Can white people live in Newark?

An open letter to Mayor Corey Booker:

Can I be white and live in Newark? I ask you mayor, because after residing here for more than a year, the police have questioned and harassed me numerous times only for reason that I am a white person in Newark. Apparently, in “Brick City” if you’re a white person and you’re not wearing a suit and tie and walking into the Prudential building, you automatically become in the eyes of Newark Police a drug user. And this is no fib. As one policeman told me in a humorous tone, “What? You didn’t know we profile, white boy?”

As a student of Rutgers-Newark, this is deeply troubling. How can I, as a resident of this city, be treated as an invader? Already students and academics are dissuaded from coming to Newark because of the blatant poverty that exists here. Nonetheless, campus police give the school a feeling of security. This, of course, is due to the aims of school security which is to protect, rather than prosecute. By contrast, I find the latter to be the motive of Newark Police.

From my experiences I have found cops in Newark to be overly aggressive and outright disrespectful of people’s rights (not just towards whites, but also Latinos and blacks). Simply put, they seem too motivated to throw people in jail.

So I pose the question to you again, MayorBooker. Can I be white and live in Newark? Or better yet, can you as the mayor, the leader of this city, create an environment that welcomes people of all races and classes? You came into office with the promise to secure safety for all the people of Newark and I supported that idea. But will it be realized? For my sake and yours I hope it will.

Source:
Can white people live in Newark?
Observer