White woman calls police on black babysitter caring for white children
By Chelsea Prince
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
October 9, 2018
ATLANTA - A black man who was babysitting was followed home from a Walmart in Cobb County, Georgia and reported for suspicious activity after he was seen with two white children.
Corey Lewis, who runs an after-school mentoring program in Marietta, said a white woman spotted him and the children eating at a Subway restaurant and followed him to a nearby gas station, where she asked to speak with the children. She tailed him back to his house, where they were met by a Cobb County police officer, as the woman had called 911.
Lewis streamed the interaction with the officer to Facebook Live on Sunday. Since then, the video has racked up more than 200,000 views and been shared more than 5,000 times.
“All because I’m black and have two white kids with me,” Lewis said on Facebook.
In the video, he can be seen telling the officer he is being followed and harassed. The officer then says he needs to speak with the children to make sure Lewis’ story checks out.
“At this point in time it’s, like, an OK check, to make sure everything is all right,” the officer says in the video.
One of the children, a young girl, can be seen telling the the officer that Lewis is their after-school caretaker and sometimes their babysitter. She said they were eating dinner at Subway after a trip to Catch Air, an indoor play facility.
Lewis tells the officer he works in child care and shows the shirt he is wearing, which promotes his business. The officer asks him why he is recording.
“I’m letting the world know what’s really going on,” Lewis can be heard saying in the video. “It’s 2018. I can’t step out into the community without being profiled.”
The officer appears to be sympathetic, if not apologetic.
“It is what it is,” he can be heard telling Lewis. “Do you understand?”
Lewis stopped recording after the officer confirmed that nothing was wrong. The woman who called 911 is never shown in the video, and it is unclear how the incident was resolved. AJC.com asked the Cobb County Police Department for comment.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Recently I wrote that we are a nation of racists and this is a perfect example of that. You can bet this white woman will swear on a stack of bibles that she doesn’t have a racist bone in her body. But had this been a white man with those kids, she would not have given it a thought.
I confessed to being a racist and explained why. Most people will insist they are not racist, but if they dig down deep into their hearts they will realize that they are racists.
Racism in this country isn’t going anywhere. No matter how much multiculturalism and diversity is shoved down our throats, racism is here to stay.
2 comments:
My first week on the job, so many many years ago, my FTO told me..."See a black man in a white neighborhood at night...check him out. See a white man in a black neighborhood at night...check him out."
I guess that qualifies as racist, but the fact remains that, those who serve and protect proactively look for things that appear out of place. Proactive police work protects communities. Cops are supposed to do that. Is stopping to check out something that appears out of place racist?
I offer no judgement on this. Just wondering what others think.
Dave, I too was told the same thing and there were no complaints about racist tactics in stopping blacks in white neighborhoods and vise versa. And that happened to be a good police tactic. But that was then and this is now. Today, unless you have probable cause, you cannot make such stops anymore. However, you can still make stop-and-frisks - except in New York - but you need to have some reason to believe that the person about to be frisked has committed a crime or may be about to do so.
As for the woman in this case, her sole reason for calling the cops was because the man was black and the kids were white. The kids appeared to be in no stress whatsoever. That makes her a racist.
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