These are crazy times. 110,000 people have died in the US alone from COVID-19, and people are getting curious about what was done to prepare for it given that we knew about it back in December. And then suddenly the news looks away from that devastation and the fumbled response that caused it because police just caused yet another needless death.
Warning: Opinions Ahead
Before I go any further, let me make clear where I stand on the killing of George Floyd. The video is horrific, and while there may be some extenuating circumstances (e.g. it might be possible that health considerations contributed to the death), Chauvin is certainly not blameless. And of course there have been other recent incidents of questionable police violence in the news. We’re doing something wrong here in the US, and peaceful (!) protests are certainly warranted. Every time we fail to hold people — especially those in law enforcement — accountable for this kind of thing we are just making matters worse.
I wonder why Chauvin thought it necessary to keep his knee on Floyd’s neck all that time. Could it be because bystanders were telling him to get off and he didn’t want to give in to them, looking weak in front of his trainees? Perhaps he thought “I’m in charge here!” and kept on with the knee to show them so. “You can’t tell me what to do!”
And Chauvin didn’t just hurt Floyd. He further tainted everyone in law enforcement, most of them undeservedly.
While she didn’t end up killing anyone, in some ways I am more upset with Amy Cooper, because she knew exactly what she was doing. For all his malice, surely Chauvin didn’t actually intend to kill Floyd — at least not there, in front of all of those witnesses and cameras. In fact, it isn’t clear that the mistreatment was even racially motivated; are we really sure he wouldn’t have been just as aggressive in front of his trainees had Floyd been a big guy of European descent? Cooper, on the other hand, was consciously invoking racial injustice to serve her own purposes. Jaw-dropping.
White Privilege — safety in skin color
I have been hearing commentators talk about the unfairness of being stopped for no apparent reason, which they refer to as “walking while black.” And of being given “the talk” as a kid about the fact that it’s best to cooperate with the cops because, well, you’re black, and if you don’t play nice, things will go worse for you, and you don’t want that. And of white people calling the cops on black people.
So then these commentators go on to explain that white people have no idea what it’s like for black people, that “white privilege” is simply not having to worry about these things. “The world is safe for white people,” one woman says accusingly. “The color of your skin protects you.”
To these people I say this: I agree that there’s a problem here, but you’ve gotten the wrong impression.
Four times (maybe more, but four come to mind) I have had what I consider to be unpleasant encounters with police, and I’m light-skinned, of European heritage. I’m going to describe them to you, but my point is that if you imagine that being white is some kind of magic shield against suspicion, or protection against being shot by a nervous cop, or freedom from having the cops called on you when you are minding your own business, you are about to learn otherwise. Yes, people of color have it worse, at least by some measures, and that is surely due in part to racial bias. Racial bias definitely exists, and it’s bad, and it’s especially bad when it’s in law enforcement and the justice system. But a lot of the problem with police is just the nature of the beast rather than being about racial prejudice. Interactions with the police are nobody’s idea of a picnic, and it is certainly possible to make things harder on yourself by resisting.
“I almost shot you”
I worked my way through college programming computers for small businesses. I had taught myself to program in Basic, and a company in Tucson, AZ paid me $2.50 an hour to program the computers of small businesses (whom they charged $25, keeping 90% — ahem). My clients trusted me, giving me keys to their computer facilities so I could work at night, after my classes. Only one had a security system, and one night, around midnight, I started to open the door without remembering to first turn that security system off. I had only opened the door an eighth of an inch before realizing my mistake, so I thought maybe I got away with it. I had been told to wait for a call if I ever set off the alarm, so I waited a couple of minutes. Nothing.
Convinced that I had dodged a bullet, I began coding. I had forgotten about it when, five minutes later, several vehicles raced into the parking lot, lights flashing. They could see me clearly through the large window in the wall. A loud voice said to open the door. I walked to the door and slowly opened it.
There were three members of the Pima County Sheriff’s Department pointing guns at me. They grabbed me by the arms, took me to a squad car, frisked me, and stuck me in the back. Somebody from the company came out and vouched for me, so they let me go, but as he let me out of the car this one deputy said “Man, you have to be more careful — I almost shot you.” He dragged out the word “almost” to drive home the point that I had come very close to dying that night.
My initial reaction — not shared with them — was WTF?!? Why did you “almost shoot me”? You could see me through the window. I was unarmed. You told me to open the door and I opened it. I did nothing menacing. I cooperated in every way possible.
I thought about that brush with death for quite a while. Had I been black, I might well have thought that it was because of my skin color. But the conclusion I came to is that that deputy was just scared shitless. He had no idea what was on the other side of that door. All he really knew was that somebody had set off the alarm, that I was white, and I had nothing in my hands. But surely the worst ran through his mind. For all he knew there might be three guys with machine guns in there, staying out of sight, prepared to shoot their way out like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. He was on red alert as he pointed that gun at my chest, safety off, finger pressing lightly against the trigger. In his fear he made himself as ready to kill me as he possibly could — and apparently he almost took that final, tiny little step of applying just a little more force to that trigger.
And clearly, from his perspective it was my fault that he almost killed me!
Let that sink in for a minute. That deputy did not walk away from the experience thinking “Wow, I really need to tone it down a notch before I accidentally kill somebody. I have to learn to control this fear, to always remember that while there is a chance that this person is dangerous, it is much more likely that they are completely innocent. Alarms get set off accidentally all the time.”
No, it was my fault — I needed to be more careful.
“Put your hands on the trunk”
Years later, out of college and living in Tempe, I was walking down the alley toward my house one day. Tempe alleys were roads, big enough for a garbage truck and two rows of garbage bins, and people used them all the time. On that day there was a squad car parked in the alley. I said hello as I passed the officer standing behind the car, and his reply, quite polite, was “Hello. Would you mind coming over and putting your hands on the trunk of the car?”
I understood that it wasn’t really a question, and I did what he asked. As he frisked me, he asked a number of questions — did I live around there, why was I in the alley, etc. — and called in my driver’s license to see if they had anything on me, and to verify that I lived nearby. I checked out, so he let me go. He said only that there had been a burglary in the area. I never did hear anything about a burglary in the area that day, but perhaps it was true. In any case, I didn’t have anything in my hands — no weapon, no tools for forcing entry, no goods I might have stolen. Nothing to make anyone think I might have been involved in a burglary. I don’t have a shifty look. I have no tatoos, no piercings. I don’t dress like a biker. I wasn’t drunk or stoned (I don’t do alcohol or other drugs). I don’t even have an imposing presence — I’m just a regular, clean-cut white guy, and he decided to detain and frisk me.
It’s a little humiliating — especially for guys, I expect — to passively submit to a police officer, allowing yourself to be frisked and manipulated like that. Allowing yourself to be interrogated. Staying where he puts you until he says you can go, as if you were back in kindergarten. Being subject to his judgment, hoping that he doesn’t decide to throw handcuffs on you and take you to the station. It’s demeaning, and it’s understandable to feel angry about that. Did the officer have good reason to do it? I have no way of knowing. If I were black, I might well have thought that I was stopped because of my skin color. But I was just a guy walking in an area where (maybe) some crime was committed, and a cop decided to stop me, frisk me, and detain me while he checked out my story and my ID.
Maybe it isn’t you
The third time I was detained I was walking home late from work — like 2am — in Silicon Valley, and a campus cop detained me for 10 minutes. Why? Who knows — perhaps I was the only person he had seen for an hour, and he wondered what was up. When I asked if there was a problem, he didn’t offer any explanation. Walking while … white?
And the fourth time. Some guy in a truck saw me standing with no shirt on the side of the road at 1am in my quiet neighborhood. He thought that was so strange — he didn’t notice that I was stretching my calves for a run — that he called the cops on me. They caught up with me after my run, three squad cars, lights flashing. Three large armed men surrounded me, one rather menacing, barking questions at me like I had done something wrong and they had caught me. Why don’t you have a shirt on? Because it’s hot, and I’m running. Why are you out so late? Because it’s hot, but less so now than hours ago. You have a cut on your arm — did you get that hiding in the bushes? Neighbors peering through their windows — who is that guy, and what crime did he commit? More questions, and checking of my identity. It was profoundly humiliating. Finally they were satisfied: OK, you can go. Some idiot calls the cops on you for just being there, and when they arrive, you have to keep your cool and put up with it, because resisting is not going to help.
My point is that while it is indeed possible that you are being looked at with suspicion … or detained … or frisked … or shot … or brusquely interrogated … because of your skin color, it may not be that. These are ABSOLUTELY NOT things that white people don’t have to put up with. It’s worse if you’re black sometimes, if you get a racist cop, and we need to take a good, hard look at that. But please don’t imagine that the police are all “Yessir, Mr. Whiteperson, let me shine your shoes for you.” If I had told that officer in the alley to fuck off, I would have ended up face down in the dirt in that alley. If I had yanked that computer center door open with an axe to grind about law enforcement, or with something in my hand that looked for a moment like a weapon, or if I were just bigger and meaner-looking, then I would likely have bled out in that doorway. Or maybe if that officer had just finished a drink with caffeine. No black required. That’s reality with cops — they live with the possibility that something violent awaits them, so you have to show them otherwise. And they are by no means perfect. And a few are no doubt even racist. It sucks, but there you go.
And by the way, that talk that black parents give their kids, about being calm and respectful around the cops because it’s safer? I got that talk as well. I was told that if I got pulled over, I was to have the window down and my ID in my hand ready to give to them by the time they reached me. Call them officer. Don’t talk back. Answer their questions. Do what they say. Not because they have earned your respect — they haven’t! — but because they can make your life miserable if they want to. DO NOT give them any reason to do so. Don’t all parents talk to their kids about how to behave around police?
One last time — I’m not saying that racial discrimination isn’t real. It is, and we need to fix it. But being statistically somewhat less likely to get shot, somewhat less likely to get stopped and frisked, and so on isn’t something I really need the word “privilege” to describe. I don’t like the experience any more than you do. I feel humiliated by cops too. My life is in danger around on-edge cops too. Nervous nellies I come across while minding my own business call the cops on me too.
It may make a person feel better to stick her fingers in someone’s face and yell at them about their “white privilege.” And when they predictably don’t like that — you wouldn’t like it either — perhaps she will further demean them about their “white fragility.” But I would like to suggest that these are expressions of anger, and that these terms — deliberately chosen to be inflammatory — do more to hurt the just cause than to advance it. In further dividing people on the basis of skin color — claiming that having white skin makes you complicit, or worthy of contempt, or whatever — this race-based aggression takes us all farther from where we should all really want to be.
In fact, I would suggest that if you find yourself saying “white <anything>” — especially in anger — you should at least consider the possibility that you yourself are being racist. Sure, you’re mad about the several recent killings. You’re mad about the disparity in incarceration rates. You’re mad about food deserts. You’re mad about under-funded schools. You’re mad about the lack of police accountability. And much more. You want to fix these things. But if as a result you look at a person you know nothing about and dislike them for being white, then you are being racist. And your hate pushes them toward a racist response. You are fueling the very problem you want to solve.
So if you have been repeatedly detained, or almost shot, or hurt, or even just felt humiliated by law enforcement, I thoroughly understand. If you didn’t do anything wrong, and you truly did not resist, and you really did receive worse treatment because of the color of your skin, well that’s wrong, I want it fixed, and I’ll vote that way. I’ve already written my state representative, expressing my support for certain police reforms. If, on the other hand, you have convinced yourself that my interactions with the police are a picnic and that you need me to feel guilty about it, well, surely being angry with me based on the color of my skin is not the way out of our racial problems. I’d rather get back to talking about how to fix the problems with law enforcement — together, if you’re up for it.