Editor,

I begin by expressing gratitude to our police and sheriff for the sacrifices and difficult work they do every day to protect our community from harm. However, around 8 pm on Friday, April 25th, the Island County Sheriff’s office sent out a text alert asking residents to “Please look out for a black male suspect wearing a tan shirt and black cargo shorts. If spotted please call 9-1-1.” This alert caused much distress to me and several local friends, including people of color whose family members felt directly threatened by such an ambiguous alert.

In telling the incident to others later, I realized that not everyone understood what made this text so distressing. I hope this short piece raises community awareness around the risk that a warning text about a threatening Black man with few details threatens the safety of all Black men in our community and undermines any intention to serve the public good.

Our community carries such fear and anxiety these days, often unjustly directed at people of color. In addition, centuries of racism and cultural stereotypes burden Black men with dangerous reputations used to unfairly criminalize them more often than everyone else, punishing them more heavily for far less violent crimes. There are so few people of color on Whidbey Island that an alert, like the one attached to this letter, puts all Black men on our island immediately under suspicion, suddenly potential targets of self-defense initiated violence. This alert, intended to warn our community of danger, instead increases the risk for violence at a time when BIPOC lives and families are already under unprecedented threat.

I hope that by raising awareness of this distressing issue a different response is possible next time.

Tamara Walker

Langley