And Then They Came for Us
And Then They Came for Us
If I join the fight for public safety, who will be there to fight for me?
At the beginning of last March,
I politely smiled into my laptop camera, nodded my head, and listened to a campaign volunteer explain how Black people, more specifically, Black Lives Matter, are responsible for the rise in violence.
“I’m sorry, Trivette, but I have to say it. Black people have always treated me terribly. I was walking up the stairs out of a subway station, and this Black guy was so close behind me. Maybe I was going too slow, but it felt like they were literally hovering over me. I thought I was going to die.”
A Black man was commuting a little too close for comfort.
On a late night in the middle of April, I sat on my bed playing Call of Duty when I heard my friend’s voice through my headset.
“Yo, did I tell you that Coop and I escaped a shooting the other night? We saw people running towards us, and as they were screaming, we heard gunshots and rushed behind a car. Evidently, it was two guys going at each other. It happened near that playground with the basketball courts we play at.”
A local dispute settled by two Black men dueling in the streets.
A week later, I sat amongst community leaders listening to my boss describe the challenges facing the next mayor of New York City. My phone began frantically vibrating with texts from my coworker. She was in a state of shock. A woman lay before her, dead, a victim of gun violence.
“Oh my God, Trivette. Oh my God. I don’t know. I was walking to the train when I noticed people crowded around. They were staring— staring at this woman dying. Trivette, this is so close to my apartment, so close. The police don’t know the motive, and it’s the fucking middle of the day!”
A Black woman shot her partner, another Black woman, in an area unaccustomed to gun violence.
Silently and with a guilty conscience, I imagined how peaceful life could be if all these assailants were White.
Public safety is defined as the “protection of the general public.”
This may come as a surprise, but I, as a Democrat, a Black man, a ‘Social Justice Warrior,’ care about public safety.
I do not live in an affluent area. I do not own any land, I do not own a business, nor will I suffer from any drop in housing prices.
I care about public safety because I want my community to be safe for everyone.
At the beginning of the year, violent crime rose significantly across New York City. In April 2021, compared to April 2020, overall crime increased by 30%, with felony assault increasing by 35%, sexual assault increasing by 52%, grand larceny increasing by 66%, and strikingly, gun violence increasing by 166%.
This sudden surge of murder and gun violence redirected public attention from economic recovery toward preserving public safety, locally and nationwide.
In response to public outcry, the New York Police Department increased the number of gun arrests and the number of cops on the ground, attributing crime reduction to their relentless focus on precision policing.
Precision policing is when the NYPD uses data, algorithms, and community engagement to predict crime hotspots, target suspected criminals, and determine which neighborhoods require more police activity.
Unsurprisingly, violence decreases when police presence increases and an emboldened focus on precision policing resulted in the total number of rape, burglary, and murders declining throughout Summer and Fall.
Regardless of the NYPD’s swift response, residents remain unsatisfied, insisting that additional oversight is needed, making for a hollow victory.
Despite a safer city, how can New Yorkers claim they feel equally threatened?
An overwhelming majority of the country has never encountered a violent crime or even the threat of violence. Still, most have experienced the fight-or-flight rush of adrenaline from oncoming danger.
Pseudo-danger can feel just as life-threatening as the real thing, and any anxiety can block peace of mind.
The disconnect between the general public’s misconceptions and the actual state of public safety is apparent in a poll conducted in 2014.
Despite 2014 being the safest year recorded in modern American history, a quarter of Americans believed over the last 20 years, the rate of violent crime remained stagnant while an outstanding 33% of people believed violent crime increased.
At the end of May,
while campaigning near a Bronx food pantry, a middle-aged Hispanic woman told me the current violent crime crisis rivaled the historic crime wave in the 1990s-
“Because this time, there is no rhyme or reason to the violence. I get scared for my daughter. You always have to be on guard because they’re coming for everyone.”
This fear of an omnipresent “They” engulfed an entire city. Although this woman of color experienced the 1990s when homicides and gun violence were 70% higher, she was terrified of a mysterious, lurking “They.”
When we remove the guardrails of political correctness and return to a pre-George Floyd view of the police, the unpredictable nature of crime becomes significantly more predictable.
Evident in precision policing and the stop-and-frisk era of the middle 2000s, when the general public demands it, identifying “They” becomes quite obvious.
The “They” is the mere presence of a Black man, causing your life to flash before your eyes each step up the stairs.
The “They” are the two Black men who introduced gunshots to your local playground, sabotaging plans for a whole neighborhood.
The “They” are the Black women that bring death before your feet.
“They” is me, and I, too, care about public safety, and I’m frightened.
W.E.B. Du Bois, the legendary sociologist, author, and the first Black man to earn a doctorate from Harvard, wrote:
“It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking through the self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.
One ever feels his two-ness, an American, a Negro; two souls, two unreconciled strivings.”
With a guilty conscience, I hoped each assailant was White to prevent the general public from ‘protecting’ themselves from people that look like me.
I want my community to be safe for everyone, but my community’s safety is contingent upon the general public feeling protected.
The peculiar sensation of my double-consciousness, the unshakable feeling of my two-ness, manifests when I, like any other American, crave the freedom of safety that often appears indiscernible from security.
But, as a Negro, I know how an uptick in crime can plant seeds of distrust, and reactionary governance combined with sensationalized media blossoms distrust into full-grown paranoia.
In paranoia, reason is prone to disappear, and the urge to exchange freedoms for safety consumes.
What would you sacrifice to feel safe again? Benjamin Franklin said,
“Those who would give up essential liberties for temporary security deserve neither.”
Ultimately, the general public is not giving up any essential liberties; they’re sacrificing mine.
The threat confronting my community is more profound than any physical menace; the present danger is the decimation of a united people.
Interestingly enough, White and Black people alike have the same challenge of not seeing Black people as “They.”
The burden of fear weighs just as heavily on my Black shoulders.
Public safety does not have a final destination; it’s an abstract idea dependent upon the public’s erratic temperament.
You define public safety each time you go for a run, and you define public safety by trusting your child returns home from school.
Public safety is spending $30 for an uber to avoid riding the subway.
Public safety is when you call for the police, and public safety is when you don’t.
The general public, to feel safe, will choose to avoid “They” every time.
Public safety is our proximity to becoming victimized, and every day I am reminded that I am “They” and “They” are hovering over me.