Then a cop jumped around the corner and something inside me rebelled

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

McCamy Taylor (13,810 posts)

Crossing the Road While Being Black
   
We were waiting for the same light. I was in my Democratic blue Fiat, a middle aged graying blond white chick. He was a dark skinned African-American pedestrian, about 5 foot 6, weighing about 140 pounds, dressed in jeans and a dark blue sweat shirt. The light changed. I started to accelerate. He started to walk.

A police cruiser turned the corner. Its flashing red and blue lights---“berry-cherries” they are called locally---started up. The cop pulled over the pedestrian. In my rear view mirror, I saw the policeman get out. He had the Black man pull up his shirt to show that he was not carrying a weapon tucked into his belt. The policeman did not touch him. They started talking. Traffic was carrying me away----

But something in me rebelled. The man who was profiled for being Black in a mostly white part of town while crossing a road in a crosswalk after waiting for the light---that man did not have the option of driving away. When a policeman pulled him over, he had to stop whatever he was doing.

There was pizza in the front seat beside me. My family was waiting. Maybe the pedestrian's family was waiting for him to bring home some food, too. It was supper time on Saturday night. There was a grocery store across that road and several restaurants and take out places.

I was seized by one of those impulses that sometimes drive my friends and family crazy. I made a right at the next corner. I circled the block. I parked on the curb, near the corner where the policeman was grilling the pedestrian for the crime of Crossing the Road while Being Black. If that man had to give up ten minutes of his Saturday night, because some random cop thought he looked “suspicious”, then I would give up ten minutes of my Saturday night with him.

A second policeman arrived. This seemed like overkill. Both cops stood over six feet tall, and both outweighed the “suspect” (I put that in quotes because at this point I don’t know what he was suspected of having done) by at least fifty pounds. A third police car arrived. A third beefy policeman got out. The pedestrian was very calm. He was talking, smiling, making hand gestures, none of them abrupt, but I noticed that his hands never went anywhere near his body. Being a novice when it comes to law enforcement it did not strike me until the next day--today, Easter Sunday--- that he was making sure that none of the three huge policemen who were standing around him would make the mistake of thinking that he was “going for a weapon”. Which proved that there was no probable cause. I'm not a lawyer, but if the initial policeman had reason to think that a crime---besides the crime of crossing the road---had been committed---he would have already searched the man, right?

Now that there were two sumo types to keep watch over the dangerous pedestrian, the first cop got in his car to see if there were any outstanding warrants. The pedestrian continued to keep his arms well away from his body. But he had to be worried. I know I was worried for him. Did he have outstanding tickets? I know a lot of people--- people who would never dream of committing an act of violence---who do not have the money to pay their traffic tickets, especially if they get pulled over more often than other folks. I, the graying blond white chick almost never get pulled over and when I do, I always get a warning. I guess I remind the cops of their sisters/wives/mothers. Were unpaid traffic tickets enough to get a man hauled to jail on a Saturday night? Maybe he had something worse on his record. Maybe his record would be clean and they would have to let him go. Maybe he was a police informant, and this was a carefully staged bit of theater----no, that was the result of watching too many TV crime shows.

 After about twenty minutes, the first policeman came back. Bingo. He cuffed the pedestrian. He leaned him over the car. He searched him. He put him in the back of his squad car. The second and third police cruisers on the scene left. The first car drove away. I drove away. Forty-five minutes of my life. It felt much longer. Every few minutes or so, I would ask myself “What the hell are you doing here? You aren’t doing anyone any good. Those cops are not going to beat that man silly. He is too smart to give them provocation. And it is a busy street corner.”

But I couldn’t drive on. That man, who may have been walking to the store to get his family food, the way I drove to the pizza place to get my family food, he did not have a choice. Society took away his choice when it declared all dark skinned Black men “perps” subject to detention and a check for outstanding warrants at any time.

 Since I know you’ll ask, the setting was a Very Big City in Texas. But that does not mean that it isn't happening where you live. And yes, it really did happen. Exactly the way I describe it. Now excuse me while I go have a good cry. I think maybe this whole country needs to have a good cry.

Where's the part where she rebels? All she did was let the pizza get cold.

Now I see why the Proglodytes are so pissed over L'Affair de Bundy: the Progs wish they had the balls to stand-up.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024848326

[Big Dog]

To summarize:

1. DUmmy saw something
2. DUmmy did nothing
3. DUmmy cried.

Seriously, how many DUmp posts does that describe?

[Texacon]

She left out the part where this guy broke into a house down the street, sold drugs to an undercover, flashed himself to a little kid, pulled a knife on his neighbor ...
Bottom line, she knew nothing but is going to go have a good cry for the pedophile who abused a young man and they were simply checking his picture or waiting for positive ID from whomever he wronged.
Lord, they're pathetic. Would she have done the same for a white guy?

KC

[I_B_Perky]

So let me see if I got this right, Dummie. Some cop detained a black person for reasons unknown and you got all upset and let your pizza get cold? Did it ever occur to you dummie that maybe the cops were on the lookout for him, not because he was black but because he was a suspect in a crime? So when did you become all knowing and know the cops were stopping him because he was black? Did your scanner in the car report: "HQ, I got a black guy I am stopping cause he is black and need backup cause he is black"?

Let us just say the cops did stop him for being black. So why weren't you out there speaking truth to power, dummie?  Why didn't you follow the cop car to the jail and bail him out?

Are you a coward, dummie? I think so. That is why your types end up dead in the gulags.

[Dori]

That was painful.

She is clueless about why the cops took him in, yet she's worked herself into a crying frenzy over every imaginable injustice. 
 

[Chris_]

That story was terrible.  I want my five minutes back.

[diesel driver]

DUmmies wouldn't get any exercise at all if it wasn't for them jumping to conclusions, fabricating conspiracy theories, and running with them.

[Skul]

Won't even consider that as a bouncie.
Just a plain stupid lie.
  You DUmpmonkey, and your little dog, too.

[freedumb2003b]

To summarize:

1. DUmmy saw something
2. DUmmy did nothing
3. DUmmy cried.

Seriously, how many DUmp posts does that describe?

:devious: :devious: :devious:

4. Pizza got cold

I think we should use this as a term, as we do "Bouncy."

Usage: Nads' pizza gets cold while she observes jackbooted rethuglican storm troopers beat a helpless infant in its stroller

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

That story was terrible.  I want my five minutes back.

Peter Jackson has already signed a 3-movie franchise deal with options for a sequel.

[dutch508]

4. Pizza got cold

I think we should use this as a term, as we do "Bouncy."

Usage: Nads' pizza gets cold while she observes jackbooted rethuglican storm troopers beat a helpless infant in its with a stroller

 

[DefiantSix]

Lord, they're pathetic. Would she have done the same for a white guy?

KC

Only if the white guy was an obvious occu'tard.

[Delmar]

Response to noiretextatique (Reply #4)Sun Apr 20, 2014, 04:02 PM
Star Member McCamy Taylor (13,812 posts)
5. "Standard procedure" exists for a reason----and not the one they give us.

My mother told me a story about what used to be "standard procedure" for women. She was a computer scientist in the early 60s. She had applied for and been cleared for a job. Then the real boss got back. He summoned her into office. He had his secretary come into his office and sit on his lap. He told my mother his company only hired women for clerical jobs. He didn't dispute that she could do the job. She was almost certainly smarter than he was, because she is smarter than most people. He just didn't want a woman. This was before there were any laws about gender discrimination in employment. She tells it as if it is funny now, but back then it was not funny. Back then it made her mad. She was a single mother. There was a huge difference between supporting a family as a computer scientist and supporting a family in one of the "pink" jobs that men thought were appropriate for women back then. Women---especially single women who had to raise kids---could be relied upon to do grueling work for low wages out of desperation, especially if they couldn't get any other jobs. The reason behind the "standard procedure" is always about keeping an underpaid workforce available to make the Kochs Brothers Dixie Cups. Anything else that anyone tells you is BS dreamed up by groups like the Heritage Foundation to keep that low wage workforce. Oh, and to fill up the for profit prisons, too.

I understand the economic reasons we have so many -isms in this country. And understanding why they exist, helps us to fight them. You have to equalize financial inequality if you want to get rid of the -isms. But sometimes when I see an -ism up close with a human face it just hurts so much and I wonder how other human beings can take part in this charade. What if we all "called in sick" from playing our part in the -ism games? What if we refused to racially profile? What if we refused to offer minorities higher interest loans when they qualify for good loans?

Response to McCamy Taylor (Reply #5)Sun Apr 20, 2014, 04:25 PM
Star Member mountain grammy (3,920 posts)
8. As if your original post wasn't enough, this one got to me nearly as much...

I'm ready for a good cry.

Lame bouncy double-whammy.

[Tess Anderson]

That was painful.

She is clueless about why the cops took him in, yet she's worked herself into a crying frenzy over every imaginable injustice. 
 

agreed, whataliberalkneejerk. I need a good cry after reading that.

[USA4ME]

The McCamy Taylor primitive needs to be permanently banished to the Mental Health Forum.

 

.

[I_B_Perky]

Star Member McCamy Taylor (13,812 posts)
5. "Standard procedure" exists for a reason----and not the one they give us.

My mother told me a story...

Was this before or after she died? Something tells me it was after. 

[Mr Mannn]

If she had a cell phone it would have been on You Tube by now.
--pics or it didn't happen.

Another DUmmy lie. The elite do not care about the little people.
DUmmies may not be elite, but they like to think they are.

[thundley4]

That black guy is lucky the cops got to him before George Zimmerman did. Just ask Trayvon Martin about that.

[BattleHymn]

That story was terrible.  I want my five minutes back.

I enjoy comments like this^^^^.  It allowed me to skim the post, saving three minutes of my life.

[98ZJUSMC]

She left out the part where this guy broke into a house down the street, sold drugs to an undercover, flashed himself to a little kid, pulled a knife on his neighbor ...
Bottom line, she knew nothing but is going to go have a good cry for the pedophile who abused a young man and they were simply checking his picture or waiting for positive ID from whomever he wronged.
Lord, they're pathetic. Would she have done the same for a white guy?

KC

Yes.  Doesn't matter that they guy could have perpetrated one of the most heinous crimes imaginable, just that it appeared that the incident met s/h/it's self-described definition of racial profiling that s/h/it doesn't understand anyway.
 

[obumazombie]

I enjoy comments like this^^^^.  It allowed me to skim the post, saving three minutes of my life.

Thanks for ruining my business plan. I was about to offer lessons on DU skimming. I guess Skimmer will continue to keep that market cornered.

[BlueStateSaint]

I enjoy comments like this^^^^.  It allowed me to skim the post, saving three minutes of my life.

Oh yeah?  I saw that it was more than two sentences long, so I saved four minutes.