I Didn't Know If Law Enforcement Would Listen or Dialogue With Us (2311 hits)
Seeing and reading the news lately, various spokespersons for the police and black communities stress that a dialogue needs to happen between both sides to begin the healing process from the recent killings.
Some doubt that communication would ever happen.
Years ago, I had the same attitude watching 25 California State Prison Correctional Lieutenants, walk into a conference room. I was at the head of the room trying to smile and look pleasant as I got ready to conduct a communications program with my husband, Walter Jackson, Msc.D., but inside I was nervous.  We were contracted to facilitate our team-building workshops teaching effective communications, understanding behavioral styles, and Mindfulness techniques for stress reduction. Back then Mindfulness was barely heard of, let alone taught. The Lieutenants who were mostly white, were in charge of the correctional officers, sergeants, jailers, and all the136,000 male inmates at the minimum and maximum-security prison during their shifts.
We had facilitated that workshop many times before for various groups, but this was the first time for law enforcement. I was intimidated watching the stoic faces of some of the lieutenants who trudged into the room and plopped down in the chairs. Others sat with crossed arms glaring at us. Clearly, they didn’t seem to want to be there in the mandatory training. I didn’t think they had the typical resentment some employees have toward staff meetings thinking they were a waste of time. I kept thinking of the historical feelings of suspicions between blacks and law enforcement.
I knew I had to quickly get that out of mind to be an effective facilitator. I tried thinking of the one nice policeman, a neighbor, who lived a few doors down, and often came over to visit my father when I was growing up in Chicago.
Still thoughts and images popped into my head of the Rodney King beating which occurred just blocks away from where Walter and I use to live with our three children.
I remembered how eerie it felt in our neighborhood for months seeing any officer, and the profound sadness we felt seeing the burning of buildings, and the riots sparked by the King beating. When I ran into police as they were getting coffee at the local 7Eleven, which was common before the beating, I felt a great distrust and truly uncomfortable in their presence. Before the beatings, we exchanged greetings. After the King incident seeing them in the store, I averted my eyes wondering if that particular cop was involved in the beating.
I used Mindfulness to release the tension back in the conference room filled with serious -looking officers who meant business. Some were police before, who in their current positions, were paid three times as much as when they patrolled the streets. Lieutenant’s jobs are mentally, emotionally, and physically demanding and are often arduous, fatiguing, and especially dangerous at times.
I imagined that the workshop participants were equally suspicious of us, wondering if this black couple before them could give them insights into better communication and stress reduction, particularly since we never worked with hardened criminals like they did.
The Lieutenants didn’t chit-chat among themselves as workshop participants usually do while waiting for the training to start. They sat in silence, almost perched, ready to take on any emergency like a prison break. Coming into the room, they barely acknowledged each other with head nods.
When the last participant took his seat, Walter then took charge, introducing us and giving the officers an overview of the training. Watching their poker-faces, I remember feeling that maybe we were over our heads with this group.
Even though my mindful breathing relaxed me, I was still thinking, “How will they accept us, a black couple?” Maybe we were over our heads despite the fact we had done this many times before with various groups, but never for law enforcement.
It wasn’t until he asked the lieutenants to introduce themselves, going around the room, that the ice began to crack.
When Walter, known for his sense of humor, made a joke, suddenly the room erupted in laughter with several of the lieutenants quipping back. From then on, tensions melted, and I began to have hope, thinking they truly want to be effective communicators to do their jobs better despite daily dealings with murderers, rapists, and others who had done heinous crimes. I breathed mindfully as I watched Walter, who was clearly confident and happy to have landed us the prison contract to train 25 Lieutenants and 80 prison educators. I flashed back to my first fears walking into the prison, which was not about the officers but seeing dozens of inmates on the prison yard.
The associate warden gave us a tour of the facility and boldly took us across the yard to the education building. It was chilling walking by peering, steely eyes of inmates who stopped lifting weights and talking to one another to watch us three pass by them within yards away. I kept thinking, “Wasn’t there another way we could go to the education building?” I didn’t get much comfort seeing the guards with rifles in several towers that overlooked the yards watching us closely too, ready to rescue us if need be.
Even though a few inmates spoke to the associate warden with respect, and he smiled and nodded back, I knew those greetings could change in a heart beat. Previously he showed us a collection of hand-made weapons, some made of soap bars, found buried in different places in the prison yard. Each time inmates return to their cells after their yard breaks, the guards do a sweep, scanning for weapons.
I remember thinking the officers before us were exceptionally brave souls to work in the prison every day.
When I watched the lieutenants faces as Walter began sharing his back ground, their expressions began softening. If you want to communicate with anyone, sharing something from your life first, is the key.
Walter told him he was a former juvenile probation’s officer, but left Central Juvenile Hall in downtown Los Angeles after five years, because he didn’t think enough was being done to rehabilitate the teens. After selling real estate, he joined the Federal Government’s Housing division (HUD). There he was in charge of The Officer Next Door program, helping police purchase homes in their own neighborhoods. Part of his job was conducting seminars with rooms filled with cops, to educate them on housing opportunities.
He also shared that his sister Linda, was one step away from being appointed California’s first female warden when she was afflicted with a brain aneurism and suddenly dropped dead. He told them how surprised he was that Linda was so well- respected with law enforcement. There was standing room only at her funeral service. Black and white officers in uniforms, lined the walls side by side. Afterwards, shots were fired when they gave her a gun salute at the grave site.
Clearly Walter was effectively communicating with the lieutenants in the workshop, even though he too felt the divide as a black man with the police. He knew he had to be careful if he was stopped by a cop. Many times he gave our two sons “the talk” pounding in their heads to fully cooperate and be respectful if they are ever stopped by officers, despite being with their white friends who knew nothing of this side of life. And, like most African-American parents, we worried about their fate when they started driving, and every time they left the house at night.
The lieutenants began to share their family stories and prejudices as well, in the secrecy of those four walls. We talked about sometimes the people we fear are not the ones we should be afraid of. Walter told them he remembered being a teenager, the day his father went to a bar with his best friend, a policeman who was off-duty at the time. As they were entering a night club, a belligerent, drunk patron was being thrown out by a bouncer. The man was arguing with the bouncer when Walter’s father spoke up, “Man, it’s Ok. Just leave.” In lightening speed the man whipped out a knife and stabbed him. Hours later, his father died in the hospital.
These types of stories helped open up the communication doors at our training as the officers shared their family tragedies as well.
My doubts were relieved when the lieutenants participated willingly in our workshop exercises with ease. We all talked about how childhood experiences, and how our behavioral styles can make us prejudice toward our co-workers in addition to other races and nationalities outside the workplace.
Looking back, that day un-winded with laughter, and even tears from several lieutenants as we talked about our experiences. After the workshop, the officers told us that they were grateful to dialogue and how we helped build communication with their team and the inmates.
A Swat supervisor in the prison shared he at first the Mindfulness exercises would make him soft, but still participated in them. He said coming into the training he had a sore neck for weeks, but after participating in Mindfulness it was the first time he found relief from pain. We gave several more workshops for the prison, which turned out to be some of the most rewarding experiences we had in the 20 years giving our trainings, mainly because we too as facilitators changed our perspective on law enforcement. I left seeing them in a more positive different light.
The rest of the weekend, we trained 80 correctional educators from the prison. Weeks later, we did it all over again for Ironwood State prison. One lieutenant in our training there said, “For years I worked side by side with these men, but I didn’t know how many Christians like me worked in the prison all of this time. They are my brothers.”
I found that there are law enforcement officers who are caring people with families, insecurities, and childhood experiences that shaped their views like mine. And if we definitely can come together and break down barriers like in our prison trainings.
I am constantly reminded of a saying by one of my Mindfulness teachers, World renown Zen Master,Thich Nhat Hahn, who was nominated for the Noble Peace Prize by Dr. Martin Luther King. Hahn has said, “Everyday we have at least 29 wrong perceptions.”
Weeks later after our workshops, we got a call from the California State Prison. Because the lieutenants and educators raved about being able to share in our workshops and learned so much about themselves and others, we were asked to be advisors for their California State Prison Trade Advisory Committee for the Vocational Office Occupations Program. Immediately we said yes, truly honored to be asked to serve for those who serve and protect us.
So today, do I think dialogue between the police and the black community will help heal? Absolutely! It’s definitely a step in the right direction.
