Perhaps no person in the country right now encapsulates the explosive racial tensions and dilemmas that inform those tensions better than Dr. Brian H. Williams, an African American trauma surgeon and Air Force veteran who treated some of the wounded officers after the Dallas shootings. Williams spoke about how the legacy of race relations affects his life personally, and what he has seen it do to those around him. Williams tells a wrenching story about how he has in the past bought Dallas cops ice cream so his daughter could see him interacting with officers in a friendly way. “I want my daughter to see me interacting with police that way so she doesn’t grow up with the same burden that I carry when it comes to interacting with law enforcement,” Williams says.
The burden Williams refers to he described potently in his honest account of his reaction to the Dallas shootings, saying: “There’s this dichotomy where I’m standing with law enforcement, but I personally feel and understand that angst that comes when you cross the paths of an officer in uniform and you’re fearing for your safety. ”
