The Scene staff
There has to be a law against police stopping you whenever they feel like it, and their only excuse is, “You fit the description.”
Whether I’m traveling in a car, riding a bicycle or just walking down the street, I’ve fit the description on more than one occasion.
Somehow I resist the temptation to even get upset about racial profiling.
If I said what I wanted to say to whomever decides that I fit the description, then one thing would lead to another, and before you know it, I’d be in cuffs. Or the trigger-happy police, who just can’t wait to carry out their own form of swift justice, would be rolling out a stretcher.
Why should I be another statistic?
Yeah, I’m heated personally, but this is the type of harassment — excuse me, “patrolling” — we are calling for in our communities. Isn’t it?
Thirty cars stolen, vandalized or broken into on one night, in one neighborhood, on one parking lot. This is the story being discussed in local media.
What we don’t hear about is the fighting between neighboring subdivisions, or the five lawn mowers stolen in Hanley Hills.
As a young adult, I’ve had my run-ins with law enforcement. And maybe it’s a pride thing, but when you’ve tried to stay on the right path, and you know that you’ve done nothing to be treated like a criminal, something in your gut tells you, “This just isn’t right.”
Then again, I understand why profiling occurs.
People are going crazy all over, but especially in the United States, there are more weirdos than ever. Pedophiles and sexual predators are assaulting children and women in broad daylight, as if it’s normal behavior. What the (four-letter word)!
People act as though they are so disconnected from their surroundings that they can’t see what’s happening.
I feel that “We the people,” as Thomas Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers so famously put it more than 250 years ago, should be capable of governing our own communities. But if we don’t get a handle on crime, martial law isn’t so far away.
The poor economy already is putting enough pressure on Americans. Many can’t afford to live on their own with minimum-wage jobs.
It also seems that education is not a priority in American culture. I mean, any time a society decides to bail out a car industry while allowing multiple school districts to shut down or a whole city (Detroit) to go bankrupt — there is a serious disconnect between the government and its citizens. But that’s another topic.
So, I ask you, should I be upset about racial profiling?
Maybe so. It’s not me out there robbing banks. I’m not kidnapping or raping women or children. I’m not stealing car stereos or lawn mowers.
I shouldn’t be treated any different than other Americans who work 40 hours a week so they can get a loan to make ends meet. But “dat’s anuda topic.”
Youths are always looking to spread their wings. In some neighborhoods, we see them after school, walking, running, jumping and playing in the street because they don’t have a park, basketball court or even an empty field to play in.
When police patrol these deprived communities, they add fuel to the fire by telling the kids not to run, jump or play “over here” (wherever that may be).
The kids can’t even have company in their front yards without authority figures assuming they are up to mischief.
And their elders make it no better. They are the ones playing the paranoid role, calling city officials, when their only reasoning is, “I use to be that age. You think I don’t know what they up to? I wasn’t born yesterday.”
Argh! Just ‘cause you did it doesn’t mean I’m gonna do it. I mean, “they” gonna do it.
Excuse my frustration. It’s just that now I can’t even take a walk in my own community without seeing flashing lights and hearing police orders from a loud speaker.
Seems like I’m walking through a Parliament function every day where I stay.
Heaven forbid I take a jog. That would cause a national manhunt for a “dark-skinned male, last seen stretching on Quiet Tree Lane, looking suspiciously like the man involved in last year’s attempted theft of the stick hanging out the back side of a public official. He was last seen walking into 1 Quiet Tree Lane, when he used a key to open the door.”
Again, should I be upset?
Maybe, but then I remember we are causing ourselves to be profiled when we contribute to the ills of our surroundings, either directly as culprits or indirectly as people who see crime but won’t say or do anything about it.
The unwritten “no-snitching” rule is being implemented at the wrong times for the wrong reasons. Somehow we think it will just magically lift when our property or families fall victim to these same criminals.
So the next time I get profiled, I won’t get mad. I will simply respond, “Hey, officer, what seems to be the problem?” And what will be, will be.