What Makes Us Safer?

 

I’ve been saving links to these two thought-provoking articles about National Night Out while trying to find the right opening to share them.

Why my family will not attend National Night Out, Half Moon Bay Review, 2018

A National Night Out — Without Police, Sandhya Dirks, KQED, 2018

Interesting that they both happen to be from 2018. I wonder why.

I found them when I was searching for other voices and points of view on NNO. I realized this year that I have come to have misgivings about what this event has become in most communities. National Night Out began with the idea that coming out of your home and knowing your neighbors makes you safer. It has evolved into a quasi-festival event that is usually police-centric. You might almost say it’s a police public relations event.

“Knowing your neighbors makes you safer” is different than “hanging out with the police makes you safer.” It just is. For instance, knowing your neighbors might give you the confidence to resolve disputes and solve problems by reaching out to people in your neighborhood. Hanging out with the police reinforces the concept that the police are here to protect you so - - just call them when there’s a problem.

The end results can be quite different. Often when white people call the police over something concerning them in their neighborhood, Black and Brown people suffer. If you follow discussions on social media and especially the hyperlocal Next Door, you will frequently observe whites having those sorts of conversations. 

I saw suspicious people in my neighborhood. A man is doing something I don’t understand. Those kids are up to no good.

Add to that the proliferation of home camera surveillance systems, and suddenly eveyone considers themselves a junior detective. 

Recently retired Ravens football player Torrey Smith, a Howard County resident, related the following experience on Twitter:

Nothing like a casual encounter with Karen walking the dog smh

Update: She called the cops 😑

The lady told me last night “You don’t live here, I live here” as I’m 40 yards from my property and half a mile from hers 😑

This is definitely a case where knowing one’s neighbors would be a vast improvement over the white, affluent fall-back position: the police are here to protect me. Just call them; they’ll handle it.

Do National Night Out events make us safer or do they reinforce white comfort with policing without building the kind of community truly necessary to make neighborhoods safer? This is the sort of question I’m asking myself right now. 

Why now? National Night Out was August 2nd. That was several weeks ago. You would think I’d be on to more current events.

I received the County Executive’s email about the deployment of body cameras in the Howard County Police Department. It made me wonder what we will learn here about local policing. It made me think all over again about who is safe, who is protected, and who is not.

If you have time, read the two pieces I shared. They aren’t very long. I’d love to have a broader conversation about this.