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| The same officer can act two different ways according to the situation. That is expected and required.
Story from my college days. About to graduate and had to take a freshman communications class I had been putting off. We had a project where we had to interview a person, we were assigned in a group of two or three. I got put with two freshmen football players, black and a long way from home in small town Iowa.
Going to the guy’s place, I had a car, getting dark and in this river town no two streets ran parallel, I couldn’t find the house. Rolled through a residential stop sign, lights go on behind me. Both guys said some version of “oh ****”. Officer comes up, asks for my license, starts the usual small talk, where we going, where we from all that stuff. I explain, yes sir, no sir all the right answers. At some point he goes: “These guys with you ?” I’m thinking what a strange thing, of course they are they’re in my fricken car. But I just go yes sir.
Cop tells me to be more careful, have a good night. I ask about the address, he points us in the right direction.
Now the guy in the passenger seat was nearly white, or maybe gray is a better word. He looked suspicious, The guy in the back was ticked off, I’m sure if he was driving he would have smarted off. They thought I was some sort of super hero, all calm and collected, I never gave the whole deal much thought. If I had a four door the back seat guy might have run, he was scared. These guys going to this college were no dummies but their experience with police was way different than mine. Or maybe they’ve just heard stories of small town cops.
Those folks who say “just obey the directions” don’t have the experience some of these folks have. Sure, you can say that because you don’t have stories about getting dragged out of a car and thrown on the ground, or worse, for little reason.
It’s called white privilege. It’s real. | |
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Cops
