Former NAACP Leader Is Bridging the Gap Between Miami’s Youth and Law Enforcement
Ruban Roberts has spent decades healing relationships and communities. The former NAACP leader has confronted many of the issues facing marginalized communities in Miami-Dade, including the strained relationship between people of color and law enforcement.
Through Teen Talk, he works on that relationship directly. The program puts young people and police officers in a room together to talk through their differences, giving youth the space to ask hard questions and officers the chance to explain the reasoning behind how they operate.
"Many young people's perception of the police stems from bad encounters that they or their loved ones or people in their neighborhood have experienced. And for some, that's the only interaction they've ever had with police officers. Teen Talk gives youth the opportunity to have a positive encounter instead."Ruban Roberts
Roberts is candid about both sides of the exchange. He describes how a broad suspect description can put many young Black men in the path of an aggressive stop, why running is the instinct and cooperation is the safer response, and how a complaint can be filed afterward if rights were violated. The priority in that moment, he says, is making it home safe.
He is equally direct about officers who see themselves as enforcers rather than servants of the community, and about how that posture makes a positive relationship difficult. Sometimes in these sessions it is the teens doing the educating.
"Teen Talk creates a space where both sides can sit down, talk, and humanize the other. So that the next time they interact, they both understand that at the end of the day, the other just wants to make it back home."Ruban Roberts