Taking Pictures While Black

It was only 12 hours after election day, Mike writes on Facebook with some irony, that he was profiled in his own neighborhood while photographing "things that remind me how blessed I am."

Somebody called the cops on Mike -- and, for good measure, emailed them (very web 2.0 racists in North Carolina) -- to report a "suspicious black man" prowling around with a camera under the cover of the noon-day sun.

Before we knew the full story PeepsNet asked if Mike if had run afoul of a Charlotte, NC law about taking out the garbage while black.

taking photos of fall foliage while black, actually. That album called I GOT A GOOD LIFE, MAN? Somebody called the police on me while I was out in my neighborhood taking them. Then sent an email to the neighborhood crime watch saying be on the lookout for SUSPICIOUS BLACK MAN.

The collection of nature photographs in his lovely neighborhood does include a house or two that I suppose he could have been casing from what I'd estimate to be about Google Earth distances. And, of course cameras have been mistaken for lethal weapons -- in Iraq!

Mike is taking it in stride -- he is not quiet Mike for nothing. But he does note the surreality of it all.

It was just very ironic, mostly. I hadn't forgotten where I was, but at the same time, I thought I'd get a little longer to 'feel the joy.' Eh....s'all good, though. The experience actually made the photos more 'subversive' as my friend John says. They have another level of meaning for me now.

We wonder why a truly subversive photographer of our acquaintance has never been wrestled to the ground by alert law enforcement officers. Oh, the injustice of it all.