I had my first interaction with police in eighth grade or maybe seventh grade I believe and in high school it was just even more abrasive even more blatant and so it was very much in like an authoritative oppressive police culture type of school landscape. That's Desiree McSwayne Mims. She goes by Des. She grew up in San Leandro, which borders East Oakland, and she experienced a lot of policing on her middle school and high school campuses.

I was always a very vocal, outspoken, rambunctious young black girl, and my personality was always being crushed and

oppressed in school systems. I was in a continuation school that operated just like

a prison and we had pat-down searches every morning and we had people

accompany us to the bathroom and went to the bathroom so it was a very dehumanizing experience.

Des expressing that her school felt like a prison is not something that is uncommon for folks that attend public schools in the Bay Area that have a high black population, especially in the town.

Des had her first interaction with the police on campus

when she was only in the eighth grade.

In addition to my first police interaction in middle school,

I was also arrested in eighth grade and then in

high school I was actually arrested and expelled my freshman year so I'd never got

to complete a full year of high school and the law enforcement

interactions themselves are triggering and are traumatic definitely given

the societal landscape between black and brown communities and policing.

Des got arrested for drinking on campus and middle school.

And I mean, we're talking about like a bottle of like juice watered down alcohol that like five, six kids are sharing so it wasn't anything crazy for sure but it was one of those

scenarios where if you had like an adult from the community or like somebody who's black or brown and

who's empathetic and understanding that could have been solved with like a heart to

heart or you know like let me take you aside and let me talk to you like is

something going on, is there issues?

Like, there was no question as to why we were doing that,

and there may not have been a reason.

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