{"id":23235,"date":"2016-01-20T15:13:54","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T21:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=23235"},"modified":"2016-01-20T16:34:40","modified_gmt":"2016-01-20T22:34:40","slug":"why-many-black-parents-talk-to-their-children-about-the-police-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/why-many-black-parents-talk-to-their-children-about-the-police-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Many Black Parents Talk to Their Children About the Police Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Misha Euceph<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cTurn the radio down. Turn the radio down! They\u2019re gonna take you to jail,\u201d said 4-year-old, Max Manasseh.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat? What do you mean turn the radio down?\u201d asked Tamar Manasseh, his mother. They were on their way back from dropping off Max\u2019s older sister, Avi, at school in Englewood, on the South Side of Chicago. Their car was stopped at a stoplight, right in front of a police car.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe police. They\u2019re gonna take you to jail,\u201d said Max, again.<\/p>\n

Tamar recalls that moment as the first time she knew her son was afraid of the police.
\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThey know how to deal with the police. They learn that very early on,\u201d she whispered inside a FedEx in Hyde Park, where she made copies for an event for Mothers Against Senseless Killings, a non-profit organization she founded.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was 4. Already scared of the police,\u201d Tamar continued. \u201cJust being black; they learn it. Especially kids who are in neighborhoods like Englewood, Lawndale, Roseland. Certain neighborhoods, they don\u2019t need to teach you anything. It\u2019s understood. Just like the stove is hot; it\u2019ll burn you. Don\u2019t stick anything in electrical sockets, \u2018cause it\u2019ll electrocute you. The police will kill you.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the city released a dash cam video on Nov. 24 showing a white Chicago police officer shooting black teenager Laquan McDonald, protestors took to the streets and racialized violence by Chicago police became international news. But many black residents of Chicago say that they\u2019ve long known to be wary of unjustified violence or scrutiny from the police. In fact \u00a0some black parents in Chicago begin to prepare their children for encounters with the police by sitting them down for a \u201cthe \u00a0talk,\u201d almost like generations of parents have been known to teach their kids about \u201cthe birds and the bees.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the conversation, black parents confront their children with the racially-loaded nature of interactions with the police and tips for how to conduct themselves around police to prevent escalation.<\/p>\n

While some parents wait to bring up the subject with their children, many start the discussion at as early as 9 to 12 years old. This is because, according to Erin Winkler, \u201cAfrican-American boys are getting evaluated as \u2018adultified,\u2019 while parents are seeing children as young.\u201d<\/p>\n

Winkler, chair of the Department of Africology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, studies the construction of race in relation to children. In her research, she notes that African-American boys suffer from overestimation of their age and, in many cases, dehumanization.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the average age overestimation for black boys exceeding four and a half years, in some cases, black children may be viewed as adults when they are just 13 years old,\u201d said Matthew Jackson, PhD, of UCLA, in an article published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.<\/p>\n

Winkler notes that \u201cthe talk\u201d about police is usually directed at young black males rather than females.<\/p>\n

But Tamar Manasseh says that that is changing after cases like that of Sandra Bland, who died in police custody in Texas, and Rekia Boyd, who was killed by an off-duty officer using an unlicensed firearm in Chicago. She says, \u201cMy daughter thinks it won\u2019t happen to her, but things are just not like they used to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evidence from the Invisible Institute\u2019s Citizen Police Database supports this. According to the database, in excessive use of force complaints in Englewood, although 90 percent of the complainants are black, approximately half are men and half are women.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to take seriously the reality that we\u2019re in,\u201d says Jason Thompkins, Black Lives Matter Chicago co-founder. \u201cWe have to make sure that we\u2019re recording with our cell phones when we have interactions with the police. We have to practice awareness and protection so that we can keep ourselves and each other safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thompkins brings attention to a new method of preparation in the form of cell phones and social media, something parents might be adding to the talk.<\/p>\n

Ghian Foreman, a black male and current member of the Chicago Police Board, argues that the talk cannot be limited to black parents and their children. \u201cIt\u2019s a community conversation. It\u2019s the world we live in. We have to talk about the world we live in and be able to prepare,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a conversation that takes place not just in low-income communities, but all over,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Max remembers the first time he encountered the police not as that time when he was 4 years old, sitting at a stoplight with his mom, but instead as a recent incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was going to my house. It was late, about 11:30 p.m., in Bronzeville,\u201d he remembers. \u201cI\u2019m walking up the stairs, into my house and I had to use this key. But the key wasn\u2019t working. And the cops shone their light on me a few times, asked what I was doing.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018What the [expletive] are you doing?\u2019 they asked. I told them, \u2018I\u2019m trying to get into my house.\u2019 I wasn\u2019t trying to make the situation worse. I mean, if you show them that you\u2019re not going to be aggressive with them, maybe they won\u2019t be aggressive with you. That\u2019s how I thought about it, so I wasn\u2019t aggressive with them. So they drove away eventually, after I got into my house.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo at top: Tamar Manasseh and Max Manasseh hold up signs on 57th street in Hyde Park at a Mothers Against Senseless Killings event. (Misha Euceph\/MEDILL)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Misha Euceph \u201cTurn the radio down. Turn the radio down! They\u2019re gonna take you to jail,\u201d said 4-year-old, Max Manasseh. \u201cWhat? What do you mean turn the radio down?\u201d asked Tamar Manasseh, his mother. They were on their way back from dropping off Max\u2019s older sister, Avi, at school in Englewood, on the South […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":23236,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[509,28,30,675],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2015","category-general-interest","category-public-affairs","category-social-justice"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Many Black Parents Talk to Their Children About the Police Today - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/why-many-black-parents-talk-to-their-children-about-the-police-today\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Many Black Parents Talk to Their Children About the Police Today - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Misha Euceph \u201cTurn the radio down. Turn the radio down! They\u2019re gonna take you to jail,\u201d said 4-year-old, Max Manasseh. \u201cWhat? What do you mean turn the radio down?\u201d asked Tamar Manasseh, his mother. 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