Encouraged by a few people, including Kossack Tool, I'm going to write a two part diary about my experience with the police and White Privilege. I think this is important to do, because it draws such a stark contrast between what persons of color and "white" people experience not just in everyday society, but especially when it comes to dealing with the police.
Part one has to do with a traffic stop, which I'll write about today. Part two has to do with accidentally derailing the culmination of a months-long State Police action--for which we probably should have been arrested but were not.
Part one, though, and some background, over the divider-doodle...
Background
OK, many of you know that I am a gay, white man (who can "pass" for straight if I have to) of early middle-age with a fairly privileged background. My family also has been liberal for several generations and includes a lot of intermarriage between religions, races, and even political persuasions. I was raised to be a good liberal. I was also over-privileged as a teenager and young adult and while my politics was always WAY to the left, I suppose I was quite the little shit driving my Volvo with an Amex gold card from my father in my pocket when I was in college.
Now that I'm less privileged financially, in some ways I'm glad for it. My ego has come down a peg, and my gratefulness and in fact my liberalism has gone up a peg or two. Let's just say it was easy to be a Marxist in college when it was all theoretical.
That being said, racism and classism in my family was a BIG no-no. My grandfather had been a Communist in the 30's and even though I was fairly old by today's standards before I met a black person, or a Latina/o person, when I did, I was happy to and didn't carry a whole lot of baggage.
So I'm a WASP, but with good parents.
Moving to Texas
When I was entering 8th grade, my family moved from an all-white town of about 3000 people in rural Massachusetts to Houston, Texas and I entered a public middle-school with people of all different racial and socio-economic backgrounds. I was fascinated and embraced it--not because that was how I was raised, but because I am naturally curious and open. For the first time in my life, I actually had friends and they were not necessarily all white, either. The "Big City"! Best thing that ever happened to me. I would have withered going to that provincial HS that my parents both attended back in Massachusetts in the early 60's--which hadn't changed much by the early 80's. Later in my secondary school career I came out as gay. My boyfriend (and still a friend and pretty much part of our family still today) was Latino. No one in my family gave two craps in hades.
I was lucky. So, end of the background, now let's fast-forward to a time in the mid-90's...
The Traffic Stop
After my grandfather died in 1992, my grandmother sold her house and moved down to Houston to be close to my brother and me and my mother, her ex-daughter-in-law with whom she was close. Somewhere around 1994, I believe. I had just gotten a fabulous apartment in the Gayborhood and had a good job and from my second-floor balcony, a really stunning view of the Houston skyline, being just about 10 blocks west of downtown. Ma and my grandmother were helping me put the place in order (that is, decorating) and they were going to stay over. Ma suggested that I go down the street to get a movie for the evening so we could all relax.
Now, this was in the days where you rented video tapes and places like Blockbuster Video were still around. Because my grandmother's old 1987 Dodge station wagon was blocking me in, she handed me the keys and said "take my car". So I did. What I did NOT know was that she had a tail light out.
So off to the video store I went, while my mother and grandmother were arguing discussing where to put some chair or such, and as I pull into a stip centre in the heart of Montrose (at Montrose and Westheimer), dutifully signalling, I see flashing lights. I pulled into a parking space and got my license and registration ready for the two cops who were already approaching the car.
Everything went well at first--they told me I had a tail light out and and asked for my paperwork, and then they went back to the cruiser. Then the older cop approached me and said "Do you consent to a search of your vehicle?" "I do not, officer". (At that time in Texas one could refuse it.) Well, it quickly became clear that he was trying to show the rookie riding with him how to cow a citizen out of their civil rights.
"I can call for backup, you know, I can call a K-9 unit" says the senior cop. "Go ahead. In the meantime, I'll call my lawyer, his office is just up the street." (It may have been still in the videotape era, but cell phones we had!). He tried various ways of intimidating me into consenting to an illegal search, and I wouldn't budge. He kept me there for about 90 minutes. Being smart, I didn't try to use my cell phone. Every so often he'd come back with his protege and try to browbeat me into a search. At one point I said "The only thing you'll find is my late grandfather's cigarette ash residue in the ashtray. This is my grandmother's car, I didn't know the light was out, I'll be sure to see that it's fixed".
On and on it went. They got more and more belligerent, but treated me with at least enough respect not to shoot me or pepper-spray me. I wasn't having any of it.
At the end, I said "Look, officer, either arrest me or issue me a ticket. Because in two minutes I am going to put the car in reverse and drive home".
They relented and didn't even give me a ticket.
We didn't get our movie that night. I also didn't get shot or killed or arrested that night.
Probably because I was white while insisting on my civil rights.
I got the tail light fixed for my grandmother the next day.
Conclusion
Even while white, I could have gotten arrested for that, or even killed. Had I been a person of color, I certainly would have been killed or arrested or worse when the incident happened and certainly today.
Liberty and justice are for all, not just for certain people. I mourn for this country.
Next Installment
"Mayhem on Mission Hill and How We Did A Young and Stupid Thing and Derailed an Ongoing Sting Operation and Got Away With It"