The Uber arrived, a man of about 25 from Somalia, and he made the exit onto the highway. I didn't say much, as I'm not really a chatty person with strangers (small talk not being my forte), but I did notice that he was speeding. I also thought this was strange as in Minneapolis there's a well-known speed trap when you're exiting onto the interstate where it's four lanes, almost always no traffic, but you're expected to go only 45 MPH, and this guy was clearly going about 60. Sure enough, the red lights started flashing behind us, and my driver pulled over.
I will never forget what happened next. The driver was panicked, not so much in the sense that we all are when we get pulled over, but true fear. He whispered out loud, "it'll be okay-you'll be fine," I think more to himself than to me in the backseat. The police officer, a thin man in his mid-40's, tapped the window, and in a condescending and demeaning tone, started going in on the guy, clearly enjoying pulling over the man who was obviously intensely frightened. After about 30 seconds of this, the Uber driver finally referenced that he was an Uber driver, and that there was a man in the backseat, something that the officer, who saw the empty passenger's seat and clearly assumed the man was alone, hadn't put together.
The officer looked back into the backseat, and saw me, and I replied "good evening officer," in my typically Midwestern accent, and suddenly the policeman's demeanor changed entirely. He asked "how are you doing tonight?" asked where I was coming from, and inquired about the final score of the Wisconsin game I'd just witnessed. I politely responded, and then answered his reply that we were headed to a suburb where I lived, and the cop quickly ran the driver's plates, and then issued him a warning, which had not been where I think any of us thought this was headed when he first tapped the glass and seemed to take an unhealthy amount of joy in keeping the driver in the wind. He said to slow down, waited for the Uber driver to thank him for not giving him a ticket, which he ignored, and then waved and smiled to me in the backseat and bid me, but pointedly not the driver, a good night.
The entire drive home and for days after that I thought about that moment, and was sincerely bothered by what had happened. For, of course you put this together but considering conversations of this nature frequently need to be spelled out-it was clear that the color of my skin had gotten us out of that ticket, and made the traffic stop very different than what would have happened if I hadn't been in that car. For, like the police officer, I am also white, both of us clearly from the Midwest based on our speaking patterns, and by circumstance I am not only white but was coming back from one of the quintessential straight male pastimes, a football game at a bar. I have been pulled over before, but I have never known the fear that that driver felt in those moments. At best, I was worried about getting a ticket and having to report it on my insurance, but there was a more urgent fear of what would happen "during the traffic stop" that I had never experienced. Watching that condescension, that superiority and malice from what the cop initially turn over to the pleasant, good-ol-boys-in-trouble sort of joshing that came the second he saw what color my face was, was alarming, and it spelled something that I have always believed and known, but never before had seen first-hand: justice is not color blind, and it is harder to be black in America, particularly when it comes to the judicial system, than it is to be white.
I have known this for years, based on things I've read and anecdotal evidence from friends, so I didn't need this experience to show me reality. I'm not a Doubting Thomas only able to understand things if I've seen them first-hand. But watching this play out was shocking, and makes my skin crawl when I think of all of the young black people who have been shot-and-killed during arrests or traffic stops. Only the densest of people wouldn't acknowledge that there is a clear problem in our criminal justice system when it comes to race. One in every ten African-American men in their thirties is in jail in the United States, a staggering number, but not the only statistic that should alarm anyone on this front. African-Americans are 3x as likely to be suspended than white students, and there is no state in the country (not one) where white students are expelled at a larger rate than white students. Considering that there is a direct correlation between graduation rates/scholastic achievement and absenteeism, missing school, particularly for minor offenses (students of color are more likely to be disciplined for Zero Tolerance Policies than white students), means that African-Americans are affected disproportionally by having lower graduation rates in both high school and college, which of course irreparably affects their economic prospects for the rest of their lives.
And yet, despite this evidence, despite testimonials from thousands of African-American people who speak about what it's like to deal with the police in a situation that's different than that of white Americans, that statistics bear out their claims that the judicial system is hardly balanced when it comes to race, people still insist, INSIST that there is no problem, and I have to wonder why. Is it sheer ignorance? It's hard to imagine people who have such heartily-formed opinions not having encountered the actual facts about prison incarceration and how it disproportionately affects communities of color. Is it simply racism? Is it just that those people assume that African-Americans should be graduating at a lower degree and sent to jail more? It's hard to pin that on every person, though perhaps that's more of the truth than we're letting on. No matter what, though, the truth is not getting through to those who make decisions like the President, Congress, governors, and state legislatures. These bodies could implement education policies that could curb the school-to-prison pipeline (alternative punishment methods that don't involve missing classroom time, limiting the importance/frequency of standardized testing, improving student-to-faculty ratios) and implement criminal justice practices that will limit the affects of racism in policing (required use of body cameras through federal matching funds, eliminating mandatory-minimum sentencing, ending private prisons).
These are vitally important reforms that could dramatically change a major problem of racial injustice in America, and yet we have a president and a Congress that refuses to acknowledge that they are occurring, to the point where they actively antagonize those who want to point it out. Trump publicly wished for a Black Lives Matter protester to be "roughed up" and this past weekend chastised Colin Kaepernick and Stephen Curry, two athletes who are standing against his policies, and in Kaepernick's case, refuses to stand during the national anthem because of the treatment of African-Americans in the United States by law enforcement and the criminal justice system. Trump's actions, his blistering ignorance and racist demagoguery, just prove that Kaepernick's actions are vitally important-that he is using his celebrity and platform to bring light to an issue that might not otherwise be seen, and clearly hasn't been seen by legislators in the United States, and in particular a president whose greatest liability-as-a-leader is the fact that he can no longer recognize reality.
So to all of the athletes and fans today attending games and kneeling, I salute you. Racism is not what America should stand for, and as Donald Trump, in his position as POTUS, has framed kneeling now as a way to stand up to not only racism, but also against his brand of politics, I metaphorically join you. What you are doing should make every freedom-loving American proud, and hopefully will be a wakeup call for legislators across the country that racism affecting education, criminal justice, and so many other walks of life is an indisputable truth. An ugly truth, a truth we can address through dialogue and legislation, but a truth nonetheless.
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