Unfair

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This unicorn llama has nothing to do with my post, and it’s kind of silly, given the serious tone today. But we have to take the sweet with the bitter or we’ll choke. By Amberbunting from Wikimedia Commons.

So by now many of you have read my Sensitivities post about my terrible restaurant experience on Friday. Got a call this morning from the health department, the nice guy went out to Uncle Julio’s yesterday to talk to them and make sure the manager was aware of a new law requiring training on food allergies. He also explained the dangers and required practices. Which is wonderful, and I’m so glad all of this may have prevented real injury.

I still got a headache, but that’s not why this post is titled unfair.

Yesterday you may have heard about Chikesia Clemons,  a woman from Alabama who, after complaining about a $0.50 charge for plastic eating utensils at a Waffle House, was brutally arrested. In the video, officers were heard threatening to break her arm, and her clothes were ripped from her, exposing her breasts.

I cannot get Chikesia out of my head.

On Friday night I complained and complained vociferously; never once did it even cross my mind I’d get anything but an apology. Never once did I think police would be called. Never once did I question my reaction, my right to have it, or my right to express it publicly.

Chikesia complained at a restaurant on Saturday, she ended up surrounded by three white officers, her body bared as they threatened her with further harm. Because she complained.

Because she complained and someone at that restaurant decided it was a police matter. Because she complained and the police decided it was a police matter, one that called for incredible violence and an apparent sexual assault.

This is not OK. Those words are the only ones I have left about it. This is not OK. Everyone deserves to be treated with basic dignity and respect. Chikesia’s story should not be so disparate from mine when the thing that divides us is the color of our skin.

 

17 thoughts on “Unfair”

  1. I agree with you and only wish that Chikesia’s experience was unique instead what is becoming the norm. Frightened, weak-minded people, filled with hubris, determined to get attention– that’s what we’ve got going on in America right now. From my perspective, this isn’t so great.

    Liked by 1 person

    • They are indeed.

      Officers everywhere are in sad, sad need of training. We may not be able to stop frivolous yet harmful calls to the police (except, perhaps with legal consequences), but the police can absolutely change the way that they respond.

      Like

    • I suppose we should be grateful it didn’t make it that far?! I didn’t realize you were in Glasgow…I’ve been to Edinburgh and adored it, I’d love to see more of Scotland.

      Yes, there’s so much ugliness happening here. I can’t say that it’s new, but incontrovertible evidence of it is new, so it makes these incidents less likely to be contained. After this story broke, there was another about police called because some women of color who were MEMBERS at the golf club in question were playing golf “too slowly.”

      And the police showed up.

      They didn’t do anything, but still.

      Liked by 1 person

      • We get the drift through social media, and some events do make the news, a couple of black men waiting on a friend in Starbucks being arrested not long ago did make the news, and of course the police killings of black men.

        If you ever do come back do visit Glasgow – Edinburgh is where all the tourists go – Glasgow’s miles better, as we like to say 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

      • I’d absolutely love to, from what I’ve seen it’s also a gorgeous city

        And it was packed with us! It was the festival while we were there.

        I’d love to tour the whole country, all the way out to the Hebrides if I could get there.

        Like

  4. We really are in sync this A to Z! I just wrote my V post on Values, which I felt was kind of weak and small, but maybe the question of “At what point do we have the right to try to change someone else’s values” is more apropos than I thought. I don’t get much US news, so I didn’t even realize.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. debscarey

    Like Iain, I can see why you included the pink unicorn. It is sorely needed after reading that horrifying tale. After Parkland, I began to think the tide could be turning but then that episode in Starbucks and now this. For all you good people, this must be a nightmare scenario.

    A-Zing this year at:
    FictionCanBeFun
    Normally found at:
    DebsDespatches

    Liked by 1 person

    • It really is. It’s incredible how quickly a country can turn and how willing people are to become the enforcers. Though much of the racism was present here; people just didn’t believe it happened, but now there’s proof of it all.

      We’ve got quite an infestation of demons at the moment.

      Like

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