[o-__-o]

I have an imposter! But friendly reminder that police are not your friends and you should not talk to the police unless it is absolutely necessary and even then stay tight lipped.

Figure I’ll add a story about being black and driving a nice car. One day I had a flat tire and pulled into a gas station after hours to change the tire. I didn’t have a lug wrench and the kid working in the store didn’t have one either. So I called triple A. With an obvious , and I mean my rim was sitting on the ground, flat tire. Mr big bad cop comes up and questions me about why I’m here. I explain the AAA situation. He asks for my license, I ask why, because there were robberies here and I’m a suspect because I’m parked here. I make a dramatic turn to the flat tire on my car. And ask him where I’m going to drive off to. He puts his hand on his holster and asks if there is a problem.

This is what happens more often than we realize and is the reason why my cars are no longer registered to me from a personal capacity, and why I have a dark tint on my windows. But more importantly it’s why people of color have an unfounded anxiety from simply driving a car. It’s a sad state of affairs but I am blessed that I can look back and laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

After he took my license guess who showed up? He quickly got out of his cruiser, walked over, gave me my license and peeled out. I said “you’re not even going to say good bye?” as he was waking away. The AAA driver, also a white man, had some choice words for the police and we bonded on that during the ride back to my house.

[jonfromsf]

Hey sorry to derail from the larger point but I am super curious. Can you explain the registration thing to me? How does it help to be driving a car registered to someone else? I feel like that would make a cop more suspicious / be harder to explain.

[o-__-o]

It makes the cop look bad in court if you have to go to court. A cop should not pull you over just because you do not look like the owner of the car. Friends and family drive other people’s car all the time. But you are right that with a different name you are sometimes scrutinized by some cops.

In my case, my car is registered to a business. No one knows who is actually driving and it makes fishing for drivers much harder from the police perspective. Combine with a dark tint and you have some sense of privacy (even if it’s a false sense of security because cops can pull you over for something they thought happened)

I have stopping thinking of it as driving as a black man, but driving as someone who wants privacy (when I tinted my wife’s car first I felt like a celebrity because no one could tell who was in the car nor who I was :D )

[secondcoming]

So the white guy also had bad encounters with the police? Maybe they're just dicks to everyone?

[o-__-o]

Maybe! But intimidating me because you want to run my license is a shitty move regardless of race.