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In reply to the discussion: If you are white, did your parents give you "the talk" about how to behave around police? [View all]hunter
(39,225 posts)There's no doubt in my mind the cops would have shot and killed my grandma if she wasn't white.
She never had any brakes on her tongue and could size people up and say the nastiest meanest most cutting thing possible to them, didn't matter who they were. After she retired she lost her civility entirely, became a danger to herself and others, and the police and paramedics had to drag her out of her house. But it took many hours, she was cussing, screaming, throwing things, hitting, kicking, and in the end, strapped to a gurney, biting...
My mom thought she'd removed all of grandma's guns, and it was terrifying to everyone when my mom and my sister found more guns while cleaning her house. My grandma simply hadn't remembered where she kept them. Or maybe, if I want to feel generous, she simply didn't want to go down in a firefight.
My mom's not much better. As a kid I'd cringe and try to be invisible whenever she had a conflict with "authority."
School administrators were afraid to call her, no matter what sort of trouble I was in. My mom would be either indifferent, like the times I ran away from school and she'd say things like "Oh, I'm sure he'll be home for dinner," or else she'd storm into the office like a Mama Grizzly and someone would bleed. Trouble is, it was sort of random which mom they got. I'm pretty sure they'd call it "bipolar" now.
When I was a kid we were living in Franco's Spain. One day a plain clothes official came by to chat with my parents, to check up on the Americans, routine visit, and my mom didn't like the way the conversation was going and started insinuating that the guy was a little dick on a power trip. The fellow remained polite, but the rest of the day my dad was increasingly fidgeting and nervous. He packed all our stuff in the car, woke me my mom and my siblings up, and we drove to France on a two lane twisty road in the middle of the night. The Spanish border officials didn't bother to wake up, if they were actually on duty at all, lights on, no one home. The French border guard was disappointed my dad didn't have any cigarettes and waved us through.
As a young man university and local police knew me well and considered me mostly harmless. An interesting diversion from normal graveyard shift duties. I was always incredibly polite. They'd help me find my clothes on the beach among the piles of kelp. They'd drive me to my apartment and bang on the door until my housemates answered.
I reeked of white male privilege.
The worst I experienced was in Santa Monica. I'd arrived much sooner than expected, from out of state, and didn't want to wake up a new girlfriend too early. So I decided to park on the street and take a nap in my car. The cops were rough and I ended up on the pavement. When they realized I wasn't the "ordinary" homeless guy I looked like, they picked me up, brushed me off, and went away.
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