| sighs in "all the damn time" Privilege is real, a little anecdote. I'm black, I've had quite my shares of DWB stops and bad cop experiences (I detailed some of them on Twitter and in this subsequent interview). That Twitter thread blew up because so many black people chimed in (from college students to famous journalists to famous musicians) detailing their ridiculous experiences with cops. https://www.boredpanda.com/ridiculous-reason-black-people-st... One of the more "interesting" one was I was stopped by a cop in a suburb of Boston, I think it was Newton or Newtonville). The reason given was that "I was adhering too strictly to the rules" which made me suspicious. This was a read that had a 35 MPH limit and I was strictly observing that limit. So the fact that I was following the law made me suspicious. But the reason I was following the law (even when other drivers were speeding) was because cops will use any ridiculous reason to pull me over. Can't win for losing. Privilege is real and I see it every time I compare how I get treated with how my white friends (who share the same socio-economic profile and other markers to me) are treated. I dumped a white acquaintance I was giving a lift to Manchester NH on the side of the road when he pulled out a joint as I was driving and got belligerent with me when I got mad at him for endangering me and refused to put it out or throw it out. He just could not get it through his head why I, a black person at much higher risk of getting stopped by cops would take umbrage at his stupidity. I'm 47. I have never done weed, not because I think there is anything wrong with it, but because given how often I got stopped by cops (driving or even simply walking), all it would have taken was for me to have a joint on me for it to ruin my life. My white friends had no such fear. When I was younger and in college I used to work security, and sometimes I'd do security for concert venues. I saw how the cops treated predominantly black patrons vs white patrons. With black patrons, the cops felt their role was to intimidate and they tended to escalate situations and just generally be rude and aggressive. With white patrons, they went super easy (I worked security at the Fleet Center in Boston for a Fish New Years Concert (1995 or 1996 I think) (the band put on an amazing show and made me a fan of theirs that night)). White concert goers were walking around openly smoking pot (I drove home in the morning with my uniform reeking of weed) and the only things the cops would do was to occasionally ask patrons to put them out. Totally different from when the crowd was predominantly black (no black person in Boston at that time their right mind would even THINK! of lighing up a joint in front of a cop). The facial recognition issue is particulary vexing/scary for me (Netflix has a great documentary called "Coded Bias" about this) because there are 2 things that are true
1: Facial recognition systems are incredibly terrible at telling black faces apart
2: Any rule or perceived rule violation is going to be enforced much more harshly against POC. There is wiggle room and entreaties about being mis-identified are likely to fall on deaf years A good example of this confluence is the black girl who was put out of skating rink (at night, thereby putting her in danger) because the facial recognition system mis-identified her. The only saving grace is the venue did not call the cops (I'm pretty sure that things would have gone badly for the teenager)
https://www.newsweek.com/black-teen-barred-skating-rink-afte... |