J J Gathman

Driving While Black by Association J J Gathman

When I was 17 years old, my friends and I had an encounter with the police that forever changed my perspective on humanity. As life-altering as this experience was, it was only the first of more than a dozen incidents of racially-motivated targeting by law enforcement that I would experience over the years. As a white kid from an integrated neighborhood, living just blocks away from a district with one of the highest crime rates in Chicago, I found myself walking both sides of the color line. I was often in situations where everyone was black but me. This gave me an uncommon perspective that has informed many things in my life. Most relevant to today's national dialogue, I personally witnessed smothering racial oppression at the hands of law enforcement. My friends and I felt the physical pain of violent assaults, the life-changing consequences of false arrests, and so much more, as a result of racial profiling by the police. Driving While Black by Association is a collection of first-hand accounts. This is a work of autobiographical narrative nonfiction, which spans almost 18 years of my life. It details thirteen incidents involving racially motivated police misconduct, with each episode presented as a self-contained story. Taken together, these anecdotes paint a picture of racial oppression from an atypical point of view.