Cleon Brown and the 18%

Banned Histories of Race in America

A couple weeks ago I wrote Five Unfortunate Facts about Police. It turns out that, even when confronted with the lived experience of victims, countless videos, all available statistics and its entire documented history, some folks still have difficulty accepting that law enforcement in America is historically and functionally a racist endeavor. And so, to that particular difficulty, I would like to tell you a story from 2017 about a man who was confronted with this history. His name is Cleon Brown.

Now, Cleon would be the first to tell you that people are often surprised when they meet him. Hearing his name, many expect him to be Black, but then they see this very obvious white man with pinkish skin and thin hair and light eyes and no lips and confusion ensues.