It’s more than a little ironic:
Two days after a black man with white grandparents was elected President of the United States, a white grandfather in Austin, TX, was strolling back home with his two-year-old black granddaughter from a nearby park. The sight of the happy pair (just two blocks from his home) so worried one observer that 911 was called to report the suspicious event. Eventually — on a day when seven schools were shut down and an intensive manhunt was being waged in the area, after an overnight shootout with police — three police cruisers were dispatched to interrogate the rather surprised and then quite angry grandfather.
You can read the first-person account by Scott Henson, the grandfather and “criminal justice activist” who writes the weblog Grits for Breakfast, in his posting yesterday titled “Is ‘Babysitting While White’ reasonable suspicion for police questioning?” (Nov. 6, 2008; via Scott Greenfield at Simple Justice) I don’t want to get in the way of Scott’s eloquent and emotional telling of this tale, which you are urged to read in its entirety. I’ll give you just two quotes from his piece:
- “I’m incredulous that APD wasted three officers’ time to respond to such a spurious 911 call at a moment when there were actual, violent criminals running around town with assault weapons. Don’t these guys have supervisors? Prioritize, people!” And,
- “Finally, the first officer answered my increasingly repetitious question, ‘Am I free to go?’ with a reluctant ‘Yes,’ at which point I turned heel with the toddler grasped firmly in my arms and walked briskly towards home, both of us a little rattled by the experience. ‘They scared me, Grandpa,’ Ty said, sobbing lightly as she nestled her head into the crook of my neck. ‘I know, sweetie,’ I told her, ‘they scared me, too.’ And by the time we reached home, she was asleep in my arms.”
The person who called 911 is surely the most to blame, but the police could have handled things much better. I’d like to think it would have been over much sooner if Scott had quickly said he was the grandfather, but proving it on the spot would have been difficult. There are scores of comments at Scott’s weblog, with an array of opinions on the story. [update (Nov. 10, 2008): Scott Greenfield at Simple Justice asks whether Scott Henson should have taken “the path of least resistance” to have shortened the confrontation with police and spared his granddaughter the painful experience, and — for a lot of good reasons — answers “no.”]
A final observation: This episode would have been disturbing but not surprising, if it had happened to little Barack Obama and his Gramps forty-two years ago. In 2008, it should make us angry and sad — but, also hopeful that a few years with Pres. Obama leading our country will make such ridiculous incidents unthinkable anywhere in America. [You can share this post using this Tiny URL: http://tinyurl.com/fkaBWW .]
.. Barack Obama with his “Gramps” Stanley Dunham .. 
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p.s. I can’t think of a good haiku or senryu to go with this post. My haijin friends are urged to help me out.