pumpkinstrokemarrow

There used to be a saying in cowboy films that if you rode with outlaws you swung with them; the general idea being that if you were caught in the company of someone known to be an outlaw, you were an outlaw too. Very few exceptions made.

I was reminded of all this by a rather telling story in the DT told by a policeman about the stop and search of a black man. The point of the story being that if bad black men have a uniform - say grey hoody, blue baggies, green Worsted socks and red & white Nike trainers - good black men who chose to wear the uniform must expect to get caught up in stop and searches more often than they might otherwise.

It seems that in some areas of London at least there is such a uniform. Some men who are not gangsters - both black and white - like to wear it because it makes them feel hard. Some like to wear it because they want to be inconspicuous in a land of gangsters. Or perhaps just to be part of the scene, part of the peer group. The result being that if you are a white policeman, nothing like as good as a black policeman at describing a black face or distinguishing one from another at a distance, and you get given the description of a black gangster who has just done something bad and who needs to be apprehended, you are apt to stop a lot of wrong people before you stop the right one.

So one part of the answer is to get more black policemen. Another part of the answer is to persuade good black men that wearing the uniform of bad black men is not very helpful to the forces for good. Yet another is to train white policemen to get better at looking at black faces.

This story at least had a good ending. The policeman took the time and trouble to explain what the problem was and the person who had been stopped, searched and angered calmed down enough to understand.