Neighbor calls police on award-winning black politician canvassing for votes: 'It was just so degrading'
A black politician who was stopped by police on suspicion of drug dealing is hoping the 911 caller will step forward for a teachable moment on racial profiling.
On the evening of August 7th, award-winning activist Sheila Stubbs, who recently won the Democratic primary and is the first black woman to represent the state legislature from Wisconsin’s Dane County, was canvassing for votes in a Madison neighborhood when a police car pulled up.
At the time, Stubbs, 46, was chatting with a neighborhood resident while her 8-year-old daughter and 71-year-old mother waited in the car. When she asked the officer for clarification, she learned that a man had called 911 when he observed her knocking on people’s doors.
“It’s 2018,” Stubbs, who did not return Yahoo Lifestyle’s request for comment, told The Capital Times. “It shouldn’t be strange that a black woman’s knocking on your door. I didn’t do anything to make myself stand out. I felt like they thought I didn’t belong there.”
“It was just so degrading,” Stubbs added. “It was humiliating. It was insulting.”
A representative from the Dane County Government Public Safety Communications did not return Yahoo Lifestyle’s request for comment, however, according to The Capital Times, the service call read, “FULLY OCCUPIED SILVER 4 DR SEDAN NEWER MODEL – THINKS THEY ARE WAITING FOR DRUGS AT THE LOCAL DRUG HOUSE – WOULD LIKE THEM MOVED ALONG.”
A spokesperson from the Madison Police Department’s records office did not return Yahoo Lifestyle’s request for comment but per The Times, the interaction between Stubbs and responding officer Katherine Bland was professional. Stubbs and her mother also shared their phone numbers with Bland in the hopes of discussing race relations.
Stubbs has a history of activism — according to her website, she’s been involved in criminal justice reform, safer neighborhood initiatives, and helped increase funding for senior citizens and people with disabilities. She also served as the First-Vice President of the NAACP Madison Branch.
However, Stubbs is no different than other black politicians who have been stopped by the police while doing their jobs. Last week, a man named Roosevelt McClary, a commissioner candidate in Lauderdale Lakes City, Florida was distributing campaign flyers in a neighborhood when he found himself surrounded by police cars, a helicopter, and K-9s, according to The Miami Herald.
Unbeknownst to him, McClary had accidentally set off a resident’s alarm system when he dropped off his literature. And the homeowner’s sister told police that security footage caught a man “fiddling” with the doorknob. McClary, who recorded his interaction with the police on Facebook Live, was ultimately released by police.
And in July, the police questioned Oregon state representative Janelle Bynum, while she was canvassing in a Clackamas neighborhood. According to the New York Times, the 911 person reported a woman going door-to-door and using a cell phone, “as if they were casing the neighborhood for houses that were unoccupied and they would come back later and rob them.”
Stubbs told The Capital Times, “I belong where I choose to go. You don’t have to like me. You don’t even have to respect me. But I have a right to be places.” However, she is hopeful that her 911 caller will learn from the incident.
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