Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis
Bee: I’m a conceptual mixed-media artist who lives in Fountain Park now and I spend my days making art. I’m lucky to have my studio and office in my home. Aside from this being the place where I was born and where most of my family lives, St. Louis is a dream for artists. There are so many places here where you can just go in and look at the art for free. There are classes you can take for free. We have so many galleries and museums and public art pieces. St. Louis is the birthplace of a lot of great artists and so many art collectors live here. What I love about St. Louis are the artists and the art they create.
I’ve always made art because it’s the first relationship I ever had. I was taken to a gallery for the first time when I was six weeks old. So I don’t know a life without art. And I don’t make art because of money or fame. I make art because, throughout time, it serves as a historical marker in which the narrative cannot be stolen or changed. When a piece of art is created because something happened, it typically lives longer than the people who remember the story. Art is a cultural catalyst for change. And I want people to look at my art and think, ‘Just because things are the way they are now doesn’t mean it has to be.’ I want people to look at my art and question what’s accepted in their lives and their communities. Because that’s what art does for me.
I grew up poor. I was homeless more often than not. A lot of my friends and other community members experienced the same. I have a lot of experiences calling 911 and none of them are good. I reached out to a lot of my friends to ask if they’d participate in this series and they were ashamed to have called 911 because, instead of helping people, where we’re from it usually causes more harm. For me, 911 is not a solution. When they’ve sent the cops first, I haven’t gotten what I needed. I’ve been in a lot of situations where I’ve needed a paramedic and cops showed up 20 minutes before EMTs. With all the money we have in St. Louis, it’s surreal that there’s no reason people don’t have the services they need when they contact 911. For my piece, Call My Mama, Not the Cops, my dream is that a kid sees it in a museum, looks at their mom, and asks, ‘What’s a cop?’ I do think the police need to be abolished. And if my art can outlive that, then that’s when I’d feel like my job would be done.
I moved out when I was about 15. And when I was 17, it was the summer before I went to college. I was living on Broadway and Chippewa. My neighbor’s ex-partner had been stalking him and he had already set his car and house on fire. Well, I was getting ready for work one day and I thought I heard gunshots, but I was watching music videos and figured it was just that. Next thing I know, my neighbor was in my front yard screaming at the top of his lungs, ‘Help me!’ His ex had broken into his house and shot him four times: once in his head, twice in his chest, and once in his back. And he was HIV positive. I had already known that and I had medic training.
I called 911 and, from past experiences, I knew they wouldn’t come immediately. So I went outside to help him and realized I didn’t have any gloves. The EMTs didn’t come after 10 minutes, but four cop cars did. I begged them to help stop the bleeding because they all had gloves on. But instead of helping, they started screaming at him, ‘What is your status?’ When he finally did say he had HIV, they removed their gloves, threw them on the ground, and went back to their cars instead of helping him. I had to take their gloves off the ground, put them on myself, and try to pressurize his wounds so he didn’t bleed to death.
Luckily, he was a large man, so he did not go down. I was able to keep him awake and calm enough to where he didn’t bleed out. It took about 35 minutes for EMTs to arrive. After that, for about six months, I was away at college and the cops would call me telling me I needed to come to court to testify. I was like, ‘About what? You refusing to help?’ I’m never gonna forget that. Never.
They were gonna let him die on my front porch. And they’d still get paid. They would have still fulfilled their quota for the day. Truly, that was one of the worst experiences of my life. I’m very glad that my neighbor lived even though he had to move. But the cops wanted me to testify to help put his ex away. And it was like, ‘Why would I do that when you wouldn’t even try to help my neighbor stay alive?
I have another story that won’t make me cry, but it’ll make me curse. When I was 21, I came back to St. Louis for Thanksgiving. That morning, my friends and I went on a tour of the brewery. None of us drank, but we wanted to see those ugly ass horses. After we left, we went to a restaurant and then drove to a friend’s house. We were on Watson by the old Crestwood Mall when the brakes failed in the car. My friend slammed into the car in front of us which was at a red light and the airbag in the passenger’s seat caught onto my purse. I was holding onto a book and it smashed onto my face, fractured my nose, burned all the skin off of it, and busted my nose. It broke my wrist and bones in my arm. I was the only person injured.
When I got out of the car, we were on the highway, so I sat in the grass next to it. Everyone I was with was white and the cops came first, not the paramedics. I was sitting there, covered in blood, holding my wrist, visibly injured and in shock. Well, the cops assisted all my friends first. And when they came to me, they asked, ‘What street drugs are you on?’ I was like, ‘What’s a street drug? I don’t even know what that is.’ I pulled my compact out of my purse to try to check my face and when I opened it, the force of the impact had been so great that all the glass shattered. It fell into my lap and they tried to say that that was drugs. What the hell?
Of course, I got angry and was like, ‘Are you gonna help me? Where are the paramedics?’ They told me I was getting irate and needed to calm down or I would get arrested. They refused to help me and went back to their cars. Horrible. Horrible experience. And I’m not sure who called 911, but when the paramedics showed up, the cops told them I was agitated and would get violent. My arm was broken in four places. And I was perceived as a threat because I was angry from them asking me what drugs I was on instead of, ‘What injuries do you have?’ They weren’t there to help. Not me, at least.
It really clicked for me in that moment that even if you know people who the cops do protect, they will always side with the cops. And it’s not just white people, but it is a lot of white people. They act like the cops do what we all want them to do when they don’t. They protect property. They protect things for affluent people. They don’t really protect or serve ‘the people’ cause ‘the people’ are marginalized people. A lot of people I went to college with believed police officers were like Captain America — that they had morals and ethics. A lot of people have trust and love for cops, which is super strange to me. I don’t think I’ve ever had an experience where the cops have helped.
I know how to speak to people. I’m great at code-switching. And I’ve learned how to move in white spaces. I’m always perceived as a threat, but I can speak to police in a way that’s less threatening. And I don’t have a record. So I’m always the person asked to call the cops. Nobody wants to call the cops. But when it’s absolutely necessary, I just step up and do it. I’ve gone to people’s houses to do it for them. I also have medic training, so I can get people properly triaged if it takes a long time for help to arrive. But I’ve called 911 and they’ve asked, ‘Will you go out and look?’ ‘And put myself in danger, when people are paid to do that? Nooo!’
Call My Mama, Not the Cops is an art piece, but it’s really a ritual for mourning. Every time a Black person is killed by the cops, I light incense for them. I’ll make a piece that says, ‘Call my Mama, not the cops’ over and over and over. Sometimes I’ll add gold to it or ink or paint. Then I burn it and I pray for them. And I keep the incense stick and match to make a separate art piece called Methods of Mourning. It’s crazy because I’ve lost track of how many I’ve made. I’ve sold two of them. I’ve gotten one of them back and I’m trying to get the other one back. I’ve kept the first one I’ve ever made and I kept the biggest one I’ve ever made. In situations I’ve been in and that other people have been in where cops show up and cause harm instead of help, that could have been resolved if they had called that person’s mom or any other member of the community or if we had better mental healthcare services. Those could have been real options. No matter what you do, if you call 911, the cops always show up first. And it’s so annoying, especially when cops are called on a child.
My first run-in with the cops was when I was five or six when somebody dropped a dead body in our backyard. And the cops just raided our house when we called to report it. My papi was still alive and was holding me when they kicked our door in and pointed guns at me. I was a small child. Of course, my papi was screaming, ‘Get the guns away from my baby!’ but they just bum-rushed our house. We sat out on the curb in front of our house for hours and the cops eventually just took the body and left.
I don’t understand why people ever call the cops on children. You wanna talk about all my experiences on state streets in St. Louis? In third grade, me and my friends were on a street corner on Wyoming vandalizing something — which I understand is a crime, but we were children. Somebody called the cops on us, they showed up, and they started macing us immediately. No questions. No sirens. Nothing. Pulled up and before the wheels stopped, somebody jumped out and maced us. At first, we didn’t understand because it was windy and the mace went towards the cops. Then they went through the cloud and maced us again. Why? If whoever called the cops had taken a moment to think, ‘Where are these kids’ parents? Let me see if I can find their mamas.’ It doesn’t make sense. I don’t think there’s ever a reason to call cops. Because they don’t prevent crime. They rarely ever solve crime. If people had ways to contact community members or families, the world would be so much better.
For Call My Mama, Not the Cops, I wanted to make something that would resonate with everyone. When George Floyd died, he called out for his mom. It’s not just kids, but the fact that so many kids never got to go home because somebody called the cops on them breaks my heart. And it’s one of the main reasons why I don’t want to have kids. I never want to experience that. But since I’m Black, my kids are gonna be Black and people are gonna call the cops on them. I don’t think I’d be able to handle it. I know I wouldn’t. Look at me now, I’m crying about thinking about it.
“What’s missing from the 911 system?”
Mental health services. There isn’t a number to call to help people in crisis. It’s not unique to St. Louis. My mom’s bipolar and lives in Jeff City. Her meds stopped working last year and we didn’t want to call the cops. We tried different crisis hotlines and everybody told us to just call 911. And my mom is just like me — she doesn’t respond well to the police. So we knew we couldn’t do that. If there was a way to call 911 and help people in crisis with people who were not wearing police uniforms and didn’t carry weapons, that would be a great help. A lot of people see others and think they’re a danger to others, but they’re really just a danger to themselves. If we had a way to get them help for their mental health issues, that would be amazing. We could change the city so much by getting them the services they need instead of just arresting them. Because they might not even be taken to the hospital, just to jail.
I’m from St. Louis, I’ve lived here pretty much my whole life, and I’m not leaving anytime soon. But I’m at a point in my life where, especially since I moved to this house, I don’t think I’ll ever call 911 again if I can help it. Part of the reason I moved to this house is because I feel very secure. There are bars on all the windows. I have an immaculate security system with 11 motion-sensor cameras. I have a safe room and a security bar over the door. And I have a generator so when the neighborhood power goes off, mine doesn’t. I don’t want to deal with the cops anymore.
Sometimes I do leave my house to clean up the neighborhood, but since COVID hit, I haven’t been able to do much in-person work. During the first year of the pandemic, I raised $20,000 for people in need all through social media, but part of the reason why I’ve slowed down my community work and focused more on mutual aid is so I don’t have to be on the ground doing stuff where cops are.
The first protest I went to, I was 14 years old. I’ve never been to a protest that didn’t involve police. It sounds silly saying it out loud, but the fact that calling 911 always means the cops arrive first has made me build layers between myself and the community. Doing community work always involves cops. And it’s too much of a negative impact for me, personally. I know people who are fine with interacting with cops on a daily basis. That will never be me. So instead I use my art to inspire cultural and societal change. Put me out of business though. Let us just live in peace.
—
B.N. Blithe de Carona is a Fountain Park resident and conceptual mixed-media artist.
Cami Thomas / My Friends And I and Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis contributed to this photo story.
This story is a collaboration between Humans of St. Louis and Forward Through Ferguson for #Transforming911, an accountability and advocacy tool that examines St. Louis’ 911 system and serves as a call to reimagine public safety.
Learn more and get involved at transforming911.org.