Written and photographed by Daniel Davis Edwards
Watching the killing of Philando Castile in his car by a police officer at a traffic stop left me with a visceral thought — “F*** the Police.”
Yet both of my parents are police officers. It doesn’t make sense to know they could be a protector one moment and a potential victim the next. I questioned how any black person could put on a uniform that instilled fear and represented
My mom and dad told me the stories of when they started to take their uniform off at the end of their shifts. For my mom, it was when my brother asked her one evening “Mom, why are you being so mean?” It stopped her in her tracks. She looked down and realized she was still in “Cop Mode”. Her guards were still up and she brought that energy home. She vowed to never wear her uniform off duty again. For my dad, while in the uniform he had to shut a part of himself off because of how people approached him. Between being avoided due to fear and approached with general rage he realized people were reacting to the uniform and not him. “I took the uniform off so I could be a person again”.
How do other officers deal with the duality of the identities? One as a black person, the other as an officer. What perspective does a black police officer have when it comes to their duty, their life and the lives of those around them? The interviews and photographs in my project, “Black Outlined Blue,” explores these questions.
My mother and father have a calling to help people. Being a police officer was their job and how they chose to respond to that calling. Stepping into and out of their job was critical to making sure they came home every night, and that they came home as people first. It’s the same for the officers featured in this work. Before, during and at the end of watch their black lives matter even when they are outlined in blue.
