Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)

July 17, 1999, Saturday, Metro Edition

Craig L. Wilkins

  Recent commentaries have highlighted the existence and operation of racial profiling of both pedestrians and motorists as a way to control the rights of African-Americans to what most people take for granted _ access to public space. Lest we are led into some false sense of security that such offensive acts just could not and do not mark our own beautiful state, here is an account of how my own experience exemplifies events that happen on various levels every day to people of color, as a result of the racial policing of public space.

On the morning of Feb. 23, I entered the vestibule of downtown Minneapolis' City Center. As I turned to go into the center, on my way to an appointment with the city attorney, I saw a young African-American male entering the center, and we nodded in greeting.

 As I proceeded into the center, the young man was stopped by a security guard. I went about 20 feet, hearing the young man protest his detainment all the while. As his protests continued, I became both curious and concerned, and I headed back toward the general area, careful to remain on the opposite side of the encounter, finally stopping about 10 to 15 feet away to observe.

The security guard noticed me and asked if he could help me, to which I replied, "no." He then asked me what I was doing, and I said that I was just watching. I was then instructed to move on, and I responded that I was waiting for the young man.        I wanted to know if this was indeed racial profiling in action, but this I kept to myself. The guard told me to wait "over there" _ pointing to an undetermined spot behind him where I could not observe his actions. I asked why, and at that point, a second security guard became obviously irritated and loudly replied because "I was told to." To this, I replied that I was bothering no one by standing where I was and repeated that I was waiting for the young man. The guard then said that if I didn't move I would be arrested for loitering. When I asked what the difference was between standing over there versus where I was, I was summarily cuffed and taken to a holding cell in the basement security room of City Center.

Now, standing in a shopping center waiting to talk to another person should not have been a problem for the security guards _ unless some very problematic assumptions were made and justified.    People stop in a mall to wait, talk, look and desire all the time. That is one of its major purposes: It is designed to facilitate looking. A mall that doesn't invite you to stop is a mall that doesn't provide for spending money, and that is a poor mall indeed.

Racial profiling rescinds this invitation to African-Americans. And of course, this was at the heart of the meeting between the guards and the African-American patrons: The assumption that the presence of too many African-Americans, and especially African-American males, would dampen the desire of other, potentially more affluent, patrons to make use of their invitations to stop and shop.

After being taken down the service elevator, I was placed in a holding cell, frisked, forced down and cuffed to the wall. After some additional verbal abuse, the arresting security guard returned with my possessions in a plastic bag and my 90-day ban from City Center.

When I asked why I was being banned, he responded that I was loitering. Demanding that I move up from the wall, he grabbed my arm, to which I protested. At that point, he issued an expletive and said that he'd leave me there while he went to lunch. He did, returning sometime later, violently grabbing my shoulder, manipulating me in several directions, eventually pushing me against the wall, head first. Finally, I was led to an antechamber between the public lobby and the service elevators, where I was given my bag and was told to get out. I was escorted out of City Center approximately at noon.

 I don't want this story to sound like the whining of an indignant buppie whose overdeveloped, middle-class ego was bruised by this exchange. To the contrary. I was not at all surprised by the actions of the security guards, because I know this happens all the time, and it is definitely not class specific.

  My circle of friends are all hard-working individuals.   Some are professional, some are blue-collar. Without exception, each one has at least one story to tell about having their access to space policed: being followed in a store, being looked at with suspicion while walking down the street, being stopped for being in a neighborhood where it "appears you don't belong," of being asked for just one more piece of ID when cashing a check. The result of these nefarious efforts of surveillance and control is that African-Americans rarely enjoy the benefit of something as simple and abundant as space.

 Comedian Chris Rock has said that in America, an African-American is born a suspect.   We are frequently treated like suspects by most public or private police, store owners and operators, developers, architects, planners, economists, politicians, etc.   African-Americans are victims of an overarching, unjustified, all-encompassing system of surveillance that limits our access to the world around us at almost every level.    

 It is critical that we make these incidents known. Make them visible. Make them unacceptable. How you choose to fight is up to you. But fight you must, lest there be no "space" left to turn.

Craig L. Wilkins, Minneapolis. Architect for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.