Targeted by Police Part I

While driving my life partner Spree, a long-term AIDS survivor, to a health center in Cookeville, Tennessee, we were stopped by the police for supposed “erratic driving.” Spree has 18 different prescriptions to help him with AIDS complications. He does not carry 18 bottles everywhere. Some medications were in an unlabeled container. This is not against the law, but we were treated like criminals and Spree was charged with possession of a controlled substance for medication that he is prescribed!

The cop, and later the judge, treated this gay man with AIDS very harshly. It ended up costing $500 to buy a resolution to the case that would not result in fines or jail time. Through this whole ordeal we witnessed so many people who were treated poorly in the criminal (in)justice system. Our experience highlighted the need for political and community organizing to defend our rights.

Targeted by Police Part II

One year later my boyfriend Greg and I were returning from dinner out to his home in East Nashville. We parked a block away and were stopped by the police as we walked up the steps to his house. We were told we fit the description of vague suspects. I am white and Greg is Black. They talked down to Greg.

We did not want to answer a barrage of questions, and for this we were treated like horrible criminals. More cops arrived. They were all white. They manhandled us rather unpleasantly as they checked us for weapons. We questioned their right to treat us so poorly and they said this indicated we were nervous and accused us of being on crack. They eventually let us go. On subsequent nights the police shined bright lights into Greg’s windows.

Welcome to East Nashville, Tennessee in 2006. While this type of police harassment is an everyday occurrence in cities across the United States (especially since the courts have used 9/11 as a justification to grant the police broader powers of intrusion), the current political climate in East Nashville has given police license to be particularly hostile to poor people and people of color.

A Climate of Racism

This past winter a group of white homeowners started having meetings to talk about crime in East Nashville. These meetings are attended by officers from the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department. A lot of racist comments have been made at these meetings, such as, “One-hundred percent of the crime that happens in East Nashville is committed by young, African American men.” In another case, a woman at one of these meetings explained that she had called the police to report seeing two Black school-age kids, wearing hooded sweatshirts walking down the street with a basketball. The police told her that she did the right thing to call. Greg King explains that the cops who come to the meetings “encourage people to call the police if they see someone who looks ‘out of place,’ so it has really increased the racial profiling that was already happening in our community.”

The mainstream media feeds this hysteria with coverage that plays on racist stereotypes. One example of this is a recent cover story in the City Paper about youth crime that featured mugshots of people of color and a white cop in the background wielding a gun. This climate of racism has especially targeted young people of color, with very negative consequences for high school age students. According to the government of the state of Tennessee, zero tolerance laws have led to a “disproportionately high expulsion of African American students.”

As with so many cities in the U.S., low-income housing is disappearing in Nashville, while new condominiums continue to spring up. Meanwhile social services have been cut and adequate health care is rapidly disappearing for those without insurance; last year Tennessee instituted the largest state health care cut in history when over 200,000 people lost their TennCare (a state-sponsored managed care health program that replaced Medicaid in the state in 1994), while others had their benefits severely reduced. These attacks on low-income people are another aspect of the social climate that contributes to police harassment and abuses of marginalized people.

A Queer Perspective

As queers we have historically been targets for police abuse. Our society can be a dangerous place for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people, and we all are familiar with people like us being brutally attacked or sadistically violated. Unfortunately, for some of us the perpetrator has had a badge or a uniform connecting them to our U.S. government, giving them unchecked power to commit these acts of brutality.

Just like in society at large, the topic of police abuse can heighten polarization and negative tensions in the queer community, particularly along class lines. Some queer people feel that police are needed to defend their individual property rights, while others of us envision a world free of police and radical social democracy.

Some queers now have a place at the table based on economic privilege. But many do not, and it is important for people to realize that not all queers are wealthy and loaded with disposable income. This mythology is hard to counter as gay media touts the spending power of wealthy gays, and TV pumps out vapid images of consumerism with shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Queer as Folk, The L Word, and Will and Grace.

We all have a right to find comfort in our homes and in community. It is vital to support all queers and non-queers in achieving respect, dignity and safety.

Organizing for Change

Greg King, myself, and others in East Nashville have chosen to take a stand and organize against police brutality and racial profiling. Both Greg and I draw on our experiences working with Copwatch, a group that monitors police (mis)behavior, in our current involvement with a newly formed neighborhood organization, the East Nashville Community Group.

The Community Group was formed with the intention of addressing police abuse, racial profiling, gentrification and economic marginalization by providing an open community forum. The group has held three large public meetings this spring and summer, with the goal of bringing together people who hold a diverse range of views on these issues. These public discussions have been open to everyone who is interested in attending, including some of the same white residents who attend the ‘crime’ meetings I discussed above. This strategy has created a rare opportunity for people who would ordinarily not get together to have an opportunity to listen to each other, but it has also been difficult at times. Some people who speak at these meetings express racist viewpoints and then tend to get extremely defensive when they are challenged.

Greg King notes, “What’s unique about the organizing model that we’ve been using is that during these public meetings, everyone is invited. Even members of the crime organization that doesn’t want us to come to their meetings. One of the complexities of this model is: How do you empower people who haven’t had a voice, while also bringing people to the table who are seen as a problem and are actually increasing racial profiling in the neighborhood?” While these meetings have raised many difficult questions, they are the start of a unique attempt to change the dynamics in the community. It has been critical to come together and have sincere dialogue across economic and political divisions to foster community control, safety and healing.

Another important part of our organizing effort includes door-to-door canvassing in housing projects. The decision to go door-to-door and talk to residents came out of a need to connect to those people whose voices were not getting heard. We ask residents what they see as the major problems in their neighborhood and learn about their perceptions of the police. It is also an invitation to those who have been most marginalized to take part in the ongoing discussions and organizing efforts.

Greg King described one of the hurdles of going door-to-door asking for residents’ input: “The difficulty is that this community is marginalized and has been marginalized historically. People aren’t used to being asked what they think and what type of changes they want to see in the world. But so far I haven’t encountered anyone who doesn’t want to talk.”

This strategy of door-knocking is also necessary because this long-term project of working against racial profiling and police brutality necessitates building trust within the community. It also requires that we develop means for individuals to participate in activism with a sense that change can actually happen.

This summer Greg King also produced a documentary film, Homeless Stories: People Speak Out Against the Police. The film tells the stories of six homeless men who live in downtown East Nashville through interviews about their personal experiences. The making of this film is another strategy to help expand the understanding of how homeless people are targeted by police for harassment and abuse and how homelessness has been criminalized in Nashville. “One of my goals for the film was to give people who haven’t had horrific experiences with the police an understanding of what that is like for others,” says King.

Making Connections in Michigan

We had the chance to show Homeless Stories: People Speak Out Against the Police to audiences in Michigan, when we took our organizing work on tour this August. Calling our tour Riseup Summer and using various performance styles, such as political satire and spoken word, we traveled to Detroit and Ann Arbor. After presenting our performance pieces on these issues, we got the chance to dialogue with other communities about the widespread problems of police abuse, racial profiling, gentrification and economic marginalization.

This tour was an excellent opportunity to reflect on our own experiences while we learned of the experiences of people in Michigan. In particular, we were quite moved to meet folks from the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality and listen to local stories of Detroit resistance.

I hope to continue to connect with other activists in order to nurture creative organizing strategies, share knowledge and become agents of positive change. Greg and I will move forward in our struggle as we bring the lessons of the Motor City back home to our community in the Music City.

MaxZine Weinstein is the founding publisher/editor of Between The Lines. He moved from Michigan to Tennessee 12 years ago. Greg King, the Community Organizer for the East Nashville Community Group, contributed to the writing of this article.