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The police are very kind when I’m a young white woman just doing my job, contributing to society. But when I’m at a protest they will follow orders to hit, kick, and pepper spray me. If I had been one of the queer women arrested and detained during the G20 protests in Toronto, as I easily could have been, I would have been subject to threats of rape, vaginal-digital “searches,” and homophobic threats and insults by officers. Police blame rape victims for “dressing like sluts.” Police give black Muslim cyclists fines of $1,316 for eight bicycle violations in the course of two minutes. Police beat native youth unconscious and leave them to die in the snow. As a woman, a queer person, and an anti-racist person, I do not trust the police. I do not trust them not to harass and abuse me, and I did not trust them not to harass and abuse the man who was making me so nervous in the store last week.
- Mary Burnet, quoted in “Trying to understand a tragedy” at the Halifax Media Co-op (April 23, 2012)
one of the best ways i’ve seen a white person address their privilege in relation to the attitude of “calling the cops” when you feel unsafe. for so, so many people, calling the cops means exactly the opposite.
(via garconniere)
