9/14/2014
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In the 1990s, when I lived in New York, a friend I’ll call Adam and I drove out to his house in Montauk, Long Island. A few miles into town, we noticed a police cruiser behind us.
Adam, a stockbroker in his 30s, began to panic.
“Crap, crap, crap!” Apparently, his car tag had expired — maybe his driver’s license and insurance, too. The cruiser turned on its lights and siren, and Adam pulled over.
“Listen,” he said, “I may need you to bail me out.”
I sat there, stunned and scared. The officer sauntered up to Adam’s window. “License and registration?”
Because Adam had failed to renew his license, tag or insurance, the officer, brusque but polite, told us he had to surrender the SUV. Adam threw up his hands, rolled his eyes. “This is ridiculous! I’m a taxpayer and property owner. Can’t you just give me a damn warning?”
No dice. The officer apologized to me, then guided Adam into the back of the squad car. I rode in front to the station, fuming at Adam.
Several hours, one phone call to Adam’s lawyer and $500 later, Adam apologized as well. We commiserated over a glass of wine.
Over the years, friends have shared eerily similar tales of lapsed licensure
and arrests. Perhaps the men had to pay a small fine, but they were processed quickly and released on their own recognizance. None were handcuffed or yelled at, much less beaten, tasered or killed. They had broken the law, yet they had been given the benefit of the doubt.
All of those men, including Adam, had one thing in common. They were white.
I found myself wondering if they thought automotive laws did not apply to them. Were they really too busy to take care of such details? Or did they assume that, if caught, they’d get off with a slap on the wrist?
And what if these men had been black, Latino, Asian or Native American? For starters, the men of color we knew would NEVER leave the house, much less get in a car, with expired ANYTHING.
Second, the men of color had been taught by their parents that, when they were stopped (and they would be stopped) they should keep their hands visible and still and remain unfailingly polite. Any misstep could get them killed.
Third, if a man of color had racked up as many infractions as my friend Adam, that benign interaction with the cops could have gone violently wrong.
As the facts of the tragic events in Ferguson, Missouri, continue to unfold, I think back on that incident 20-odd years ago. I think about what most white Americans never ponder.
White privilege.
We don’t like to talk about it. We don’t even like to acknowledge it. Most white folks move through our lives blithely, oblivious to the benefits that accrue to us just because of the color of our skin. Unlike our black friends, we usually learn from our parents that the police are there to help us. We assume that the justice system, however flawed, will be fair. We don’t for one minute think that a minor misunderstanding — or even a misdemeanor — will result in our death at the hands of the police sworn to protect us.
Michael Brown, the 18-year-old, unarmed African-American teenager shot six times by white officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, was most certainly NOT given the benefit of the doubt. Many details of this case remain unknown, but what’s certain is that if Michael Brown had been white, he’d likely still be alive.
I offer no pat answers or ideas about how to prevent such shootings. But I do know this: The prevention of yet another Trayvon Martin, another Eric Garner, another Michael Brown does not lie in parents of color warning their children about how to stay submissive during encounters with law enforcement. The fact that black parents still feel the need to do so is frighteningly reminiscent of the Jim Crow era, when African-American parents warned their sons not to look white people in the eye, lest they invite a lynching.
We white folks must examine white privilege and examine it honestly, deeply, collectively. It will be uncomfortable. But at least we won’t be in denial anymore. And until white Americans admit that we live in an entirely different country than do people of color, nothing will begin to change.
K.W. Oxnard is a Savannah writer.
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