While ridin around the city tonight, I saw something that caught my eye in a wonderful way. I saw six young boys on a basketball court in southeast DC. I also saw two uniformed police officers at the same park. I watched from the front of a line at a red light. After a couple of seconds, I realized that they were playing four-on-four. It was a cop and three kids on each team.

I remember when I was young, my friend's mom used to talk about how she didn't feel safe anymore, even though she had moved into a better neighborhood. She told me that she had been living in the neighboorhood for three years and had not met a police officer yet. She said that moreso, she hadn't even identified who the cops were who were responsible for our neighborhood.

I realized, sitting there observing from behind my steering wheel, how much of a difference communication and interaction make in our relationships with the law. Those kids probably feel protected by the law, safe in their presence. I never had that luxury. Other than Officer Friendly coming to my school when I was in the first grade, my dealings with the police have never been quite ...friendly. Therefore, I grew up viewing them as the enemy. To this day, I see police left, I go right. There are many people I think to turn to if/when things go wrong ...the police didn't make it onto that list.

Now that I'm teaching, I'm forced to work with police officers on a regular basis. They are terrific; however, they don't deal with De'Wayne Simpson, random citizen. They deal with Mr. Simpson, public school teacher. So I don't know if they would treat the first in the same way they treat the second. Who knows. Regardless, communication and interaction has given us a decent working relationship. Communication and interaction has done the same for the relationship between the police and those kids.

I wonder how we get to the point where that becomes the standard, block by block, around the whole city, and beyond?