In the latest incident of swimming while Black, a Florida lawyer says she felt like a criminal in her own neighborhood after a woman questioned her family’s presence at the pool, then demanded they leave.
Nadia Policard of Jacksonville detailed the incident in a Facebook post on Wednesday, saying she and her kids were lounging poolside and enjoying pizza at the Mira Vista condos when a random woman approached and asked if they were residents.
Nadia Policard accused an unnamed woman of harassing she and her family at the pool after refusing to believe they were residents. (Image courtesy of Nadia Policard / Facebook)
“So the kids and I are at the pool today minding our own business,” Policard wrote. “I ask my son to snap a photo of me (for the Insta) when lady pictured here asks me where I live and tells me this pool is only for residents! So I tell her I am.”
“Then she asks me where I live,” the post continues. “I ask why she thinks I am not a resident. She tells me they’ve had ‘a problem with non-residents bringing truckloads of people to the pool.’ So I ask her, ‘Do the three of us look like a truckload to you? What’s the real issue?'”
The woman, who identified herself as the “Pool Queen,” refused to believe they were residents, however, and demanded they leave the pool. This didn’t sit well with Policard, who’s lived in the complex since 2016.
“We stare at each other,” she recalled of the incident. “I can tell she’s deciding what to say next. THEN, she tells me if I don’t live here I should leave. And I tell her that I already told her I was a resident!”
That’s when Policard says the woman demanded to know her building number, which she eventually gave to her after repeatedly being questioned. The woman eventually stormed off in frustration.
“ … I guess we can’t even enjoy pizza and the pool with our kids. I was made to feel like a criminal and a trespasser in my own neighborhood,” Policard wrote. “And I should add, this is a gated community, with a security guard 24/7. They are thorough. Truckloads of people are NOT coming in.”
The incident follows a string of high-profile instances of Black folks being questioned and harassed at their own neighborhood pools.
Policard has since filed a complaint with the complex.
Watch more in the clip below.
https://www.facebook.com/nadia.p.jones/videos/pcb.10156486488269462/10156486488149462/?type=3&theater