With all of these stories going around recently of horrendous treatment of minorities by police officers, I thought I would just chime in with my experience. This experience was not racially charges overtly, but it was more or less of the silent type that you can really only pick up with body language, and of course, the outcome of the exchange.
Last two Fridays ago I was involved in an accident when both my car and the other car were going for the same lane. As I was getting into the new lane from the left turn lane, the other driver came in from the right-most land and hit my car. When the police officer showed up, we did our normal thing. It got interesting when he came back with the verdict...it was all and entirely my fault. Let me explain in more detail.
I am a 27-year-old man of mixed race (I look black or middle-eastern; kind of like a pick-your-prejudice thing). The other driver was a nice white lady in her late 50's, early 60's. So when the police officer came back with his verdict, I was not surprised to hear the result. The police officer essentially said that it was my fault for not looking for other cars and that I was convicted of illegal lane usage (never mind the fact that the police officer BACKED UP MY STORY). When I said "that's okay officer, I understand. You have a tough job to do and I cannot blame you", he looked VERY surprised...as though I was supposed to blow up at him in an angry black man rant and start blaming him for being racist; which, is what I wanted to say so fully. I knew, however, that I would be liable to be shot right then and there for seeming to be "going for my gun". The police officer also had this hand on his gun 80% of the time. That is strange because I was in dress pants and a dress shirt with no afro or gold teeth (as many police officers stereotype any black man of being). In addition, another police officer came on the scene, and though he was friendly, why do you need two police officers? As I was talking with my mother about it, all I could think of was...
-Why am I supposed to be looking out for other drivers when THE OTHER LADY WAS NOT SUBJECT TO THE VERY SAME LAWS?
-Why was the police officer so defensive and surprised when I didn't start flinging the N-word around?
-Why were there TWO police officers? The only thing I can think of is the fact that the incident involved a person of color.
-Why was his hand on his gun for most of the exchange?
I know that some of this is subjective (although a lot of it is objective), and can be interpreted to mean something different to another person. However, this, to me, screams of the most prevalent kind of racism - covert racism