But I’m White!

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Tonight was the third time in about a month I have been “pulled over” while walking. Little did I know that something as innocuous as putting one foot in front of the other as a means of transportation makes you an international terrorist. Here’s the scenario…

It was about nine thirty this evening, and I was walking along the stretch of sidewalk that leads from 16^th St. to campus. It literally takes maybe five minutes to get to my house to campus, quick enough to stay out of the Johnny Law’s long reach around. The neighborhood consists of college kids, young families, and me, Rob, the guy who spits a loogey in the law’s all-seeing, all-knowing face with his deviant behavior. I had just passed 15^th st. when a cop speeds past me. I didn’t think anything of it until he dramatically screeches to a halt and doughnuts his way back around. Going around the block or turning around in somebody’s driveway would have given me too much time to make my daring escape. Yeah, maybe if I was riding on the back of Usain Bolt. So the cop makes a big Cops-esque scene to chase me down. Once he catches back up (I was ten feet away), he shined his Mcmassive light in my eyes. This was to kill me in case I was a vampire (vampyre for the 19^th century readers). With light still on me, he opens his car door and hikes up his pants.

Out of the car comes a five foot five tall man of super douche with small-man syndrome. He asks me for some identification. I reach for my wallet and hand it over with compliance. He looks at it and asks me where I was headed. I tell him, again, compliantly. As he starts to hand me back my id, I ask “I did nothing wrong, why did you ‘pull me over’?” (I used sarcasm quotes for real). “This is the third time this has happened in the past month, and I’m starting to think it’s arbitrary, targeted towards people who walk, and a violation of my civil liberties.” He sighed and pulled back his reach, along with my id. “Why I pulled you over is none of your concern, and I don’t appreciate being disrespected.” I bit back, “but it is my business! If I was in a car, you wouldn’t randomly pull me over without telling me. Do you have any idea how many upset drivers there would be? It’s nine thirty on a Wednesday night, and I am clearly headed towards campus. If I was driving to campus, it wouldn’t be a problem. And it’s a problem because you haven’t told me why we’re even in this situation, and you just asked for my identification. If I’ve given you probable cause to search me, you are more than welcome to take me ‘down town’ (sarcasm quotes) so you would have to submit to habeas corpus , but otherwise, I’d really appreciate it if you’d give me back my wallet.” The officer handed me back my wallet. “Sir, the only reason I’m not going to do anything about this is because I am in a hurry, but next time you need to be more respectful of an officer, and things will go more smoothly.” He walked off.

I acted inappropriately, maybe, but police officers have no right to have free reign like that. I did nothing wrong; it wasn’t even past the midnight curfew intended for the under-eighteen crowd. I would have been given back my wallet originally had I just kept my mouth shut, but it was the principle of having unwarranted searches and questions. The whole scenario was ludicrous. He both spoke politely to one another, and neither of our voices were raised. Allowing emotions to interfere with my words would have been a very bad idea.

I walked over the BSU to tell the tale of racially profiled white male…and watch U2’s ZooTv concert.

P.S. Hoped this helped, Tiffany.