Yesterday I ran into Anthony Perno, the CEO of Cooper’s Ferry, while walking through Cooper Grant. We were both playing Pokemon. It wasn’t the first such interaction I’ve had over the last few days. Last night, when I walked the dog before bed, there were a group of students huddled up in Johnson Park with their phones out — yes, Johnson Park has three different Pokestops. And there’s something beautiful about people walking through, discovering and enjoying little pieces of Camden that I know and love. And something even more beautiful about being able to walk around myself, with little notices about monuments or buildings, learn more about them. In short, I’m enjoying this little moment of augmented reality.
But it’s also got me thinking about what else I don’t see. What other augmented realities are out there — because it many ways, that has been the journey I’ve taken over the past few years through the writings of Ta-Nehisi Coates, the lost lives of Eric Gardner and Michael Brown (and so many others), and the experiences of my students. And this week, the controversy over Cherry Hill Mall forcing a local artist to stop selling shirts saying “This Has to Stop” with an image of a stick figure police beating a stick figure man.
Here’s the artist, Amir Miller, taking down the shirts and explaining the situation:
April Saul has the relevant details — by all means go and read the whole thing — but here’s an excerpt:
Miller, 30, a Philadelphian with strong Camden connections who mentors and hires high-risk youth for his business, wasn’t surprised the mall had censored his merchandise. One Cherry Hill Mall employee had come by his kiosk to photograph the shirt after informing him that two police officers had complained about it. Another suggested the shirt might be acceptable with the drawing removed and the words remain.
“But then,” says Miller, “people would think: what has to stop??”
Tuesday afternoon, Miller received a voicemail from mall management:
I was just informed about the new T-shirts that you’re carrying and I do need to ask you to go ahead and remove those…you know we don’t want to stir up a lot of controversy within the common area…thanks so much, we appreciate it.
Wednesday evening, Cherry Hill Mall management issued a statement walking back its original decision:
Cherry Hill Mall does not condone any type of violence, but we do support our tenants’ rights to peacefully conduct their business. We made a hasty request that the merchant stop selling the specified t-shirts and as a result, have contacted the merchant to invite him to continue the sale of the t-shirts. We encourage peaceful unity in the region.”
But, angered and frustrated by the Mall’s initial decision, Miller dodged e-mails and phone calls from Mall personnel Wednesday as he debated what to do, particularly stung by a manager’s visit to his kiosk a few hours after the initial voicemail to tell him that the shirts were not being removed quickly enough.
“I really felt belittled how the manager spoke to me as a man,” he says. “I felt like an elementary school kid getting yelled at by the principal.”
The attempt to quash the shirt struck Jones and others as hypocritical, when a few doors down from Miller’s kiosk, Spencer’s — a gift shop known for racy merchandise — sells shirts with X-rated and sexist messages like “I’m not always a dick – Just kidding go f*** yourself,” an infant onesie that says, “Here for the bitches,” and politically charged apparel like a baseball cap with the message, “F***ing Hillary-ous” written across it.
Amir left the Mall to sell the shirts in a parking lot by a local gas station — as shown in Tawanda’s video below.
Folks are now arranging a protest and boycott of the mall.
There are so many ugly things about this story, and TearyEyez Facebook Page captures many of them on video, but the thing that really hit me hard was the way in which I’ve interacted with this place. I go to Cherry Hill Mall — though generally not if I can avoid it. I’m stop by, mostly to the apple store, to deal with this problem or that. I frequent this same space. I walk through these same halls.
In a way, this is its own augmented reality. As a white professor, I’d like to think that so many of the places that my students exist are safe. But just as our phones can now show us a different, augmented reality of the world around us, the events of the last few years have shown me the augmented reality faced by people of color as they frequent the same places that I do.
In that reality, two complaints about a shirt with a political message can undermine a black artists’ livelihood. In that reality, an African-American father sits down his son to explain how to not to move to avoid problems with the police. And in that reality, the slogan “This Has to Stop” is less about politics than about survival.
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As the game has become wildly popular in such a short span it has spurred many articles and think pieces across various forms of media. What is incredibly interesting about Pokemon go being mentioned here is just how deeply the point about augmented reality reaches. One of the more pernicious aspects of privilege is that it is largely invisible to those who have it. Many people have written about how communal and nostalgia PokemonGo is, how they have been able to make friends Etc. but rather unfortunately the game also further illustrates a prime example of augmented reality and privilege in the way it allows players to maneuver. Where a white player may not think twice about running into a store or breaking into full sprint to chase a clefairy black players have to be hyper aware and cognizant of how they may be perceived for the same actions. I’m sure brown kids who want to play the game as they sit bored waiting for a connecting flight have to think about whether it is worth the risk to look “suspicious” I crossed campus the other night walking from a friends dorm at 3 am and passed an officer sitting in his car, less than 4 yards from him were a group of young black men playing Pokemon go, I worried for their safety. Would a cop be empathetic to them? A lot has come out about how Pokemon go speaks to the idea of default white identity and ignores how PoC are forced to interact different with the game. There are some amazing pieces coming out about the inherent ableism also entrenched in the game, the availability of poke stops in less affluent/ white areas and much more. The point about augmented reality resonates especially in the context of race and this game, I certainly think it is an important link to make here.