SPPD

Each cohort of the Saint Paul Police Department’s (SPPD) training academy designs their own t-shirt. This is the one from the academy Mark was in. I am proud of his participation in it. He worked long and hard to get there. 

He already had a Master of Social Work (MSW) degree and several years of experience as a Child Protection Worker and had to start over where a high school graduate would start to become a police officer. There were several years of basic law enforcement skills training with no promise of employment. We were all excited when he subsequently was selected for the SPPD academy. The other students referred to him as the old man. But he stayed focused and he met his goal.

You may know that I did an earlier blog here about my Black Lives Matter t-shirt. The beauty of it all is that there is no contradiction. If you throw out the stereotypes of people who wear such shirts, the sentiments are very much in concert.

We also have a thin blue line sticker on the back window of our van. The police are indeed a thin blue line between us and total chaos. I love the SPPD and their current chief. The Saint Paul department is widely recognized as the best in the state, Minneapolis included.

When they were doing the background investigation to approve Mark’s hiring, a fellow came by to talk with Charlene and me. One of his questions was why we thought Mark wanted to be a police officer. I told him that Mark had always wanted to drive fast and make a lot of noise. There is more truth than joke in that explanation. But I did tell him the rest of the story. Mark wanted to be the friendly cop on the neighborhood beat that everyone knows and loves. The one who settles disagreements and makes peace. 

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” Matthew 5:9

Black Lives Matter

My Quilt Part 2

Bev Ryan made me a quilt. It is a beautiful thing with twelve of my favorite all-time t-shirts set in a gold-flecked blue background. As I look at it, I can see that it in one way tells the story of my life. I was a t-shirt collector for several decades. When the shirts wore out, I replaced them with solid black t’s and Charlene commissioned Bev to make the quilt as a thank you for my help formatting her new book and getting all the pictures in the right places: See it here: Roberta

That leaves me with an opportunity to write a short piece about each shirt on the quilt. I already started with my blog last November called Stand in the Gap.

If I am to move left to right, top to bottom, today’s story is about my Black Lives Matter

shirt. I bought it at the Black Lives Matter booth at the Minnesota State Fair. Charlene and I spent a few minutes there talking with a courteous young man who was staffing the booth. 

The slogan grew from a series of young Black men who were shot and killed by police officers across the country. Please understand that I have a son who is a Saint Paul Police Officer and a Thin Blue Line sticker on the back window of our van. I do understand that some of the dead men left the officer with no other choice. But I also understand that some of the officers in question turned to deadly force too quickly.

Some of my friends have countered the shirt with “all lives matter” but that misses the point. It is our stereotypical fear of Black men that has left so many of them dying in the streets. It is Black men who need the community to stand up for them and I have worn the shirt with pride.

For more on the topic, see my book Growing Up White.

:"Growing Up White"

The following is the language from the back cover of my forthcoming book, "Growing Up White - From Pearl Harbor to Black Lives Matter." I hope to have it available in just a few weeks.

"This is the story of the enlightenment of one young man who lived through the Civil Rights Movement, who sympathized with it, cheered for it even, loved the music of it; but who didn’t do anything significant about it.

It will take you from WW2 to Viet Nam, from the murder of Emmet Till to the integration of Little Rock Central High School and from a Black Boy Scout Camp to James Meredith’s admission to Ole Miss. It tells of our adoption of an eleven-year-old Black boy, of the mother who ran away and the church that ran away, of my rescue by a Nigerian man, and of our successful efforts to get Black foster children adopted.

In the end it asks what Jesus would do and it suggests the beginning of a solution to our current racial issues."