Police seemed to expect trouble at black march

Dear Editor: On Saturday, April 7, 2018, I attended the Black Women’s March in Tarrytown. The purpose of the march was to bring attention to the many injustices black women in America face every day.

The scene was surreal and devastating.

I’ve been to countless protests and rallies in the past year, huge and small. They have been predominantly white groups, and really nothing happens there. It’s peaceful and people generally smile and talk to each other.

This event was something completely different, something you might only observe in a documentary.

Even though there was expected civil disobedience due to the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge (formerly the Tappan Zee Bridge) being closed against the marchers, there was no reason for the intimidating police state that occurred. There were platoons of police, helicopters, roads blocked by dump trucks and police vehicles, and someone who looked like a sharpshooter up on a roof. There were lines of police holding bunches of plastic handcuffs, and oh, so many guns.

I listened to black women asking for police protection, saying that they aren’t against police, but against police brutality. Then a woman spoke of her son, how she calls him every day to ask him to be careful, and then, at night, to make sure he made it home safe. How many white children’s mothers have to be that afraid for their son and daughters? The ragged pain and fear in the mothers’ voices, juxtaposed against the police slowly closing in on our group, while a helicopter circled overhead, was the devastating part.

Did any of the police officers hear that pain? Do they have any recognition that a gathering of black Americans is treated as automatically something that needs to be oppressed and a white gathering is not? This was a stark and hideous example of the everyday life of my fellow Americans who are black.

I hope others will try to understand. Listen to black women. Listen to black stories. Really see what’s been going on, and do whatever you can to change it.

Lynne Lamoree, Kingston