"Something Legal and Ordinary"

I have become increasingly ashamed of my "fellow" Americans. Every day or two another one of them makes the national news for calling the police on some brown-skinned person or people. It's not, "That person robbed a store," but, "There's a brown person in the store". It's not, "I saw someone commit a crime" but "I saw somebody brown." All they need to to do is simply be there, doing something legal and ordinary were they identified "white", but somebody feels justified in calling the police because, oooh, brown, scary! 

You can't play a bit too slowly on a golf course where you're a member, where any other group of golfers would be politely asked if the trailing group might please play through. Having a business meeting in a Starbucks is cause for arrest when you're brown, but common, even expected, if you're white. After all, hey, if the meeting drags on, you might order another round of  the overpriced slop.

Yeah, you, Starbucks: overpriced slop.

Don't even think of using the "wrong" B&B, or moving into the "wrong" neighborhood. Don't take a nap in the middle of a long session of studying on your own campus. And for heaven's sake, don't head home from the store armed with tea and Skittles because not only will somebody call the police, they will attack and kill you when they get too impatient that you're not arrested yet. Even worse, they'll not only get away with it because you're finally scared enough to defend yourself, they'll be hailed as a hero by their neighbors.

To all of you, all of you, I am disgusted by and ashamed of your behavior. I am ashamed of all the ignorant, stupid, frightened callers who think a skin color is by itself a danger, or worse, those of you who just find yourselves superior and use the police to punish not only the presence but the very existence of darker skinned people. And to you police forces around the country, I am both ashamed and disgusted by your frequent willingness to kill first and attempt to justify later.  Judges and juries, same to all of you who enable and reward such assumptions and brutality.

I think it's way past time for the cops to start arresting those folks who get them involved in such incidents for falsely reporting a crime. That false report is an actual crime, you know. Our police forces have more than enough real criminal activity to deal with, especially with more and more politicians cutting their staffing budgets in the name of lowering taxes. Not only should police be better staffed, they need to be better trained. DWB should never be an excuse to pull somebody over, and simply being black - or brown - should never be justification to pull your weapon before approaching. Anybody on the force who has that as their first, go-to response, with no actual cause beyond their own fear, has no business even being on the force.

Sure, if that make, model, and color of car is fleeing a scene, have at it. Carefully. But remember, even the whitest of us can't simultaneously obey "Hands on the wheel!", "Roll  down your window!",  "Show us your license!", "Don't move!" and "Step out of the car!" With six guns pointed at us, you understand where the terror comes from? And that's before adding skin color into the mix.

We've already heard of too many cases where officers unload their weapons into black people reaching for a cell phone, or into somebody running away from them, because, I guess, their shoes might kick up a pebble and you get a boo-boo? They might let loose a fart in your face from 30 paces? Or maybe the cop was just to fat and out of shape to chase them down so they drew their gun instead? And were exonerated!

Beyond just the attitude, what everybody - everybody! - should be scared silly about is a little piece of news from the recent NRA convention. Somebody has invented a pistol that, until you open it, looks exactly like a smart phone! Exactly! It's bad enough guns get made in pretty colors so young kids think they're toys to play with.  After all, who could possibly imagine one kid picking up a pretty toy gun and going Bang! Bang! at their sibling or playmate? What could possibly go wrong there?

But in a world where practically everybody has their own smart phone either in their hand or pocket, why on earth would a company disguise a gun so it's indistinguishable from one? Hey teacher, teacher, I bet I know, my hand's up, call on me? Could it possibly be so all those scary dark-skinned folks look even scarier when they're just doing something legal and ordinary and there's even more justification for violence against them?

And to think, some folks believe there's no evil in the world!