Linda Petersen

My optimism is generally unwavering and my lifestyle is proof of that. However, my cheerfulness has faltered after seeing that gut-wrenching video of the police officer kneeling on George Floyd’s neck as the life was choked out of him. Nothing had prepared me for that voyeuristic peek into pure evil, an evil in a man who is supposed to protect us, not callously choke the life out of us.

As a foster parent of almost 20 infants and toddlers, most of whom were Hispanic or African American, I let negative comments slide off my shoulders. I was often criticized for the care of my sweet little ones; that I did not know how to properly care for their textured hair, that I could not raise them to be a proud minority citizens, and that I was incapable of imparting their personalized culture on them. Naively, I carried on, eventually adopting three children of a minority race. To me, there is only the one race, the human race. Nothing could have prepared me for the irrational hatred I witnessed on television.

It jolted me into starting the discussion with my own children, who HAD been unfairly treated unbeknownst to me. My adult daughter, Dinora, a mom with three children of her own, recounted a time when a waitress refused to serve them. REFUSED TO SERVE THEM? Apparently it was only because her Indigenous Guatemalan, (of Mayan Indian heritage,) skin was a dark brown. Seated at the booth in an out-of-town restaurant, she and her family joked and laughed as they read the menu. Most of the meals were adult sized, but her small children insisted they wanted the ginormous meal with three pancakes, two eggs, four pieces of bacon and hashed brown potatoes. Their joy soon turned to dismay as the waitress continued to serve other customers, ignoring my daughter’s family. It eventually became apparent that the waitress was not going to wait on HER as she sneered and grunted at my daughter as she walked by the table! Dinora was MORTIFIED! EMBARRASSED! Felt less than HUMAN! As tears welled up in her eyes, her husband was going to get up and complain to the manager. Dinora insisted the family slink out the door, unserved, and she burst into full blown sobbing when she got into the car. She has said she felt like “a nothing”.

My son, Angel, has undergone many un-earned police stops. He has always put on his happy, cooperative face and treated the police officers politely, despite the frequency of these time wasting episodes. I naively did not believe it when he insisted it was because he was brown, (Hispanic.)

My son, Steven, has also been a magnet for police, albeit he usually deserved it. What he did NOT deserve was the excessively negative interaction from one officer. ONE officer, not the whole police force. Most of the officers understand that he has some mental health issues that contribute to the interactions and treat him accordingly. Most of the officers have been awesome with only one bad apple to whom I attribute ignorance of Steven’s issues. It is only now that I suspect racial prejudice might have been the instigating factor.

Looking at life through the lens of a privileged white person, it has been a challenge to acknowledge that some police officers and waitresses and job interviewers and teachers, along with a multitude of other irrationally prejudiced individuals, can treat a person of color so harshly. The video of that policeman with his knee on the neck of George Floyd brought it all into horrifying focus for me.

Perhaps some people are unaware that Jesus was a brown-skinned, Middle Eastern man, not the white man so often depicted on a cross. I wonder if his crucifixion was racially motivated?

The concept of prejudice sits like a knot in my stomach. For this reason, I applaud Allie’s Donuts for taking a stand against racism. They stepped out of the ordinary and rescinded their discount for police officers. They meant well by focusing on the racial tensions currently so prevalent. However, to punish the few irrationally prejudiced police officers, Allies has inadvertently insulted the majority of officers who are sincerely well meaning and put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe. They DO deserve the donuts.