Thread by @drsammytweets

Still processing my first run in with the police...

I've been doing a lot of cicada interviews & with national news outlets contacting me, I thought I should have some live ones onhand. So I was delighted when my cousin called panicking about the "swarm" on the side of her home.

She invited me to come over last night and relocate them to my yard where they haven't yet emerged. I showed up at midnight with all of my collecting equipment because that's when the cicada party really gets going!

It was so enchanting to watch the mass emergence that I just got lost for a couple hours in the exceedingly rare natural experience unfolding around me. So I didn't even notice when the cops quietly showed up.

I was greeted with a shockingly bright light which didn't allow me to immediately make out who was inquiring about my identity. I explained that I'm an Entomologist from the USDA and this is part of my job and that this was a family member's property.

He expressed his concern that my presence at 2 am was suspicious and insinuated that I could be a burglar. My chest tightened. I hadn't even noticed that there was a second car right behind his. I started thinking of what Shaun King's Instagram post would say about me.

I went into full human resources mode & put on my best "Dr. Ramsey" voice. I thought maybe pointing out my forceps, headlamp, & 2 transparent containers with more than 100+ live cicadas in them might help. But even with that & a complex summary of my research he wasn't convinced.

He suggested that we wake up the owners of the house to verify my identity. I told him that I'd hope that there would be no need to do that but he said he would feel more comfortable. But as we approached the house, he asked to look at the cicadas again.

In that moment, I think it hit him just how ridiculous a cover story "Please officer, I'm an Entomologist collecting cicadas" is for a would be cat burglar. Or maybe he was marveling at just how much I'd committed to my "cover story" to have brought dozens of live bugs w/ me

In any case, he stopped short & said I could go & while I'm grateful that the entire scenario never escalated the whole experience left me feeling a little weird. Because others have lost their lives in run-ins with the police, my mind is quick to dismiss this as "no big deal".

It sucks though that I can't just enjoy beauty of the natural world on a family member's porch without being reminded that to some, I look more like a burglar than a scientist; without having to deploy de-escalation tactics my parents taught me before they'd ever let me drive.

I know he was just doing his job but I wish I could just do mine...

Oh well...at least I got the cicadas for my interview (full interview at: cheddar.com/media/trillion… via @cheddar)

#TiredOfBeingTiredOfThis #BlackInSTEM #SciComm #Cicadas #BlackTwitter