Monday, Feb. 20, 2023 | 2 a.m.
View more of the Sun's opinion section
I’ve got a colleague, let’s call her Jen.
Jen is a recent law school graduate. She’s in her mid-twenties, petite. She possesses a bubbly personality with a razor-sharp wit (and tongue) that she concedes can get her into trouble from time to time. Jen likes rock and roll, (some) country music, dark liquor and tattoos. She even has quite a few herself.
In short, Jen is fun.
Last fall, most of our litigation team (including Jen) went to a law conference in St. Simons Island, Ga. St. Simons is a wonderful little island with a “main street” lined with both “mom and pop” shops and five-star seafood dining restaurants.
Neighborhood streets are adorned with live oak trees and adjacent walking trails. Everywhere you go, the beach is a stone’s throw away. Real postcard stuff.
Anyways, a trip to an island town requires island attire: Shorts, T-shirts, polos, etc. And because we went there for a law conference, business attire was also required.
Our first day in St. Simons was all about the conference.
We arrived just before the first session started. Sessions went on all day. By the end of the day, we all just wanted to eat dinner, unpack and go to sleep.
Everyone did, except for Jen of course. Jen wanted to go out. She wasn’t tired. She wanted to see how the nightlife is in St. Simons.
Three-fourths of our group were married men aged 50 years old and up. Going out was not on their agenda. Watching the Braves game, playing golf and enjoying solitude were on their agendas.
That left me and Jim, another recent law school grad. Jim doesn’t drink, so he doesn’t do bars. Some people can go to bars without drinking. Not Jim.
You’ve by now deduced who was Jen’s escort for the evening. Yours truly.
I’m not 50 years old, but that sports-and-solitude agenda sounded pretty good to me. But I wasn’t a fan of Jen going out in a new place, at night, by herself. Knowing Jen, she would go by herself regardless.
Call me old-fashioned, or maybe even paternalistic, but I didn’t want her to be in that position.
We changed into our island attire and off we went. We went to some bar Jen found on her phone that was supposed to be a “locals bar.” It was what you would expect: dimly lit, pool tables, dartboards and a jukebox.
We found an available pool table. Thankfully, the dust-covered change machine was working. We got some quarters and ordered a round of drinks.
As soon as our first game was finished (Jen won, by the way), Jen looked at me and said, “Why did I not know that you have tattoos?” I paused for a minute. I thought the question came from nowhere, but it didn’t. I realized that Jen had never seen me in a short-sleeve shirt. I replied that it was because that was the first time that Jen had seen me in anything other than work attire.
I could tell by her face that Jen didn’t love that answer. She responded that I didn’t wear suits every day. Even when I wasn’t in a suit, I never wore anything that was short sleeved. Other attorneys would wear short-sleeved polo shirts. I never did.
My immediate response was a smile, half to provide myself time to think, and half as an acknowledgment of Jen’s attention to detail. Like I said earlier, she is razor-sharp. She knew there was more to it than mere coincidence.
I decided to respond with the truth. I told Jen that I was careful not to reveal my tattoos at work because of how I may be perceived by the gatekeepers at the firm. Many of them are old, white and from the generation where tattoos are taboo.
Many of them serve clients who are old, white and also from that same generation. Displaying my tattoos in such an environment could negatively affect my prospects for advancement.
Jen chuckled. Through a smile, she mustered, “What are you talking about?”
She said everyone knew she had tattoos when she was hired. She showed them hers during her interview. Unlike me, she wears short-sleeved shirts around the office regularly. No one has said anything to her about her doing that.
I chuckled. Through my smile, I said, “Jen, not only are you white, but you’re also a woman. The rules are different for you.”
I told her that a young Black man with tattoos is seen differently than a young white woman with tattoos. Tattoos make Black men look scary. They make white women look fun.
Jen paused. “Maybe that’s true,” she said, “but I would rather live on my own terms.” She said that if people didn’t accept her for who she was, then forget them. Sarcastically, I interjected, “That must be nice.” That didn’t deter Jen. She finished with, “Besides, how do you know how they would treat you if you never show them your tattoos?”
I paused. Jen’s final point was fair.
We don’t really know how something will play out until it happens. Until it does, we are — based upon varying amounts and kinds of information — simply guessing.
I told Jen that she was right. I didn’t know exactly how they would respond. But wearing short sleeves at work didn’t matter to me enough to want to find out.
Jen smiled. I smiled. We played another game of pool (I won that time).
I thought about that conversation when I read about the response to Antoine Tolbert, a Black man, walking down St. Clair Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio, with a shotgun. Someone from a local fire station called the police, portraying him as suspicious. One Cleveland police officer stopped him and asked him to put his gun down. Antoine complied and explained what he was doing and that he was legally carrying the firearm. The officer, Ashley Santa, rightly allowed Antoine to pick his weapon back up and continue on because he wasn’t breaking any law.
Shortly thereafter, another officer, Sgt. Lance Henderson, stopped Antoine with his vehicle, emerged from the car with his firearm drawn and ordered Antoine to drop his shotgun. An argument ensued. More officers, including a K9 officer, arrived on scene. Antoine was arrested and charged with improper handling of a firearm and inducing panic.
Contrast Antoine’s experience with that of Daniel Kovacevic, a white man. In December 2015, Daniel was walking on East Exchange Street in Akron, Ohio, carrying a rifle on his back. Daniel was stopped by a resident business owner, Deone Slater, a Black man. Deone believed Daniel was a threat and asked what he was doing.
Daniel called the police. Officers arrived and sought to calm Deone down. Daniel had a right to carry his rifle in the open. Deone wondered why the police were more concerned about him than Daniel, the guy walking down the street with a gun.
There are differences, sure. But you are either lying or ignorant if you believe that a white man walking down the street with a firearm is treated the same as a Black man walking down the street with a firearm.
Now consider if Jen was slow-walking down the street with a firearm. What would that response look like? Who would call the police and why? Would they call out of fear? Or would they call out of concern?
How would the police respond on arrival? Would they respond with aggression? Or would they be concerned about scaring a young petite white woman with a firearm and causing her to harm herself?
If you can accept the idea that the world might see me with tattoos differently than it sees Jen with tattoos, if you can accept the idea that the world might see Antoine with a gun differently than it sees Daniel with a gun, if you can accept the idea that the world might see Jen with a gun differently than it sees either Antoine or Daniel, then you, my friend, are ready for a much larger discussion about our society and how it works.
Let’s call that discussion intersectionality.
Eric Foster is a columnist for cleveland.com.
