Voluntary Community Service While Black is now an Activity-Of-Suspicion in Pennsylvania! - Phroyd
The absurdity of the situation was so overwhelming that, for a moment, Shawna Harrell had to walk away from the state trooper in front of her.
Here she was, garbage bag in hand on a highway shoulder — elbows deep in bottles and needles and diapers discarded by other people — trying to explain to a man with a badge why she was not a suspicious character.
The historically black Sigma Gamma Rho sorority’s Harrisburg, Pa., chapter had adopted a section of Interstate 83 near the Susquehanna River. And on Saturday, Harrell and other sisters grabbed bags, gloves and blue and gold T-shirts and went out to do some service for their community. After a quick selfie in front of the Adopt-a-Highway sign stenciled with the sorority’s name, they had filled several bags.
Then they saw the state trooper, lights flashing, pull up behind one of their parked cars.
“What’s going on?” the trooper asked, according to a recounting of the incident posted by Harrell and shared on social media. “Are y’all fighting?”
The officer said he had received reports of black women fighting on the side of the highway, Harrell said.
“No, sir,” Harrell told him. “We are cleaning the highway.”
To emphasize their point, the women held up their garbage bags and pointed to the highway sign that had been the centerpiece of their selfie moments ago — not to mention the sorority insignia on their shirts.
It was not enough. The trooper said he had never seen people cleaning this particular section of highway and wanted to see ID.
And just like that, Harrell said, they were the latest people to have their innocuous activity viewed through criminal-tinted glasses — all because they happen to be black.
Or, as fellow Sigma Gamma Rho sorority member Britni Daniellewrote on Twitter: “Add ‘performing community service while Black’ to the list of things that make you suspicious.”
“Performing community service” would be another eye-rollingly bizarre entry into the list of things that have put black people under the suspicious gaze of neighbors, colleagues and police — some cases so absurd they would be funny if they were not soul-suckingly demoralizing and potentially deadly.
The nation is embroiled in a debate about the disparate treatment of black people in public spaces after police were called on two men waiting for another at a Philadelphia Starbucks and a woman who got into a dispute with workers at an Alabama Waffle House over plastic-ware.
