In The Atlantic's "I Was Racially Profiled in My Own Driveway," retired Major League Baseball player Doug Glanville shares his experience of being racial profiled while living in Hartford. The article starts with:
It was an otherwise ordinary snow day in Hartford, Connecticut, and I was laughing as I headed outside to shovel my driveway...Whenever it got ridiculously blizzard-like, I hired a snow removal service. And on many occasions, I came outside to find that our next door neighbor had already cleared my driveway for me....Never mind that our neighbor was an empty-nester in his late 60s with a replaced hip, and I was a former professional ballplayer in his early 40s. I kept telling myself I had to permanently flip the script and clear his driveway...Just as I was good-naturedly turning all this over in my mind, my smile disappeared. A police officer from West Hartford had pulled up across the street, exited his vehicle, and begun walking in my direction. I noted the strangeness of his being in Hartford—an entirely separate town with its own police force—so I thought he needed help. He approached me with purpose, and then, without any introduction or explanation he asked, “So, you trying to make a few extra bucks, shoveling people’s driveways around here?”
You can read the rest of the article HERE.
Does racial profiling still exist, even in our own backyard of Hartford? How do you react to the story given that it comes from the perspective of a former professional athlete? Share your responses below!
No comments:
Post a Comment