Calling the Police on African-American Politician while Campaigning

This week, an African American politician was campaigning in Madison, Wisconsin. While she was going door to door to talk about the open seat on the Wisconsin State Assembly, someone called the police on her because they thought she was selling drugs. This woman, Shelia Stubbs, was campaigning and already holds a position in public office. Stubbs said that the police were quick to criminalize her and her mother without listening to their side of the story. This is one of many incidents that have happened in the past few years where black people have had the police called on them for doing mundane tasks. Similar situations have occurred, in the past, and people are beginning to speak out against this injustice. This shows that in our society, we hold strong stereotypes and stigmas against people of color. We live in a world where people of color are criminalized for doing simple tasks and are immediately thought of as suspicious. In order to reduce stigma and stop stereotyping, we need to recognize how harmful these ideas are. One way of reducing the stigma is promoting and creating unique characters in our media that go beyond stereotypes for people of color. This can give the general public positive ideas about how our society functions and how people of color are also normal, everyday citizens who are being treated unfairly due to these stigmas.