Story Archive

Riding while Black

To the strangers who flagged down the Wauwatosa, Wisc., police, it looked like a robbery: a young black man in the back of a car, two older white women in the front. So the cops stopped the blue Lexus, brought in reinforcements, drew their guns, and they made Akil Carter get out of the car, approach them walking backwards, get on his knees, and then sit, handcuffed, in a police cruiser. There, looking resigned, Carter, 18, answered questions before eventually being released: he was simply riding in his grandmother’s car. She figured someone “saw two old white ladies in a car with a black kid and made some assumptions.” That someone, who flagged down the police assuming the worst, was a black couple. (AC/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) ...You don’t have to be white to be wrong.