Police Stops

Police Stops

Cute and White

“I didn’t stop you for crossing the yellow light; you know that, right? Do you know what I stopped you for?”, asked the police officer sternly. He was young, medium height, clean-shaven and despite his authority, a slight politeness seeped through. As is protocol, he was standing a little bit behind my driver-seat window that I had opened. I had to turn my head back to answer him.

“No sir, I don’t know why”, I said with honesty.

“Well, I spotted you a few blocks away and you did not stop at the stop sign,” he explained.

“Oh, um, yeah… “ I started but then snapped sharply, “Yes, Sir!” as I remembered that useless stop sign at the insignificant intersection, where I rarely encounter other vehicles.

“I am sorry”, I added although I knew that was a pointless statement vis-à-vis law enforcement.

He bent over to hand me back my drivers’ license and peeked into the back row of my car. He already knew I was white, probably middle class - but due to the beat up nature of my car, he probably didn’t know where on the class spectrum – then he saw the baby in the five-point harness babyseat and the 96 year-old great-grandmother, both strapped still and patiently waiting.

His tone changed to become soft and he concluded,

“Ma’am, next time you drive by here, make sure to make a full stop at the stop signs.  Have a good day.”  I never received a ticket. Not even a warning. I got away carte blanche, as white as my skin.

Cute and Black

Stomping all over my Lenten roses, they destroyed a few. I had just planted them last fall to add some flavor to my shady back yard and a dash of color at the end of winter, when the rest of the vegetation is drab or dormant, and, while eagerly anticipating spring, the delicate pedals of the blooms offer a gentle sense of renewal.

Oh well, I had readily let in the three police officers to search the escaped man. It must have been serious, with the helicopter and that powerful searchlight hovering above.

I loved my new bungalow – modest, but perfect, and, above all, all mine – in this transitional part of town, where criminality still existed but was becoming more petty, and where urban pioneers, such as I, purposely moved in to change things for the better. The price for owning the cutest bungalow in all of Atlanta was occasional knocks on the door by police, as well as my neighbors’ and my vigilance and cooperation with law enforcement. This was my stake in protecting a historic neighborhood from gentrification.

“Ma’am”, the police officer concluded as he stomped his feet on the sidewalk at the end of the search, “ Thanks for letting us in. Nothing to be seen. All is clear and we are done.  We are done with work, but may a decent brother like me take a cute dark sister like you out to dinner next Tuesday evening?”

It took me a while to gather my bearings at this question. Acting dutifully to law enforcement was easy. But a question of the romantic sort was not on my radar screen. Normally always on point for a powerful rebuttal, now I was at a loss.

Sure, a man in a uniform provides some sort of authoritative comfort, but right now, I was not in a state to envision what sort of clothes this police officer might look good in off duty. I didn’t have time or any interest to let my imagination meander to good looks at this moment. Anyways, I typically liked men who shared the books, history and political articles I read, or the documentaries I watched; they usually did not wear uniforms on or off duty.

Heck, I had just furnished my little house and was excited to invite my all-girl book club and show them my cozy living room, my female bath room. My house was all girly. There was no room for a big screen TV or recliner that this dude was most likely accustomed to. And anyways, after all I had been through, and now when I had finally found a sweet calm spot all to myself, I did not need a partner in my life whose job was filled with adrenaline, odd hours, danger and possibly death.

I knew I had to respond to this man without sounding even remotely arrogantly intellectual, so I pulled my rational brain together to provide a non-offensive and calm answer.

“Sir, thank you for your offer, but at this point in time, I wish to enjoy being single”.

The officer clicked his heals, made a slight bow, did an about turn, said, “Good ev’ning, Ma’am” and the three officers left promptly and drove off in their blinking vehicles.

I was baffled at how easy it was for a black girl to reject a police officer.

Or so I thought.

A few minutes later, I saw through my kitchen window how the blinking vehicle was back in front of my house. The officer came out of the car and I opened my front door to find out what was the matter.

“Ma’am, just for your information, in response to your clear indication of a lack of cooperation in future affairs, I must inform you that, counter-actively, we are no longer able to respond to your calls to the police station and reports on criminal activity in this neighborhood”.

And that sure as hell became the case. The entire staff of the police station abided by his whimsical threat. All that, because I had declined to go on a date with a police officer. And for weeks, I could feel this officer’s dark skin pulling my black skin further into this blacks’ black hole of rejection and constant self-defense.

The trodden Lenten roses recovered beautifully amidst the entire patch, as would I. Happily and strongly single, I got my neighborhood to solidarize with me and we figured out a system to notify the police station anyways. Idiots.

Fast and White

The vehicle in front of me was very wide and wobbly. The car was driving the speed limit. But it was irritating me, so I decided to pull a New Yorker, and pass this car at least 20 mph above the speed limit on its left.

It was a typical suburban Southern road, where no one is in a hurry and the roads are wider than they need to be, where often politeness trumps law.

It took only five seconds, and a police car was flashing behind me. I turned into the next side road and stopped. The police car stopped behind me, the officer stepped out and walked towards my vehicle. I rolled down my window and immediately confessed to the blatant crime with a sad nod of the head.

The police officer stated the obvious – that I was driving 20 mph above the speed limit. But I was somewhat prepared: I had been through two years worth of immigration proceedings and scares, and so, I had perfected the neutral mono-syllabic answers that I always concluded with a sharp and respectful, “Sir!” The police officer took my drivers’ license and insurance papers to his vehicle.

My baby and I sat in the car silently waiting.

The officer came back a few minutes later, handed me my papers and said, “Ma’am, we are all good here, but next time you are around this road, stay within the speed limit and please go renew your drivers’ license, it has expired.”

“Yes Sir!” I blurted and rolled up my window.

Carte blanche again, again, as white as my skin. Or did the ponytail give me extra brownie points?

Not even fast and Black

Atlanta in August is not my favorite place to be: it is hot and muggy, not only just hot and muggy, but way too hot and muggy. That aside, I am so happy to meet up with my friends who flew in from out of town, to check out this Southern city, where I now live.

I am a little anxious to be tour guide and hope to show them the best of what the city has to offer, somewhat nervous that the heat will make us lethargic, or maybe the sweet tea too jittery.

The hotel they are staying at has a quaint little driveway along some drooping hydrangeas, despite the irrigation giving them daily hydration to survive the suckling evaporation. I follow the driveway, which is packed with parked cars. I see a police officer at the end of the driveway and as I approach it, I see he is gesticulating to me to move forwards. I abide, but when I get to the end of the driveway, he is still gesticulating to me to move forwards and he tells me something rather angrily. I do not hear what, so I roll down the window to ask a question, but he doesn’t give me a chance to ask; instead he nastily yells at me to get out of the car and hand over insurance and drivers’ license.

Not sure whether I was confused from the droning noise of the cicadas or if my brain was fried from the beating down sun, but I did not recollect doing anything wrong; I turned off my car anyways, stepped out and handed the white sweating police officer my papers. Disgruntled, he walked back to the police car, making me wait.

I waited for five minutes, stunned the entire time, the sweat by now not only trickling down my forehead but also drenching my cute shirt.

Finally, my three guests step out of the hotel, see and rush over to me, not wasting a second to give me embracing hugs of true friends. Our group hug, makes our cumulative skin tone blend to a light beige of a café latte – somewhat lighter than my own dark chocolate milk tone.

The police officer sees me disappear in my friends’ affectionate group hug reaching across races, and with a gesticulation of the hand, it appears he lets me go.

So, off we drive to our afternoon of partying in the big city. In my joy, I forget the incident.

The next morning, the ringing phone wakes me up.  It is the police officer. He lets me know he has my papers. Hung over not from alcohol but from a day and night of happiness, I click my brain back to the reality of the situation induced yesterday by this police officer. I try to stay rational, but merely from the after taste of how he handled me yesterday, I know his intent is to let out all the ugliness of his soul and try to destroy me.  For what reason, I am not sure; I can only think that the reason is my skin color.

He has my papers. He never returned them to me. I forgot to request them from him and I realize I was in a precarious situation driving around without papers.

When he summons me to come pick up my papers at the police station in a rural location two counties away, I realize my situation is still precarious, and acutely so.  He does not only want to insult me and dog me down emotionally, but it is clear his intent is to harm me physically also. Was he going to arrest me for driving without a license and then leave it up to my word against his? Was he going to rape me? Was he going to kill me? I can’t control my fear. This man scares me to the core.

I never heard of the location and looking on the map, it sure does look remote.

Luckily, I have enough friends who wouldn’t mind a 90-minute drive in my new snippy car. I call my friends from the hotel and two other local friends to provide me moral and, if necessary, physical support in dealing with the police officer. The out-of-town friends will enjoy a true Southern cultural country experience. My local friends are immediately on board, because they sense I am scared of the officer, even if I never verbalize it to them – I would never admit to that weakness.  

Yesterday, we had power in numbers, today would be the same!

Six adults squeeze into my car, we fill the tank, the co-pilot pulls out a map and off we drive to a set meeting time with the officer.

We reach the outpost when the sun is at its highest, the humidity somewhat suppressed by the rays beaming down vertically directly from the hot sun, but the intensity of the heat still makes the temperature miserable. It seems even the cicadas have lost some of their drone power.

We step out of the car. The police officer is waiting in his car, this outpost obviously not exactly his home territory. He is shocked to see me step out of the car with an entire entourage of strong, healthy and educated adults. Yes, instinctively, I profiled racially and selected my friends to make sure our skin tones represented a broad range of the black to white color spectrum.

The police officer sees us, steps out of his car and walks towards us. It is a dusty road. He is alone, pale and sweaty and even as he tries to make his chest larger, in volume, my group totally outweighs his sleezy self. I am upright, glistening and powerful amongst my support crew.

We barely exchange words, just the formal greetings. He hands me my papers, I smile, thank him, and we part. I am thankful and relieved at the ease of this transaction.

Again, the initial feelings of fear and anguish dissipate as soon I am back on the road heading home with my friends beside me, and I tell myself how my negative thoughts of fear are all mistaken.

Or so I believe.

A week later, I receive a summons in the mail for a ticket with the box checked that I failed to obey a police officer. I read it ten times to make sure I am not missing a word or misunderstanding something.

Standing by my mail box of the cute entryway to my idyllic home, studying the summons, I can smell the dusty road, hear the lame cicadas, taste the sweat on my upper lip, hear our steps crunch on the path towards the officer, see the pale officer’s face with his slight disappointment in his loss of control over a black girl, as I show up with my entourage. But, I failed to perceive that while he handed me over the papers, in what seemed an effortless motion, he was in fact planning revenge. Silly revenge.

I call to complain. But through the phone, although they don’t see me or my skin color and although my neighborhood friends have always teased me for sounding white, they know I am black. The police officer’s summons trumps my words – every day of the year, every year of the century that will be the case, because I am black and I am in the South. I hire a lawyer. It is futile.

Sadly, I resign, I pay the lawyer and pay the summons.

I learn to cope with it. Sometimes, I tell myself, at least I was not shot dead; it could have been worse. But then I hate myself for that sense of resignation that has been perpetuated across generations. Yes, as a child, I sang “Amazing Grace” in church alongside my parents and our black Baptist congregation, but as a teenager I vowed to be more pragmatic about my race’s condition. I don’t want to get through life singing about acceptance of my fate. I am the generation that is supposed to move us out of our vicious black hole and into equal footing and treatment. I am the kid who broke barriers, who took risks, studied and opened my mouth too much, who knows everything about both sides of the fence. But at the end of the day, my skin color is still that which characterizes me most.