Fear of police makes Black men use children as protection on errands

Evidence

And then a cousin spoke. He stood about five feet seven with tattoos on his arms and neck. “I’m afraid to go out in these streets. Not because of some set. I can handle that. Because of the police. When I want to go to the store late at night I wake my daughter up and take her with me. Thinking maybe they won’t shoot me if she’s with me.” — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 601

Categorization

• XREF: Powerfully instantiates the value gap from earlier chapters — the premise that only certain Black lives are legible as worth protecting. Also resonates with the everyday-coping notion of ‘racial habits.’
• SEED: The image of a father waking his daughter to accompany him to the store as a human shield against police is a devastating concrete anchor for an essay on how the value gap distorts even the most ordinary domestic routines.