Elizabeth Song | Years later, racial profiling incidents still reverberate

Seven-year-old Kiamesso DaSilva still remembers when Penn police stopped, pepper sprayed and handcuffed her dad, Rui DaSilva, outside the entrance to their home in Riepe College House.

On the morning of Oct. 11, 2003, DaSilva - an associate faculty master in Riepe - and his friend were carrying donated bikes into the Quadrangle, which they planned to lend to house residents. As DaSilva was about to go through the gate, a Penn police officer stopped him. She instructed DaSilva to drop the bikes and place his hands in the air. When DaSilva hesitated, she pepper sprayed him and took him into custody. DaSilva was never given a chance to explain who he was or to show the officer the PennCard he carried in his pocket.

Rui DaSilva is a black man living in West Philly. He was carrying around bikes in a high theft area, and - if you put two and two together - he was presumed guilty before he was given the chance to prove his innocence. Yet the most upsetting aspect of the story, and one that concerns us all as students, is how little the issue has remained in the public eye. The three-year anniversary of the incident passed quietly yesterday, and it remains largely forgotten by the Penn community. Three years can be an eternity on a campus that reinvents itself every four years.

When events like this slip through the recesses of our collective memory, community learning becomes nearly impossible.

DaSilva's case was not a fluke, but one in a long string of similar profiling incidents. Most recently, in late 2004, black student Warith Deen Madyun, then a College sophomore, was mistaken for a suspected criminal and handcuffed by Penn police.

What concerns me most, however, is why questions about racial profiling are raised in such an ad-hoc fashion at Penn. In most cases, unless something happens, no one really talks about these issues. Sure, Penn Public Safety got their act together and offered mandatory "diversity training" sessions for police officers. But we can't just sit tight and declare the problem solved if we don't begin to acknowledge these issues ourselves. The lack of a broader campus dialogue on issues of race points to one culprit: student apathy. Few people know about it, and even fewer people care. "It's much easier for people to deal with Darfur because it's not in your backyard." DaSilva said. Penn officials have spent much time raising awareness of the issue with their staff, but students seem to remain oblivious.

If you're like me and everyone else on campus, the chances are slim that you'll ever be racially profiled in your life. But unless you live in a utopian wonderland, racial profiling will not fail to touch you. In fact, it couldn't be more of a reality in West Philadelphia. Only when we confront our own perceptions can we start to mend our relationship with the local community.

What are the repercussions if we don't? Immediately,

something as explosive as what happened at Duke. In the future, uneducated citizens who cannot comprehend the consequences for a society that sacrifices its safety for its morals. Ultimately, it would mean a failure of the most basic goal of a university: preparing broad-minded leaders who can understand the lives of ordinary people. In her letter to the editor following the incident, DaSilva's wife - Riepe Faculty Master Ann Farnsworth-Alvear - suggested forging a campus covenant against racial profiling to encourage open dialogue in the Penn community. "We need to build a culture in which racial profiling is not acceptable," Farnsworth-Alvear said. Rather than change the institutions, we need to change our campus culture by making the University's policy against racial profiling known.

On the first floor of Riepe, the DaSilvas' bright living room is littered with preschool artwork and children's portraits. Rui DaSilva hardly seems like a guy to forcibly "resist arrest" or commit "disorderly conduct" - all words tossed around by officials three years ago. In fact, he seems more likely to give you a hug than steal your bike. When his daughter Kiamesso went through the gates after the incident, she would sometimes ask her parents, "Is someone going to pepper spray Grandpa?" Intuitively, she's just acknowledged more about racism than some undergraduates have at Penn. In fact, she probably knows more about it than I will in my lifetime.

But hopefully, that will start to change.

Elizabeth Song is a College sophomore from Clemmons, N.C. Her e-mail address is song@dailypennsylvanian.com . Striking a Chord appears on Thursdays.

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