White girls in cars drinking coffee
I've been sick the last couple of days; cooped up in my dark basement apartment. I've been dying to get outside, but it's misting and cloudy, so I went to Starbucks drive thru and drove to a nearby park to sit and read. I opened all the windows and reclined my seat in the park's deserted parking lot. After a few minutes, a police car came up the driveway, pulled into the parking lot kinda fast and drove up to my car. I got ready to talk to him, but he averted course, drove around my car in a circle, glanced at my face (pleasant smile) and drove off again.
The whole situation left me feeling a little pensive. I'm a young-ish white woman in a ten-ish year old car, drinking tea and reading a book (though i doubt he got close enough to see that part) in a parking lot of a deserted park on a rainy day. How could the story have changed if I was a darker color and/or/and a different gender? Would that cop have still driven off? Possibly. Hopefully. Or would he have inconvenienced me? Questioned me, demeaned me, dehumanized me? Would he have given me the benefit of the doubt? If i got scared because of a lifetime of tense police encounters, would he have hurt me, tazed me, shot me?
I get the basics of managing risk. But having dark skin does not predispose us to be risky. Systemic oppression, un/official smear campaigns, mistrust, xenophobia, unequal opportunity, gerrymandering, propaganda have taught us that white girls in cars drinking coffee in a parking lot on a rainy evening are less risky than a black man in his home or his neighborhood or in his car drinking coffee in a parking lot on a rainy evening. And it hurts us all.
I haven't posted in a while, and I want to do my part; also, I wanted to tell this story, but not on Facebook. Thanks.
While you have some valid concerns and points about society as a whole, I think getting worked up about hypothetical thoughts and motives someone else has is never a good idea. You either end up taking into an echo chamber or looking like a fool to people who don't see the injustice as you do. I mean if he said "oh, sorry mam, I thought you were black" that'd be different entirely. There's no evidence one way or the other if he was looking to taze a black guy. Cops just go and check out weird stuff when they're not on a call. Maybe making sure you weren't teenage lovers about to bang. Maybe he was making sure you didn't look like a stoner or smoking pot.
I assume you know I wasn't actually getting worked up. It was supposed to sound thoughtful. It made me think about our society as a whole, how, as a white woman, I'm about as far down on the "threat scale" as a person can get.
In no way am I upset that he came to check out the car in the parking lot. I know exactly the reasons he probably did it; I would have thought that was obvious. The thing that made me thoughtful was that he glanced at me, perceived me to be "not a threat" and left. I could have been doing any number of nefarious things, but his instincts or his risk management training told him I wasn't. (or, who knows, he got a more important call, or he was terrified of me)
Then I thought how sad it makes me that our society has effectively created a population we perceive to be more dangerous (and put them in situations that can lead to more criminal behavior), and then we police and incarcerate them as if we are not the people who brought them here in the first place.
I don't think "that cop is racist;" i don't actually think anything about that specific cop. I was just thinking.
TL;DR Serious question: did you really think I was worked up about that cop after reading what I had written? I was just using him as a tool to talk about society.
Of course it did. But i'm fairly sure he couldn't see either thing. I'd set everything down and straightened up when it became clear he was turning into my deserted parking lot.
As I've been saying, i have no issues with this cop. I'm not blaming him for anything; the encounter (which could have ended because he got the sudden urge to have explosive diarrhea for all it matters to my post) made me think very deeply about societal race relations, gender relations, civilian/ police relations and I wanted to share it.
I also made very clear allusion to risk management and the societal factors upon which it is founded. I'm very glad that the police most often do risk assessments based on actions, but my thoughts turned then to those times when they didn't.
Oh man, had exactly the same experience, was in my 20 some year old car checking/using the laptop I had just bought off gumtree. They got close then their whole stance visibly changed when we made eye contact. I'm a white guy. They ended up just asking if I was ok and told me it was getting late.
It's a strange experience, isn't it?
Off- topic: what is gumtree?
Edit: remembered google was a thing and googled it.
For anyone curious : it's like Australian Craigslist
Big in the UK too.
Couple of things, you said you had your windows open and you were reclined. If they couldn't see you they were probably checking on an apparently vacant vehicle with windows open. If they could see you they might be checking you were responsive. Not uncommon for people to get high/drunk and pass out in thier vehicle. Maybe not being American but it being a race thing wouldn't have been my first assumption.
Again, it just made me think about (yes, american) society as a whole. I do actually know that this specific cop was just doing his job in coming up to me, and that there are just oodles of reasons why he did so. In no way do I think that he was rubbing his hands together in anticipation of me being a black man.
Tbh it's tough for cops, or any figures of authority, when it comes to profiling. Statistically, a white girl is less likely to be up to something criminal, right? But morally, is it right to assume that? You have to find the right balance of approaching different people. I don't blame the cop for not hassling you. But if you were a black man, or just any kind of man in general, I wouldn't blame the cop for approaching you with a little more caution, but still with respect and no weapons drawn lol.
Also, profiling isn't just limited to skin color or gender. Would you blame a cop for profiling a group of young kids that look like a rowdy, trouble making bunch? Or profiling a white dude that appears to be homeless/strung out on drugs while letting the clean-shaven black dude in a suit go? Sure there are double standards when it comes to white privilege, but you get my point.
I'm especially interested in thinking about what he would have done had it been you and your girlfriend. (That sounds a little suggestive.. baha) Assuming it was two consenting adults having sex in a dark, empty parking lot, what's the concern?
I guess it's hard to tell that it really is consenting from outside of a car at night. They could be worried about public indecency? Even though it's night? Maybe they don't want the place known as somewhere you can get away with stuff?
The first point is the most compelling to me.
Anyway, funny story, man. Thanks for sharing!
It would definitely be public indecency. You're not allowed to have sex in public places, even if it's consenting, and even if its night time. The logic there being people don't want to be subjected to seeing two people having sex in a public place, even if its night time. It also might be suggestive of prostitution, which is also obviously illegal in most places.
Honestly, there's a pretty simple answer: yeah, he probably would have engaged. You'd be more likely to be met with violence, on top of that. It's best not to think about it.
I would challenge that (in a friendly way), because I think it's important that we do think about this stuff. As a white person, I have the luxury (the privilege) to push these sorts of thoughts to the back of my mind because it's almost certainly never going to happen to me.
But when I have neighbors with dark skin teaching their children "hands up, don't shoot" even if it's just in case, I personally choose to sit with the uncomfortable thoughts. And talk about them sometimes. It's less than I feel I personally should be doing, if I'm honest.
I truly respect your right to do whatever you need to for your mental well- being, though, friend.
It's less "We shouldn't do anything about it," it's moreover that we probably shouldn't be like "Wow. That's something."
Keeping it in your mind by itself doesn't do a thing, honestly. Every person in Congress is publicly accessible; repeatedly sending notes makes an actual splash.
I should really follow your example.
It's really just "Whatever a person's cool with doing." I do think that thinking without doing just causes unnecessary stress, though.