po-po, aka potty, aka...B is daytime potty-trained!!! My sweet little genius decided he likes to use the po-po. We are now dealing with "do it myself" "B wipes it up" (not a good one as it involves about a roll of toilet paper and poop or toilet water all over the place:-() "cars underwear, mommy, I want to wear my cars underwear" and "uh-oh, shinte (pee) is coming". We are still rocking the cloth diapers for naptime and night time, but yay for B!!!!
Po-Po-This is one of those I can't believe it happened to our family (namely Ababa) stories. I am sharing this b/c I think that it's important for our family, other adoptive families, and other people who stop by this blog to realize challenges that are still being faced regarding race, and police, and the fact that your beautiful child will not always be an adorable baby/toddler/preschooler.
I grew up in a mostly white, rural area. Racial issues were not very obvious b/c there weren't any other races in the immediate vicinity (to the best of my memory, in my entire elementary school there was one black child, 2 vietnamese children, and one korean-american child (who had been adopted from Korea)). I was taught that police were kind and helpful and safe and trustworthy, that their job was to keep me safe and to make sure that bad people were caught so they could be punished by the law. Police officers were people who you went to when you were lost or had a problem. My only run-ins with the law have been:
1. My early childhood friend and I being picked up and driven to school the first time we were allowed to walk to school by ourselves (we were in first or second grade and took our good sweet time walking and chatting, so we were late. I think officially truant or something like that:-) We got picked up by the neighborhood beat cops and arrived at school in style (the back of the police car).
2. A few speeding tickets, one was definitely deserved, two were questionable but whatever, if that's what the officer's raygun said, who am I to judge.
Ababa is black, he grew up in a small town in southern Louisiana where racial tensions are often simmering at or just below the surface. He has had several encounters with the police, more than I can count actually. Some of the highlights include being pulled over because of his skin color, being questioned because he turned around in the grocery store parking lot b/c he remembered that he forgot his wallet (a woman told the police she thought he was following her!), and being made to get out of his car because he "fit the description" of someone who had committed a crime...it turned out that the only trait they shared was their skin color...
As a couple, we encounter blatant racism with a fair degree of regularity (people changing tables at restaurants b/c they don't want us to be in their site lines, obvious looks/comments on public transportation, weird inappropriate comments, etc.). As a family we are not any more conspicuous b/c everyone we meet assumes that B is our biological child.
But..this is 2012...we live in New York City...in northern Manhattan (a middle income neighborhood that is very diverse)...I work in a predominantly black neighborhood. We're an upwardly mobile middle-class family and don't usually expect to encounter blatant racism in our day to day lives. The police in our neighborhood are typically viewed (and routinely display these traits in our interactions with them) as a busy, bureaucratic, disinterested, somewhat ineffective, but mostly benign entity. We know about Sean Bell and issues of police abuse and brutality that are unimaginable to us but most of those instances happen in other neighborhoods and they seem distant to us.
Yesterday morning, Ababa and I dropped B off at daycare and then Ababa dropped me off at work. After I got out, the light was red (so there was no oncoming traffic) so Ababa did what he thought was a legal U-turn. He was pulled over by the police, he left his wallet at home in the rush to leave that morning but told them his name, address, birthday, social security number, that I was in the office building immediately in front of where they were, etc.
He was forced to get out of the car, made to put his hands behind his head and his forehead on the vehicle, he was thoroughly frisked, his pockets were searched, he was told that a Honeybun wrapper in his pocket with crystalized sugar was drugs, he was told the bags he carries to pick up our dog's poop were drugs, he was asked the same questions repeatedly (in an effort to get him to "change his story"), he was threatened by a policewoman who was aggressively holding her hand on her gun holster, there were multiple police and police cars called over and involved in the interrogation, and in the end, after 45 minutes of this, when it turned out that his information checked-out, an officer tossed the paper with his information on it through the car window at Ababa and said "this is your lucky day" and walked away. he was never told why they pulled him over (we assume the u-turn, which I am pretty sure was illegal) and he was not charged with or ticketed for anything. he got no explanation, no apology, nothing.
Those are not the actions of the police I was taught about as a child. These actions are not helpful, designed to keep people safer, or respectful of humanity.
These actions are blatantly disrespectful, intentionally demeaning, aggressively hostile, and completely unreasonable. Ababa and I have immense respect for good police officers, men and women who do their job with dedication, dignity, and a respect for humanity. We have friends and family members who are police officers, and we recognize that sometimes times officers need to err on the side of caution to ensure their safety. Fine. but at a minimum, in the end, when it turns out your assumptions were wrong...an apology/explanation would be very helpful and should be required.
I am furious that this happened to Ababa, perplexed as to why a simple traffic offense turned into a 45 encounter with multiple squad cars full of officers, and flabbergasted that not one officer in the bunch spoke up to say "hey, we overeacted" or "here's why we did what we did, I'm sorry that you just had to go through this" or even "here's why we pulled you over".
I don't know for sure that Ababa was subjected to this because of the way he looked...but I do know for sure that this has never happened to me and I doubt it ever will.
As angry and sad that I am this happened to Ababa, I am even more concerned that this could happen to my son as he gets older.
What do I teach him about the police?
Po-Po-This is one of those I can't believe it happened to our family (namely Ababa) stories. I am sharing this b/c I think that it's important for our family, other adoptive families, and other people who stop by this blog to realize challenges that are still being faced regarding race, and police, and the fact that your beautiful child will not always be an adorable baby/toddler/preschooler.
I grew up in a mostly white, rural area. Racial issues were not very obvious b/c there weren't any other races in the immediate vicinity (to the best of my memory, in my entire elementary school there was one black child, 2 vietnamese children, and one korean-american child (who had been adopted from Korea)). I was taught that police were kind and helpful and safe and trustworthy, that their job was to keep me safe and to make sure that bad people were caught so they could be punished by the law. Police officers were people who you went to when you were lost or had a problem. My only run-ins with the law have been:
1. My early childhood friend and I being picked up and driven to school the first time we were allowed to walk to school by ourselves (we were in first or second grade and took our good sweet time walking and chatting, so we were late. I think officially truant or something like that:-) We got picked up by the neighborhood beat cops and arrived at school in style (the back of the police car).
2. A few speeding tickets, one was definitely deserved, two were questionable but whatever, if that's what the officer's raygun said, who am I to judge.
Ababa is black, he grew up in a small town in southern Louisiana where racial tensions are often simmering at or just below the surface. He has had several encounters with the police, more than I can count actually. Some of the highlights include being pulled over because of his skin color, being questioned because he turned around in the grocery store parking lot b/c he remembered that he forgot his wallet (a woman told the police she thought he was following her!), and being made to get out of his car because he "fit the description" of someone who had committed a crime...it turned out that the only trait they shared was their skin color...
As a couple, we encounter blatant racism with a fair degree of regularity (people changing tables at restaurants b/c they don't want us to be in their site lines, obvious looks/comments on public transportation, weird inappropriate comments, etc.). As a family we are not any more conspicuous b/c everyone we meet assumes that B is our biological child.
But..this is 2012...we live in New York City...in northern Manhattan (a middle income neighborhood that is very diverse)...I work in a predominantly black neighborhood. We're an upwardly mobile middle-class family and don't usually expect to encounter blatant racism in our day to day lives. The police in our neighborhood are typically viewed (and routinely display these traits in our interactions with them) as a busy, bureaucratic, disinterested, somewhat ineffective, but mostly benign entity. We know about Sean Bell and issues of police abuse and brutality that are unimaginable to us but most of those instances happen in other neighborhoods and they seem distant to us.
Yesterday morning, Ababa and I dropped B off at daycare and then Ababa dropped me off at work. After I got out, the light was red (so there was no oncoming traffic) so Ababa did what he thought was a legal U-turn. He was pulled over by the police, he left his wallet at home in the rush to leave that morning but told them his name, address, birthday, social security number, that I was in the office building immediately in front of where they were, etc.
He was forced to get out of the car, made to put his hands behind his head and his forehead on the vehicle, he was thoroughly frisked, his pockets were searched, he was told that a Honeybun wrapper in his pocket with crystalized sugar was drugs, he was told the bags he carries to pick up our dog's poop were drugs, he was asked the same questions repeatedly (in an effort to get him to "change his story"), he was threatened by a policewoman who was aggressively holding her hand on her gun holster, there were multiple police and police cars called over and involved in the interrogation, and in the end, after 45 minutes of this, when it turned out that his information checked-out, an officer tossed the paper with his information on it through the car window at Ababa and said "this is your lucky day" and walked away. he was never told why they pulled him over (we assume the u-turn, which I am pretty sure was illegal) and he was not charged with or ticketed for anything. he got no explanation, no apology, nothing.
Those are not the actions of the police I was taught about as a child. These actions are not helpful, designed to keep people safer, or respectful of humanity.
These actions are blatantly disrespectful, intentionally demeaning, aggressively hostile, and completely unreasonable. Ababa and I have immense respect for good police officers, men and women who do their job with dedication, dignity, and a respect for humanity. We have friends and family members who are police officers, and we recognize that sometimes times officers need to err on the side of caution to ensure their safety. Fine. but at a minimum, in the end, when it turns out your assumptions were wrong...an apology/explanation would be very helpful and should be required.
I am furious that this happened to Ababa, perplexed as to why a simple traffic offense turned into a 45 encounter with multiple squad cars full of officers, and flabbergasted that not one officer in the bunch spoke up to say "hey, we overeacted" or "here's why we did what we did, I'm sorry that you just had to go through this" or even "here's why we pulled you over".
I don't know for sure that Ababa was subjected to this because of the way he looked...but I do know for sure that this has never happened to me and I doubt it ever will.
As angry and sad that I am this happened to Ababa, I am even more concerned that this could happen to my son as he gets older.
What do I teach him about the police?
Wow....that was hard to read, thank you for sharing the story of what happened to your husband. That is just awful and so hurtful; and even though I guess I know racist stuff like that happens today, it's hard to comprehend in a personal way, your story definitely made that hit home. When we first moved here, I was at the playground an a young woman, who was black (from France I later found out) was sitting at a bench near a play structure. I was sitting next to her and she started talking to me about her little daughter who was playing in front of us. She was so shaken up. She said that another kid had told her daughter that he doesn't talk to black people. When her mom (the woman I was sitting next to) confronted him he refused to talk to her saying he doesn't talk to black people and neither do his parents. It makes me so angry still. What that little boy has learned it okay. That my girls' might (and will) face such awful encounters. And then to think that even police (I think I was raised in a setting a lot like yours) could act in such a similar way, because of skin color... And I do think it is harder for boys. You're right. What do we teach them?
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So sorry for what happened to your husband...and as I think ahead (even past what has already happened in first grade) it makes my heart hurt for my children.
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