Home Not So Sweet Home Redux: #BeachBecky Strikes Again
Every year, usually during the latter part of August, I spend a week at Carolina Beach, NC. I always look forward to this week with great anticipation, having grown up in nearby Wilmington and because the beach is my favorite place to be. It affords me the opportunity to slow down, connect with nature, recharge, gear up for a busy fall and spend time with family and close friends. The Saturday before Labor Day, we all come together for fellowship, good food, pool and beach time. This year was especially meaningful as we welcomed the newest member of our family, my grand nephew Jacob.
I have written in the past about how my love for my hometown often feels like a one-sided relationship. For all the enjoyment I experience while there, during this week in particular, I receive constant reminders that much remains necessary by way of racial and social progress and of why I moved away in the first place. This time was no different.
Saturday, August 31, got off to a good start. I had promised my friend and New Hanover High School classmate, Dr. Philip Brown, that I would drop by Earl Jackson Pool, on the north side, to check out NSEA Swim, a promising new initiative whose mission “is to increase multicultural, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity in the sport of swimming by fostering an inclusive environment at all levels of the sport.” I was very impressed by what Philip and his colleagues had created — where lessons about water safety and, more importantly, life are being learned — and especially by the racial diversity of the participants. I remarked that, had these types of multi-racial programs existed when I was a kid, my experience growing up in Wilmington would have been much different.
After visiting the good people at NSEA Swim, I rushed back to the beach to prepare for my family’s arrival. With folks ranging in age from two months (Jacob) to mid-70s, this year there were more relatives and friends than ever. The sense of enjoyment and camaraderie was palpable. The food was delicious, as always. Before it got too dark, we descended upon the pool to use it as a backdrop for the first of a series of photos. On the way from the pool to the beach for further pictures, one of our crew rushed up to me to tell me that some lady was screaming and cursing at them, accusing them of trespassing on private property and being gang members in orange.
I walked up to find an obviously inebriated white woman screaming down at us from her balcony. She was still at it after we returned from taking photos on the beach. Although they say alcohol is a truth serum, trying to reason with someone who is under the influence and highly agitated is a fool’s errand. Nonetheless, I hoped by explaining that, because I was renting one of the units and therefore my guests were not trespassing, things would de-escalate. Instead, the woman threatened to come downstairs to our unit and remove us herself. True to her word, she did come downstairs. She yelled profanities, threatened to get physical and tried to enter our unit. At that point, my relatives urged me to call the police. I was very hesitant. As a civil rights lawyer, advocate against police misconduct, and victim of racial profiling by law enforcement, I am typically distrustful of the police. I am also aware of how things can escalate, spiral out of control and possibly turn deadly, even if we are the ones calling for help.
My family and friends impressed upon me that we needed to call 911 before she did. If she called first, she would become the victim, and we would be placed on the defensive. I acknowledged that they were right and reluctantly called 911, recognizing that we could still end up having to defend ourselves. In being the first to call, we flipped the script on the typical #Becky scenario, in which white people, often women, call the police on Black people for, well, #LivingWhileBlack. After calling 911, we waited anxiously for the police to arrive. When they did, they were respectful and polite. After speaking with us and her, they asked if we wanted to press charges, ironically for trespassing into our unit. We declined. We just wanted her to leave us alone, so that we could get back to the festivities.
A few takeaways:
(1) It was not lost on me that, before calling the police, we were required to debate whether doing so would be helpful or harmful to us.
(2) It saddened me that the very newest generation and youngest members of our family were initiated into the racial realities of our country, the very same ones that all preceding generations of us have confronted.
(3) It was important to model restraint and de-escalation for younger relatives in preparation for their inevitable future encounters with racism and bigotry. I believe we also exhibited grace in declining to press charges.
Some of my friends strongly disagreed with our decision not to press charges, saying that perpetrators of these racist attacks rarely are held accountable, which is important to prevent them from attacking other families. I understand that perspective and take very seriously that responsibility, especially after subsequently learning that this same woman, recently revealed to be V___ M___ H____, had been arrested for causing serious injury to others. But, as someone who spends a lot of time advocating against mass incarceration, on balance, I simply was not interested in using a system that often ends in injustice for Black people to make life harder for someone else, even a classless bigot. Moreover, because I live in a different state, I did not want to invest further time and resources into seeing that she was prosecuted. Rather than relying on the criminal legal system for vindication, I am turning to social media to help spread the word of the need to beware of Vanda Manship Hutchings. Besides, in the end, we came out on top: It’s gonna take a lot more than a drunken bigot to steal our joy! #FamilyFirst
