Police Brutality

At first it appeared as if Brown students were taking fashion cues from the rapper Nelly, choosing to place a band-aid above their eyes instead of below. Instead this was a response to an incident taking place on Brown’s campus wherein a black male student was allegedly harassed by Department of Public Safety and Providence Police Department officers. As with most cases like this around the country, accusations of racism emerged.

According to The Brown Daily Herald, two officers “tackled” and pepper-sprayed Chipalo Street ‘06 GS after he refused to show them his identification. Street was later arraigned on charges of later arraigned on charges of assault of a police officer and resisting arrest. In an e-mail sent to the student body, President Ruth Simmons and Interim Vice-President for Campus Life and Student Services Russell Carey ‘91 MA ‘06, claimed that the university will “…not only be investigating and taking appropriate action where indicated but we will assist students in addressing the consequences associated with these events.”

Cases such as this are no longer interesting, and furthermore reveal how absurd the dialogue on race in America has become. Brown students especially fear deviating from their prescribed roles based on race, class, and gender. One side acts as victim and claims to have a monopoly on truth and justice, while the other side focuses so much on points of disagreement they never give proper weight to the complaints of the first. Brown’s brush with police brutality and the debate surrounding the incident has these characteristics.

On September 15, 2006, The Brown Daily Herald published a letter from Sean Quigley. In that letter, Quigley described protestors as “snotty Brown students foaming at the mouth for a cause in which they can ‘fight the man.’” Feeling that they were not more than a pack of “Pavlovian dogs,” Quigley pointed out the protesters were not present at the event and did not know exactly what occurred; Street could have just as easily been the provocateur.

The response published the following Monday was typical. The writer, Gill Frank, described Quigley’s letter as “breathtakingly insensitive, cavalier, and racist.” Institutional racism does exist, claims Frank, and points to Hurricane Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans as proof. As a freshman and someone unfamiliar with the racial dynamics of the Providence community, Quigley has no understanding of what he wrote about, according to Gill.

Both sides err by not fully weighing the arguments of each person. Although I appreciated the tiny moments of hilarity, purposeful or not, that emerged from this debate, it grieves me that a group of individuals who are supposed to be some of the most intelligent in our country are incapable of looking at this issue in a calm manner.