed within police departments, and I look forward to working with others who are tired of seeing this system used to tear down black people. But again, people need to read all of my words and understand that I am not saying all officers are bad. I’m saying the system is broken and still breaking. It is a fact that the criminal justice system has been used for centuries as a “legal” way to re-enslave black people since the Emancipation Proclamation was announced. If you never knew that, please go do your research. If you don’t understand why people are saying that systemic racism exists, you can start your research by watching movies like Just Mercy (which is free on all digital platforms during the month of November) and 13th (which is on Netflix).
I said what I said as someone who has been actively involved in the political process since my sophomore year of high school. I have completed successful internships with a state assembly member, a state senator, and a former mayor of Sacramento. I don’t condone violence against anyone, including elected officials, especially after seeing two of the three politicians that I have worked for be attacked by civilians of different occasions. I have a large amount of respect for elected positions, but I don’t respect policies that are implemented to keep systemic racism and fear alive, and I believe people need to speak up call out injustices. The actions that Mayor Garcetti chose to implement and enforce in a “dominate” manner to ensure the “safety” of this community was a complete joke and absolutely absurd. I felt like I was in a racist episode of The Handmaid’s Tale on Tuesday night when those 10-15 officers pulled us over and arrested us. Moving forward, we all need to do a better job of being more involved in our local, state, and presidential primary elections.
I said what I said as someone who believes in the importance of making change through elections and legislation. I chose to attend McGeorge Law School because it is offers students the chance to earn the Capital Lawyering Concentration, which educates us on the legal aspects of elections, legislation, policies, executive enforcement of laws, legislative advocacy in general. The majority of us want some real change in this country, and I think a good part of that change can come through making sure we have people in offices of power who will protect the interests and fundamental liberties of us all, not just a portion of us. Let us apply pressure to our elected officials by sending them letters, calling their offices, and scheduling meetings.
I said what I said as someone who has taken the time to study some of the minds and words of white supremacists and KKK members, because it just boggles my mind how such people can have so much hate in the souls. I don’t have much to say about this. I’m pretty sure no one is going to try and argue that white supremacy is a good thing. But there may be some who try to argue that it does not exist; for those people, here is a list of resources and tools that will assist in your education: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bUJrgX8vspyy7YttiEC2vD0DawrpPYiZs94V0ov7qZQ/edit
I said what I said because I am what many would consider an “upstanding citizen,” and have been for the entire 25 years of my life. So this narrative that “if you are just a good black person who doesn’t act like a thug or criminal, then you won’t get arrested…it’s not that hard to not be a criminal” needs to stop right away. As I said earlier, slavery has only been abolished in this country for 157 years. The system is broken. Let’s fix it. If you don’t understand how it is broken, please look at the list of educational resources provided in the above paragraph.
I said what I said because I don’t know a single person who was arrested for violating orders to stay at home that were issued in relation to the coronavirus, even though the pandemic forced businesses to close for months. There were no curfews in place during the COVID-19 stay at home orders, even though it killed hundreds of thousands of people and caused our entire economy to halt. People really need to question why there were 1 pm curfews in Beverly Hills and 6 pm curfews in Los Angeles County. Let’s be real. The curfews have been used across the country as a tool to establish criminal records for black people and non-black people who are protesting for racial equality, because those protests were infiltrated and then resulted in damage to businesses. Why am so convinced of this? If you think the curfews are in place to stop looting/rioting, and not to stop people from engaging in constitutionally protected protests, then what is the purpose of criminalizing people who aren’t looting/rioting? That’s going wayyyyyy too far, and it’s a backwards way of thinking.
I said what I said as a law student who was been blessed with the opportunity to take a Freedom of Expression course through my law school last summer that was co-taught by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy (ret.) and Professor Sionaidh Douglas-Scott from Queen Mary University of London. During that course, I sat in the front row each day, and I had an intellectual conversation with Justice Kennedy one day after I proposed a hypothetical scenario to him regarding a First Amendment freedom of speech issue. That experience enlightened me to different aspects of our right to free speech in this country. I have seen a lot of first amendment rights violations over the past week, and that should really concern people also. I was happy to see today that the ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the City and County of LA for how these curfews have been enforced. It’s also nice to see that they will no longer be implementing those curfews here in LA, because they have been used abusively.
If you are a person who has felt inconvenienced by the people protesting and are still saying “Why are they protesting?” or “Why are they angry about the death of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery or any of the other black people who have been killed ?” then you really need to work on your compassion and empathy. If you are someone who is really passionate about saying “All Lives Matter” in response to people saying “Black Lives Matter” please understand that we are not saying “ONLY Black Lives Matter.” I think you may have injected that “ONLY” part inadvertently when you heard people asking for the police to help them, and not hurt them.
Anyone who thinks I got what I deserved on June 2nd, I’m really praying for your soul, because your belief is causing more hate and fear in this world. If you think it was justified for me to be arrested and have my car thoroughly searched and impounded for driving to pick up a dinner for myself and my boyfriend (because remember, we definitely are not looters or rioters, and they didn’t find anything illegal or stolen in my car), then I guess it should be justified for you to be arrested and have your car thoroughly searched and impounded for the next time you drive 10-15 miles over the speed limit or fail to come to a complete stop at the stop sign, because it can be argued that those actions put the lives of others in danger. Don’t even try to debate with me on the analogy, because if you do, you are missing the entire point of this extremely long post. There was no need to arrest me and take my car away. I was a threat to no one. End of story.
Lastly, I just want to say that I think it is very interesting how some people are saying that demands for racial justice over the past week are a part of some political ploy started by the democrats because there is an upcoming election cycle. I personally think both sides have people who are racist toward black people, so I think this is a sad argument. We are upset because we have seen too many other black people being killed, either by officers or civilians. We are upset because it took national pressure for the people/officers who have taken lives to even be arrested or charged properly. I have seen some people try to say “well black people have black on black crime, so why are you so mad at cops?” Look, we are not talking about black on black crime right now because if a black civilian kills another black civilian, I’m pretty sure there is no doubt that that black person will be arrested, charged, convicted, and given a disproportionately long sentence compared to most of his white and other non-black counterparts. So stop trying to change the conversation with that silly and ignorant argument. The issue at hand is that that we have seen too many black people severely injured or killed, and the people that hurt or killed them get to live their normal lives because they are white or had on a badge; it is traumatic and is a reminder of the lynching of black people by white mobs that were all too common in the 20th century. It is systemic racism. So, unless you have some proof showing that black people lost their lives because one political party hired people to kill us in all these different instances, then the argument that these demands for racial equality are a result of the Democrat party’s attempt to get votes for this upcoming November is a joke. They may be using it to fuel their campaign, but do not sit there and say that racism was created or reignited by the democrat party. Racism and hate exist in both parties, and both presidential candidates are shameful when it comes to race-relations, so please stop. Let’s do a better job in future local, state, and presidential primary elections.
I had a lot to say, because there is a lot that must be changed. Change will come when we all decide to listen to each other with open minds and hearts. Change will come when people start to get to know their neighbors. Change must come so that we don’t have to fear divide or injustice because of the skin we are born in. Moving forward, I challenge you to reach out to someone who doesn’t agree with you on issues of racial justice and inequality. I know it sounds wild, but people need to get to know each other and communicate I encourage people to prep their minds for those conversations by watching episodes of “The Story of Us with Morgan Freeman” on Netflix, because it provides short stories of how people across the globe overcome hate and division in different ways. There are people who used to be a part of race-based, ethic-based, and religion-based hate organizations, but they changed and left those organizations after having genuine conversations with people with outside beliefs. That is powerful. That is the power we all have. I am hopeful for us all.
Please take care of yourself and take care of others. Let’s us all stand together and communicate with each other until our country, and our world, overcomes hate and division. Stay safe and blessed. #BlackLivesMatter