There's a town in Ohio where the Fire Department blares a siren at 6:00 p.m. Black people don't like that. Young white people don't understand, because to them, it's just a siren?
But people that know white US history, know that there were hundreds of sundown towns that blared a similar siren at 6:00 p.m. This was intentional terrorism against Black people.
The siren meant that if you were Black and in the town after 6pm, you could be beaten or killed.
The Purge IRL, but only for Black folk.
During slavery there were slave patrols. Slave patrols enforced the "slave codes," brutal laws that dictated what slaves could or could not do, and where they could exist. Slave patrols were formed of white slave owners and non-slave owning citizens.
Any white man was allowed and expected to stop any Black person and interrogate them to make sure that they're not up to sneaky Black stuff.
During the civil war, many Southern states codified into law this expectation that all white men should be on the lookout for Black people sneaking around, living life free and stuff. States like Georgia brought their "citizens arrest" law into existence in 1863 for this exact reason.
"Now we are all slave patrol!"
("We" means "white people.")
After slavery was abolished in 1865, slave codes evolved into "Black codes," brutal laws that governed what Black folk could or could not do. Slave patrols evolved into official Black patrols (AKA the Police force) or unofficial Black patrols like the Ku Klux Klan, also formed in 1865. It was an eventful year. 🤷🏿♂️
Any white man was allowed and expected to stop any Black person and interrogate them to make sure that they were not up to sneaky Black stuff.
The Black codes evolved into Jim Crow, brutal laws that governed what Black folk could or could not do. Between the police, the KKK and the white citizens' councils, there were lots of official and unofficial groups policing Black folks' movement.
White folk could harass Black people themselves, or they could escalate up the chain of violence, either the official one, or the unofficial one. "I'll call the police on you!" Or "I'll call the Klan!" Or "I'll call my husband and his brother on you!"
This chain of violence was used to maintain "sundown towns," entire cities and counties where Black people could be beaten or killed, just for being there after dark.
https://justice.tougaloo.edu/map/
Segregation was created and maintained by violence on an unimaginable scale. Here's just one county:
As in the time of slavery, and Black codes, and Jim crow, white men that kill Black people while acting as part of this chain of violence, are legally shielded from prosecution.
Many white folk don't even know this history of why they feel so comfortable asking a Black person to prove that they belong in an area. But they participate in it.
If you are white in the US, think of how many times *in your entire life* that a Black citizen with no authority whatsoever, walked up to you, detained you, and demanded that you show ID.
The number of times is likely to be close to zero, even if you live in a majority Black neighborhood. It just doesn't happen in reverse. 🤷🏿♂️
