Karen Calls Cops On Black Illinois Senator Canvassing For Votes

Another day, another Karen proves she believes her local police department is her own personal Black people removal service — only, this time, the Black man she called the police on happens to be a state senator and congressional candidate.

A video has been floating around social media that shows Democratic state Sen. Mike Simmons, of Illinois — who is currently running for a seat to represent the 9th district of Illinois, which is currently held by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, according to the Chicago Sun-Times — confronting a white woman who called and was, apparently, on the phone with police while he was canvasing an apartment building for votes.

In the video, Simmons can be heard asking the woman if she is on the phone with 911, and while she doesn’t respond to the question, he knew what was going on, which is why he took the time to tell her about herself before going on about his business.

“I’m not going to argue,” Simmons said. “I’m gonna let you know that it is against the law to call the police on an elected official who’s knocking doors. I know because I passed the law in 2021. So if you’d like me to leave the building, I would leave the building, but I am so disappointed in how you chose to handle the situation at a time when police have been known to get into deadly altercations with people of color. I would expect more from my neighbors.”

The woman responded with a simple, “Thank you,” and that was the end of it.

Going door-to-door to canvass for votes is a common practice among political candidates. Unfortunately, equally common is Black people’s inability to participate in mundane activities without wayward white people deciding we don’t belong.

From the Sun-Times:

Simmons had explained that he was canvassing in his campaign for Congress and that he served the building’s residents as their current state senator, he said. The woman asked for documentation from Simmons and the volunteers, and she ignored him when he told her to look up his state Senate website, Simmons said.

“She stopped talking to us; she literally just grabbed her phone and started dialing,” Simmons said. “She would not say a word to me.”

Police responded to the scene and Simmons spoke to them.

“She then called the police and ignored all attempts at a conversation by Simmons and the volunteers with him — all people of color,” according to a news release from the Simmons campaign. “After Simmons left the building on his own, Chicago Police did report to the scene a few minutes later, and Simmons spoke to them about the incident.”

It’s worth noting that Simmons is currently sponsoring a bill that would not only make it illegal to call the police on Black people when there is no active threat, but it would make doing so a hate crime. Is it a bill that is likely to become law? Nah — not really. But it’s situations like these that, at the very least, demonstrate that the proposals for such bills are not coming out of thin air.

Knocking on doors while Black is not a crime, and it shouldn’t be a reason to call law enforcement, but here we are.

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Karen Calls Cops On Black Illinois Senator Who Was Canvassing For Votes was originally published on newsone.com