When stealing a car is no big deal but "reckless eyeballing" is.

   Shout out to one of my regular field Hands, Lilacpr, for bringing my attention to one of the following stories.

Anyway, just to show you how white privilege works I am going to cut and paste a couple of stories for you.


"A woman in Los Angeles, allegedly under the influence of drugs, reportedly stole a car and led police on a wild chase before coming to a stop, jumping out of the vehicle and dancing awkwardly to Future’s latest single.

Initially, when I saw the video, I gave it my “White-people-are-a-trip” chuckle. But the more I watched it, the less funny it became.

After a couple of minutes, I was more resentful than amused.

While Black women need police escorts for laughing too loudly on trains, White women can lead police all over the place before jumping out to do a jig in the middle of the street. I kept thinking what would have happened if her skin had been a little bit darker.

Her White skin gave her the benefit of presumed innocence even though she had stolen a car and was lifting and tugging on her shirt as she exited it. She could have had anything under those layers of t-shirts.

Sandra Bland’s cigarette was a problem.

Sandra Bland was called defiant and arrogant but this White woman taunted the police with dance moves and it was funny. And more importantly, as far as I know, she’s still alive today."

Watch here to see what the writer is talking about.

And then of course there is the flip side to this story. You know....the black side.

"John Felton was driving to his brother’s house in Dayton, Ohio, on a recent night when he noticed a police car tailing him. Not wanting to give the officer any excuse to pull him over, Felton, who is black and was visiting Dayton from Michigan, tried to drive extra carefully. But the effort was insufficient: Soon after making a turn, Felton was forced to stop his car and show the officer his driver’s license.

It turned out Felton had not switched on his turn signal at the exact right moment; as you can see from the video Felton made of the encounter and sent to talk show host David Pakman, the white officer told him he had failed to signal within 100 feet of making his turn.

 

But why, Felton wanted to know, had the officer decided to follow him in the first place? That’s when the stop went from being an ordinary illustration of racial profiling to an extraordinary one.

"You made direct eye contact with me and held onto it when I was passing you," the officer told Fenton.[sic] The implication was that Fenton [sic] had marked himself as a suspicious character simply by looking at the officer." [Source]

Now I have to tell you as an officer of the court who is somewhat versed in the law, it is not illegal to make eye contact with a police officer.  In fact, quite often if you don't make eye contact you will give the police officer an excuse to say that you are behaving in a suspicious manner.

But we get it. If you want to stay alive in certain parts of the country, it might be a good idea not to "eyeball" those in authority. In case you didn't know "reckless eyeballing" has been a thing since the days of slavery. It's what got Emmett Till --and countless others---- killed back in the day.   

Anyway.....

"Update, Aug. 28, 5:10 p.m.: The city of Dayton put out a statement about the incident, acknowledging that "making direct eye contact with an officer is not a basis for a traffic stop.” The statement implies—but doesn’t say outright—that in pulling Felton over for not signaling within 100 feet of a turn, the officer was complying with a Dayton police initiative called "Safe Communities Through Aggressive Traffic Enforcement,” aimed at reducing traffic-related fatalities. The statement also says that the police department "is in contact with Mr. Felton,” and that he "has agreed to a conversation with the officer, facilitated by the Dayton Mediation Center” that will "allow Mr. Felton and the Officer to discuss the specifics of the incident.”

I would love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation. Although I am sure that it won't be very long. Unless, of course, Mr. Felton doesn't look the officer in the eye.

*Pic from madamenoire.com