These days 911 is dead serious. Anyone in the United States can dial those three numbers and summon people with guns and handcuffs to participate in their anti-black paranoia. It’s racial harassment, sponsored by the government and supported by tax dollars.

…This does not mean that it is acceptable: everyday racism is aggravating, health draining, and, for its survivors, labor intensive. Everyday racism requires a performance when a black person navigates white spaces. You conspicuously display your work ID. You look down on the elevator. You whistle Vivaldi.

The people who call the police can fill a black person with a productive rage or a corrosive kind of hate.

…The main problem is the response of the state. “We’ll send a squad over right away.” The caller has offered a short pitch for a white supremacist fantasia, and now the dispatcher green-lights it. She sends a crew over to the set identified by the caller and the spectacle is produced.

Black people are forced, by armed officers of the government, to justify their presence. They have the burden of proof; the person who called the police is assumed to be correct.

…The US criminal legal process is all about keeping people – especially African American men – in their place. Even when trespassing white space is not an arrestable offense, it can occasion a fraught encounter.

…When Public Enemy described 911 as a joke, they weren’t even talking about the police. Their complaint was that paramedics didn’t show up when they were summoned to the hood. Those were the first responders who the community would have welcomed.

The policing of black Americans is racial harassment funded by the state | US news | The Guardian

Sigh….