Shameka Bradley is a 39-year-old woman who has never lived anywhere else other than the Wheeling area.
A Martins Ferry resident today, Bradley grew up at Grandview Manor, a public housing complex once located on the top of Wheeling Hill. Unfortunately, during her youth she watched residents get arrested for domestic violence and drug trafficking, and never has she witnessed a white Wheeling Police Officer brutally treat a black person.
“As far as what I have seen in my life, black people get arrested here the same way a white person does,” she said. “It’s wonderful that those things don’t seem to take place anywhere in this valley, but we do know there have been tragedies in our country involving white cops and black men. George Floyd was killed in late May, but that wasn’t the first time something like that had happened.
“This time, it seems different, though,” she said. “This time, the conversation hasn’t really faded, and it seems more and more people of all races are realizing that it’s been different for people of color. I don’t think that’s actually happened before George Floyd.”
White Woman, Black Kids
Bradley has encountered many white females in the Upper Ohio Valley who have been in relationships with black men and have given birth to black children.
“I welcome them,” Bradley said. “There’s no reason, in my mind, for me to have a negative reaction when a white woman has black kids. I don’t care who you’re with and what you do. If you are a white woman, and you have black kids, then I say congratulations on having children, but I can tell that woman that her life isn’t going to be exactly normal because she has black kids. That shouldn’t be true, but trust me; it is true.
“Sure, those kids might have some advantages over other black kids because their mother is white, but that goes away if the mother is not with them. And a mother can’t always be with the kids, especially when they grow and go out into the world,” she said. “But I have seen some white people have a real problem with a white woman with black kids, and I think that’s disgusting because we’re all human beings, and we are capable of loving whomever we love. The color of a person’s skin shouldn’t matter to anyone, and it certainly doesn’t matter to me.”
Bradley said that when black children are with their white mother, they are treated differently from they are alone.
“The mother’s white privilege does benefit the kids. It does, and anyone who says differently is refusing to accept the truth about today’s society,” Bradley insisted. “The mother’s white privilege can get them into some things that maybe otherwise they couldn’t, and there’s a wide range of possibilities as far as how and why.
“It’s a damn shame that people of color are still dealing with the way today’s society is because, of you think about it, laws have been passed for a long time now that mandate equality,” she said. “But people of color are treated differently, unfortunately, even during this movement that concerns #BlackLivesMatter. I have even seen that movement be referred to as terrorism, and if a person really believes that, they have bigger problems than the color of my skin.”
Working Hard for What You Have
While Bradley has enjoyed the ongoing conversation concerning the #BlackLivesMatter movement because it has involved members of all races, she has seen on social media some local residents deny anything that pertains to “white privilege.”
“If this pandemic didn’t happen, I think more progress would have made since George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis,” Bradley said. “But based on most of what I have seen on Facebook, I believe our two races are closer today than we’ve ever been, and I pray that it continues.
“But I also have seen some people who are white refuse to believe that they have had white privilege their whole lives. Instead, they just say that they have worked hard for everything they have, and their skin color has had nothing to do with their successes. But guess what? We’ve all worked very hard for what we have today,” she continued. “It’s those people who still don’t get it, and if they haven’t seen the light yet, I doubt they ever do.”
As far defunding police departments, Bradley doesn’t see the need. Instead, it’s about properly investigating questionable incidents that have involved white police officers and black citizens and have resulted with complaints being filed.
“I have no doubt that police policies do not state anything about treating black people differently than white people,” Bradley said. “What I do believe, though, is that racists get hired as officers, or they become a racist during their careers for whatever reasons. I would never say that all officers are racists, but how can some people say that all cops are good cops when these tragedies have taken place between black people and officers?
“Now, if a good cop sees a bad cop doing something like what happened to George Floyd and they don’t stop the bad cop? I do have an issue with that. Is that really a good cop” she said. “I think that makes that good cop a bad cop, and it doesn’t matter why they chose not to stop it. On May 25, it cost a man his life because a bad cop wasn’t stopped, and I don’t care what crime the police thought he committed.”
