These past few weeks our social media platforms and news outlets have been riddled with case after case of white individuals placing 9-1-1 calls on the basis of “suspicious” activity. The calls placed were about a person-of-color (in most of the situations, these POCs were black) making a white patron feel uncomfortable or nervous when they were simply taking a nap in their dorm common room, or legally barbecuing in a public park.

The incidents that have occurred are racial profiling at its finest, and it is exhausting and infuriating to hear about a new occurrence basically everyday. It’s very much to the point that they might as well call the police right when we step foot into an establishment. But why has it even gotten to this point? Where did all of this uneasiness of POC develop?

It’s from the systemic oppression; the institutional racism rooted into our society. The time after segregation and the time we are in now where POC won’t even live in a certain city because it’s too white, or someone might not shop at that Walmart because that is where all the black people go. We live our day-to-day life as if we don’t see this happening, as if we don’t live in a society like this…but we do. I was born and raised in the suburbs of Rialto, California, but that doesn’t mean I am blind or white-washed to what is happening to my race or any other race, and neither should the rest of us.

These 9-1-1 calls are the true colors of people who see POC and think of us as our stereotypes rather than another person shopping, eating, or living as the same way we do. There should be no reason you become nervous from a POC touring a college campus, and there should not have to be a justification for our presence in a public space. Unless a person truly is doing something immoral or illegal in those spaces, then alert an authority figure, but in these calls there was nothing that the POC were doing wrong.

Stop calling the police on issues such as these. Stop wasting the law enforcement’s time and furthering this perpetuation of profiling and stereotyping that we’ve had for so long in our American society. There are so many more matters to be handled in our day rather than a group of kids prom shopping or rightfully filming a video in our neighborhood.