![\"Writer](\"https:\/\/www.themarysue.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/james-baldwin-1.jpg?w=1200&resize=1200%2C800\")
<\/figure>\nJames Baldwin is a man of infinite wisdom. His ability to touch on the pain of living while Black in the U.S. remains nearly unmatched no matter how long ago he said\/wrote these words. Because of this, many people are finding a passage from his 1985 essay-turned-book, The Evidence of Things Not Seen<\/em>, worth sharing following the footage released of Tyre Nichols<\/a>\u2018 torture video by the Memphis Police Department.<\/p>\n Black policemen were another matter. We used to say, \u201cIf you must call a policeman\u201d\u2014 for we hardly ever did\u2014\u201cfor God\u2019s sake, try to make sure it\u2019s a White one.\u201d A Black policeman could completely demolish you. He knew far more about you than a White policeman could and you were without defenses before this Black brother in uniform whose entire reason for breathing seemed to be his hope to offer proof that, though he was Black, he was not Black like you.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In sharing this quote, many Black people online (particularly men) have described the punishment of even asking a Black cop to give them some grace because they share something in common. Baldwin wrote this in an essay critical of the response to the slow investigation of\u00a0The Atlanta Child Murders<\/em>. As a Black mecca, the city was early to adopt Black members of the criminal justice system after the Civil War. At the time of Baldwin\u2019s essay, this included a Black police commissioner (Lee Brown) and, later, a Black judge (Clarence Booper). However, as the issues with policing being systemic, as we\u2019ve seen, diversity can only go so far. <\/p>\n While this book was about Atlanta a few months before it was published, another high-profile example\u2014of it\u2019s not the people, it\u2019s the system\u2014occurred in Pennsylvania. Under the leadership of a Black mayor, the police bombed a row house,\u00a0killing 11 people, including five children<\/a>. The nine-hour fire spread to many houses on the block, resulting in dozens of families losing their homes.<\/p>\n \n