I'm going to to preface this post with
a few random comments. First of all, if you know me at all or have
read any of my other stuff, I think you would agree that I try to be
a fair person. I try to have empathy for people, to consider the
other guy's point of view. I'm much better at that in the abstract,
of course. When I'm in the middle of a heated argument with my
husband or kids, not so much. Hopefully you, the blog reader, will
be able to keep that in mind as I take on a touchy subject, and trust
that I am just trying hard to make sense of it all.
Secondly, prepare yourself. I call
black people black. I call white people white. All of the black
people I know well enough to have a conversation with call themselves
“black;” All the white people I talk to refer to themselves as
“white.” That being the case, I just don't see the need for all
the euphemisms like “people of color” or "European American." I
strongly suspect all of those terms were thought up by some white
people trying to get over their own discomfort with race issues. I'm
not buying into it. Sorry.
Thirdly, WE HAVE GOT TO GET
THIS RACIAL INJUSTICE CRAP FIGURED OUT! NOW!
I can not say it emphatically enough. Seriously.
We can split atoms, for crying out loud! We have had the ability to
do it for like 70 years now. We use the power of that ability to
police the world and intervene in all sorts of human rights issues.
How is it that we, as a society can not figure out how to ensure
human rights for every human being in our own damned
backyard???
Now that we're on the same page, I want to tell you all a story. My
husband came home in a crabby mood the other day. I was a little
annoyed by this but, you know, spouses get crabby sometimes. The
next day, he told me about how he had been stopped by the police on
his way home the day before for running a stop sign. (Incidentally,
that “stop sign” was a yield sign, but we're not going to go
there. For the sake of conversation, we are going to pretend it was
a legitimate traffic violation.) Now, in our neighborhood, it is
pretty standard to see two police vehicles whenever someone is pulled
over. Presumably, this is because there is only one officer in each
car these days. I think it is fair to say that you will often see
more than one car, regardless of who is being stopped. One officer
will make the stop and soon after, another car will pull up; the
second officer will usually stay in the car. For a routine traffic
stop you will usually only see two police cars, although one or two
others might drive past. The only times I've ever seen more than two
cars or several officers out of their vehicles is when someone was
obviously being arrested.
Maybe you should also know that in the 16 years I've known him, my black husband has been stopped at least a dozen times for all sorts of terrible traffic infractions like
having a license plate cover, a dangling air freshener, or for
turning around in a school driveway because he forgot something at
work, two blocks back. One time he had three cops pull him over in
front of our own house, but only
one officer got out of the cars. Remarkably, his decade-long
crime spree has only resulted in one ticket, for speeding. One.
Twelve stops. One ticket. I, myself, have only gotten one “warning”
in my entire speed demon life. When I get stopped, I actually get a
ticket, and I have never had more than one officer on the scene.
On this occasion, upon seeing the
lights go on, my husband pulled over, and rolled down his window.
The white officer, told him why he had been stopped, then returned to
his police car to run Hubby's license and plate. Predictably, a second
car rolled up and stopped. Here's where it gets a little
interesting. The second white officer got out of his car as third
and fourth white officers rolled up and got out of their cars also.
While my husband sat peaceably in the Honda, all three extra officers
put their hands on their guns and surrounded the car. One of the
additional police officers started interrogating my husband though
the still-open car window: “Where are you coming from?” “What
were you doing?” “Where are you going?” My husband, wisely,
kept both hands in plain view on the steering wheel, only moving
one—SLOWLY—as he told the interrogating officer, “The other cop
has my information. I don't have to talk to you.” and rolled up
the window. Eventually, the first officer returned my husband's
license and registration, “letting him go with just a warning.”
Wow. Someone is going to have to help me understand how running a
stop sign is just cause for three police officers to threaten his
life with firearms.
If you think I am being overly dramatic
about the danger of the situation, I suggest you pull your head out
of your butt and check in with the news outlet of your choice. This
is how black men die. Exactly like this. Some thing happens.
Some police officers get involved, whether justifiably or not.
Someone escalates the situation until somebody gets shot. Or choked.
Or beaten to death. A black guy gets killed over something a white
guy would probably just get a traffic ticket for.
I have friends and relatives who are in
law enforcement. I have friends married to cops. I have the utmost
respect for men and women who are willing to place themselves in
danger to protect me and my family, so anyone who is tempted to jump
to the defensive and justify the actions of the officers—I don't
want to hear it. I really don't. I'm not claiming that all cops are
racist criminals. I know there are great cops. I believe there are
more good cops than bad ones, but the simple, ugly truth is that my
husband was threatened with death because he is black.
There is no defense for that, and it has to stop. IT HAS
TO STOP.
Any reasonable person must be able to agree that it just has to
stop.
Reasonable
people surely can agree that the system has to change. The justice
system must become more...just. But how? I don't have the answers.
I just have a whole lot of questions, such as why are almost all the
police officers in my city white? If white officers are so
endangered by black men that an armed 4:1 ratio is required to ensure
their safety, why don't we have primarily black officers in areas of
the city heavily populated with black people? Is it racist to even
suggest such a thing? Why are there so few black or Hispanic cops?
Do blacks and Hispanics not want to be in law enforcement? Do they
not have sufficient access to the education required to be police
officers? Does the city not hire minority officers on purpose? Is
it a weird coincidence? There are all sorts of programs to entice
certain people to choose certain careers. I see TV commercials all
the time to encourage girls to consider careers in math and science,
for instance. Why can't we do the same thing to encourage blacks and
other minorities to enter the fields of law enforcement and politics?
Why
doesn't the public have access to the rates of minority versus
non-minority traffic stops? We have statistics on everything else in
the world that matters to us. Why don't we conduct standardized
citizen satisfaction surveys on our community leaders and
organizations, as well as our police departments and then base
funding for these things on how ours compare with similar organizations across the nation? Some people think that's a good idea
for funding health care systems, why not for police?
Why
do we worry so much about using politically correct language to
classify each other's differences instead of being honest about
what's really dividing us? Why are we arguing about balancing the
federal budget, and reducing national debt when we can't even
agree on how to resolve the overwhelming moral
deficit clearly seen in the racial injustices we all want to ignore?
Who cares what some news anchor lied about when we are all
lying every
time we pledge allegiance to the nation of liberty and justice for
all? When is enough going to be enough? When is it going to stop?
