The donnybrook developing over the Henry Skip Gates and Officer James Crowley affair is amazing in that it shows the OJ Simpson decision-like chasm that still exists between blacks and whites. On the one hand you have black people saying, "See! America STILL is racist" and on the other, whites saying, "Reeeelax. Quit complaining, this happens to everyone."
In keeping with my pale skin, I have to say I lean toward those who say relax. This does happen to everyone (and it's happened to me on at least a couple of occasions). I don't have a love of police, precisely because they have the ability to do this sort of thing, and because when it does happen to you, it feels pretty galling -- especially if you're not doing anything wrong.
The two times I can think of it happening to me was when I was about 15 and weeding the garden of a friend of my mother's and another time when I locked myself out of my car.
In the garden, after I'd been sent to the pacysandra to uproot all manner of weeds, my mother's friend took off, apparently screwing up the setting of the alarm as she went. So there I was crouching in the garden when about five cop cars pull up. At first un-noticed, I just sat there benignly watching the cops. After about a minute, they notice me and went into full "cop" mode and pulled me out of the bushes, immediately assuming I was guilty of breaking into the house. The lead detective put me in a squad car for a few minutes then joined me in the back seat. He sat there staring ahead for a few moments, took out a pack of gum, unwrapped a stick and stuck it in his mouth, chewing slowly. He then turned to me and offered me a piece.
"So, what's your name?"
"T____," I said.
"OK, T___, what's going on? What do you need to tell me?"
"Tell you?" I said. "I don't know. Why am I in a police car?"
"C'mon T___," the detective said reassuringly. "You can tell me."
"Tell you what?"
"Tell me what you were doing in the bushes."
"In the bushes?" I said. "I was weeding the pachysandra."
"Weeding the pachysandra, hmm. Really?"
"Yes, for Mrs. C____."
"You know her?" the detective asked.
"Ah, yeah, she hired me to weed the pachysandra. She's a friend of my mom's."
"Oh.... um.... well, here she is now. Stay here."
They let me go after a few minutes.
The larger point is, I just took it all in. I didn't get all, "I blame society" on the guy. Not that I would have at that age.
As for locking my keys in my car, the cop grilled me over who I was, asked for my id several times (I think he was either drunk or an idiot). Anyway, it was a pain in the ass and he clearly knew it was my car. But he wanted to screw with me (drunk, idiot, that he was).
Oh well.
