On April 30, two Native American brothers traveled seven hours from New Mexico for a tour of Colorado State University, a school they dreamed of going to. Unfortunately, their trip didn’t go as planned when a parent called the police on them.
Thomas Kanewakeron Gray, 19, and Lloyd Skanahwati Gray, 17, took the long trip by themselves and were late joining the school tour. A mother called the police because she found it odd that the pair wouldn’t answer her questions and were wearing “black clothing.” The young men were briefly questioned by police and released once it was determined that they were not a threat, but the pair missed the remainder of the tour.
What happened to the Grays is all too familiar for people of color in this country. In the last few months there have been several instances where minorities have had the police called on them or have been harassed by the police for asinine reasons, like the incident with Jose Arreola. After purchasing a pack of Mentos mints at a gas station, an off-duty police officer standing behind him, pulled a gun on him because he assumed he had stolen it. At Starbucks, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson were arrested while sitting for two minutes because they didn’t order anything. Last week at Yale, Sarah Braasch, who is white, called the police on Lolade Siyonbola, who is black, for falling asleep in a dorm common area. In California, an unidentified white woman called the police on two black men for using a charcoal grill in a “non-charcoal” grilling area zone of an Oakland park. The list goes on.
Like the Grays, all these stories have something in common— a white person felt that the person of color did not belong and did not deserve to be there. Their existence in a public space was “threatening.” The parent at CSU said she thought it was odd that the young men refused to give her their names or tell her what they were studying, as if somehow, she was entitled to that information. She wasn’t. The Grays didn’t owe her an explanation. People of color don’t owe anyone an explanation for existing in public spaces.
After the recent mass shootings in the U.S., we are encouraged to be diligent when we see suspicious behavior, but where do we draw the line between trying to be a hero and save the day, versus being a nuisance? “It’s probably nothing. I’m probably being completely paranoid with just everything that’s happened,” the mother stated in the 911 recording. Was she afraid of another school mass shooting? If so, the young men didn’t fit the profile—they weren’t white males, and they were not carrying any weapons or even a backpack.
Being uncomfortable around someone who is different from you is not a good enough excuse to call the police. The caller herself sounded as if she knew that the phone call wasn’t necessary, when she told the dispatcher, “I feel completely ridiculous. They’re probably fine and just creepy kids,” and later, “If it’s nothing, I’m sorry, but they, it actually made me feel, like, sick, and I’ve never felt like that.”
For minorities in this country, calling the police can have dire consequences. What if the situation between the young men and the police had escalated? What would the parent say then?
We must stop the over policing of people of color. The Gray brothers deserved to be at the CSU tour just as much as everyone else and should not have been singled out because of their race.
