2 WORLD
The Boomerang | Summer 2022
Not Fine, But Fined by Nina Alberti TW UDFLVP UDFLDO SUR¿OLQJ VH[LVP PHQtions of sexual harrassment and sexual assault/rape, violence Two feet on the ground. Someone is grabbing onto my shoulder. I’m holding my friend’s wrist with one hand, keeping the other free to balance myself. They push us forward. Now I’m on my toes. One foot danJOLQJ LQ WKH DLU ,¶P VWDQGLQJ OLNH D ÀDPLQJR yet I’m not stately, nor elegant, and I’m GH¿nitely not calm. I’m having a full-on panic attack in the middle of the Thursday night Tivoli queue.
“It’s Tivoli’s responsibility,” one policeman responded. But then what is their job, if not guarding the public’s safety and order, or providing help to those who need it? One night last winter, a friend of mine was pulled over and asked to follow a police car to a dark parking lot next to the highway. Three policemen with ÀDVKOLJKWV FDPH RXW WR TXHVWLRQ KHU DVNLQJ her if she was drunk. She said she wasn’t, which was true, but they continued saying that they didn’t believe her.
RI KLV EDJ DQG FRQWLQXHG WR WKURZ DOO KLV VWX̆ RQWR WKH JURXQG :KHQ ¿QGLQJ QRWKLQJ WKH\ simply warned him that he shouldn’t be out this late. Besides the sexist behaviour and the racial prejudice that characterise these encounters, policemen often seem to focus on things that may generate an income of some sort, be it WKURXJK ¿QHV RU FRQ¿VFDWLRQV )RU LQVWDQFH contrary to popular belief, the police are leJDOO\ DOORZHG WR FRQ¿VFDWH \RXU ZHHG HYHQ LI LW¶V OHVV WKDQ ¿YH JUDPV
6R PD\EH RXU VDIHW\ LV MXVW QRW SUR¿WDEOH We never got into Tivoli that night. We had enough. But at what cost does such biased survived two hours of dense crowds shoving police behaviour come? While the police and pulling only to arrive at a closed door. have time to unjustly harass my friend in a Two horrible hours of trying to stand updark parking lot, they weren’t there when right and get air. And all that under the in- Eventually, they made her take a breathalys- she was being followed home at night by a GL̆HUHQW H\H RI WKH SROLFH HU FRPPHQWLQJ ³QRZ ZH¶UH JRLQJ WR ¿QG RXW strange man. if you’ve been a good girl.” She passed the :KHQ , ¿UVW VWDUWHG ZULWLQJ WKLV DUWLFOH , test yet the police lingered around the car, While the police have time to check my thought I wanted to discuss crowd control. VKLQLQJ WKHLU ÀDVKOLJKWV RQ KHU IULHQGV ZKR friend’s bike reference number anytime he $IWHU DOO WKLV ZDVQ¶W P\ ¿UVW WLPH DOPRVW were all people of colour. “It felt as if they goes cycling, they weren’t there when he was drowning in a sea of people. My mind goes ZHUH WU\LQJ WR ¿QG VRPHWKLQJ 6RPHWKLQJ knifed in his own neighbourhood. back to King’s night, where I was involuntar- that just wasn’t there.” ily absorbed in a current of concert-goers, or And while the police has time to send six Lowlands, where A$AP Rocky presented his Another friend of ours has had similar ex- men to check bicycle lights in Wilhelmina ‘mosh pit: how-to’ video, creating a rather periences with the police. Even when he’s SDUN RQH JLUO ZDV IRXQG UDSHG DQG OLW RQ ¿UH violent crowd. cycling in a crowd the police always pick another girl was sexually harassed for forty him out to ask him for his bicycle reference minutes on a train, and yet another girl was In both cases I thought I was dying. Security number. A number that most white people shot by her stalker, whom she had already fences closing in, people jumping over me, won’t even know exists, but that people of reported. irritated girls saying “on three we push.” But colour need daily to prove that they didn’t in the Tivoli line my frustration lay not with steal their own bikes. This all happened. And things like these will the crowd, but with those cowardly onlookcontinue to happen if police priorities don’t ers who refused to intervene. He has been stopped and searched by police change. I would like to add that I’m not acon numerous occasions. One time, late at cusing every policeman of being sexist or When asking the police why a racist. That would be reductive. But I do night, the police asked to see the contents they hadn’t stepped in, think that there is something structurthey said it wasn’t ally wrong with the police their job. Our safety, system and that it standing on a paveneeds to be rement mere metres formed in order away from them, WR H̆HFWLYHO\ was not their protect us. concern. All of us.
"Maybe our safety is just not SUR¿WDEOH HQRXJK %XW DW ZKDW FRVW does such biased police behaviour come? "
Illustration © Ida van Zwetselaar
