Oooh, I also have lame white p eople persecution stories! Mostly, it was being pulled over as a long-haired teenager for a bs infraction so they can run my plates, but they always let me go on my way. Once in Chicago, I drove the wrong way for 20 yards on a one-way street to get into a parking lot. I had no idea it was one-way and I didn't understand why the cop stopped me. He said I went the wrong way and I said sorry. He told me that I knew it was a one-way street and I just figured I could do it to get into the parking lot. No, I said, I honestly didn't realize. And then he told me that if I didn't admit that I knew it was a one-way street, he'd give me a ticket for it. I thought I'd be getting a ticket for it, but now I saw a way to get out of it, so I lied and said I'd known. Maybe that's privilege striking again, but the thing that really stands out to me is what is this cop's life like that he engages in such petty power trips as that? My wife, who is black, once had a gendarme point an assault rifle at her in the Paris subway when she was carrying a portable wooden art case. This was the time of the Paris subway bombs. No one's ever pointed a gun at me. Even the time I was robbed at gunpoint, the robber had the decency to hold the gun down at his side. A black relative of mine skidded in the snow and hit a lightpost, wrecking his car. Boston PD arrested him for destruction of public property. He got it thrown out later because the lightpost wasn't damaged, but that didn't prevent him from sleeping in a jail cell. That one galls me.
As a black child growing up in Houston (Acres Homes) during the 60's we were taught to avoid the police - especially HPD - at ALL costs. I grew up knowing that law enforcement was NOT my friend but was there to kill me if they ever got a chance. My grandfather raised me how to never give them (police) that chance. This was during the reign of HPD Chief Herman Short and the events that led to the deaths of Daniel Webster and Jose Campos Torres. To this day, I remember what he taught me and have used those lessions to teach my son and grandson. Sadly, the situations that I lived through back then are still with us today.
To add two more incidences. During the Rodney King Riots I was working as a reporter for my school newspaper. I got assaulted by three looters when I took a picture of a group breaking into the Berkeley Gap. I escaped them out into the street just as a line of riot control came down the street swinging. I barely missed getting clubbed in the head by an LEO. I don't think he was targeting me but just swinging blindly. During the RNC in St. Paul. I was watching the one of the protests and wasn't even participating. I was walking in a parking lot and I saw an LEO in riot gear looking at me. He lit a flash bang and threw it at my feet. I thought "Oh Sh^t!" just as it went off. I was blinded and stunned for a few seconds. Other than that I've been pulled over for speeding tickets, don't feel they were always fair but didn't feel I was victimized. I was arrested during an antiwar protester but the arresting LEO was calm and even courteous. I remember after I was zip tied and led to a bus he asked me "How's your day going?" and I said "it could be better" and he got a good laugh.
Cop threatened to rip off my head and **** down my neck(he wasn't even being original) at west oak mall parking lot when I was a kid. Wasn't even doing anything except being a minority kid.
