I grew up in Plano, Texas. We moved there in 1970 when it was only about 5,000 people and Custer Road wasn’t yet paved. But, by the time I was driving age, it had grown into a suburb’s suburb. When you imagine a Texas suburb, you’re pretty much imagining Plano: Aggressively middle-class (with a few liars on either end of the scale), major streets laid out on a perfect grid around cul de sac riddled subdivisions, lots of green space, lots of shopping, and everything west of the freeway was extremely, uniformly, white (slight exaggeration, but…).
Growing up there, I believed that all of this and all of my experiences were normal.
So, when I started driving, my parents had the talk with me. No, not that talk. That’s gross. It was the talk about dealing with the police. My parents, either assuming that I would drive with the skill and care of an average teenager or else just knowing me really well, figured that it wouldn’t be long before I would be rolling down my winding and handing over my license and registration. I guess that hardly required a crystal ball.
What they told me has remained with me to this day. “The police are there to help you.” “If you treat them with respect, they’ll treat you with respect.” “Don’t make their job any harder than it needs to be; their work is dangerous and they never know when someone could try to hurt them.”
This was good and reasonable advice for me. It has served me well. I seldom got tickets when I was pulled over and never felt threatened. I saw friends mouth off, ask them if they had any “real” criminals to catch, and those friends always got tickets. I’ve been cuffed a couple of times, both of which were richly deserved, but otherwise, my interactions with the police have been reasonably neutral.
So far, so good. What I did not understand at all was that what was true for me was not true for everyone. Of course, I assumed that it was true for all people, and that proved to be highly fucked-up. If you believe that the police will treat you well if you treat them well, and you see the police treating someone badly and you’re not especially well-versed in how the world works (i.e. ignorant AF), the assumption is that that someone did something to deserve their bad treatment. There are unspoken assumptions that go along with privilege if you’re not aware of it.
Here’s an example: For years, I’ve told a story about one particular run-in with the law. I was driving home from Prestonwood Mall on the night of the first Dallas Mavericks’ playoff game. It was on the west coast, so if I hurried home, I could just about make it in time for tip-off. Hurry I did, going over 100 mph on Preston Road in an old VW Beetle. The light at Campbell Road turned yellow and there was no chance my little rear-engined, drum-braked car would be able to stop, so I just kept on going. There was a police car at the light ready to turn on to Preston, so I was good an truly busted. I had my car stopped and my license out before he even turned on his lights.
The officer approached me and said “Boy, we don’t do that around here. How fast was you going?” I told him 105 mph. He shook his head, took my license, and went back to the car. He had to call it in because this was back in the dark ages before the internet. 20 minutes later, he came back and said “Boy, I’m gonna teach you a lesson…a lesson ‘bout honesty. Since you was honest with me about how fast your were going, I’m only going to write you up for 55 in a 45.” A few pleasantries and thank yous later, and I was off and home by the second quarter.
I used to think that this was a story about the wisdom of treating the police with respect. It isn’t, though, is it? It’s a story about my privilege. Because I was (and remain) white and suburban and, yeah, respectful, I got out of what could have been a very bad situation and very possibly a night in jail. It wasn’t because I was good or smart; it was because of my privilege that I emerged unscathed.
Anyway, I wish all of my blind spots had spot lights on them like that so I could re-examine them and try to course-correct. Spot lights are easy, though. Blind spots require digging around through things you already know and haven’t really questioned and you have to be prepared for the possibility that you weren’t quite the hero of your story you thought you were.
-RK
PS-I’ve been depressed. Really depressed. The sort that makes returning phone calls feel like they require a herculean effort and writing has been out of the question. I’m working on it (especially now that my side hustle is restarting), but bear with me.