Watering while black?
We’ve all heard one story or another about how difficult life can be for African-Americans in dealing with law enforcement.
It has been proven that black motorists are stopped by police and state troopers far more frequently than white motorists. In fact, that’s where all this started, with the idea of DWB, or Driving While Black.
Then there was the Harvard professor who had forgotten his keys and was arrested trying to get into his house.
And the Georgia jogger who was murdered by three white men for running through a white neighborhood.
Now, in a small town in Alabama, a pastor was arrested for watering his neighbor’s lawn.
It actually happened in May. A woman called the police in Childersburg, Alabama, and said that a family on her street was away on vacation and a strange black man was in their yard.
A police unit was dispatched to the location and found a man watering plants in the yard.
A police officer asked him to identify himself.
“I’m supposed to be here. I’m Pastor Jennings. I live across the street,” Michael Jennings told the officer. “I’m looking out for their house while they’re gone, watering their flowers.”
That was where the exchange went south.
It seems fairly apparent that if Jennings had been white, the fact that he was a pastor and watering a neighbor’s plants would have been the end of it there.
The officer asked Jennings for identification.
Jennings refused.
There’s good news and bad news.
The good news is that despite the serious nature of watering while black, despite his failure to cooperate, Pastor Jennings is still alive.
The bad news — other than the fact that he lives in Alabama — is that he was arrested and handcuffed, even though the woman came over and said she had been wrong to call, that she recognized the pastor.
It didn’t matter. By then they had already taken action and they weren’t backing down.
Jennings may file a lawsuit.
He would certainly be within his rights.
Is this crap ever going to end?