One sunny day, back during my teenage years, I was riding down Main Street in Melrose, Massachusetts with three friends. I was the navigator; a highly coveted position next to the driver, who controlled the radio and teased the back-seat occupants. And I reveled in the position playing music they hated and giggling at them while they shifted in their seats searching for elusive comfort. I was especially merciless towards my crush, who was sitting behind the driver, screwing his face up in feigned dismay at the music. It was an all-American kind of moment. Up to, and perhaps including, the traffic stop.
Is there a teenager in the U.S. that is not immediately intimidated by flashing blue lights?
The car had a blown taillight, the officer explained, in a casual tone of voice. Until he glanced into the backseat and saw my crush, a black kid from Chelsea, Massachusetts. The officer’s tone of voice and body language changed within an instant. He wanted to know where we were coming from and where we were going. He was loud and it was scary.
As the navigator, I could see the bottom two-thirds of the officer’s body. I saw the way the muscles in his forearms tensed, saw his belly rise with an especially deep breath. I could see the driver’s meek profile; she looked as if she had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. But what I remember most is the dejected look on my crush’s face. His head hung low; his chin nearly brushing his chest.
The police officer walked back to his car and got in, the driver’s paperwork in hand. We could see him talking on his radio through the rear-view mirror. We were all quiet for a few minutes–the laughter from just five minutes earlier dissolved into fear, and, oddly enough, guilt. We had not been doing anything wrong. We were all sure of that, but still the car was filled with oppressive air. In short order, we got frustrated with the length of time we had been stopped; it was just a blown taillight.
And then we saw another set of blue lights pulling up behind the first, and another set still, pulling up behind the second. All four of us sat in horror. What could we possibly have done to justify this?
“It’s because I’m black,” my crush announced, in a matter-of-fact tone.
We all readily agreed. The rest of us were white. It certainly could not have been our fault that three cruisers sat behind the car. We railed at the injustice of it, blissfully unaware of how negligible risk we, ourselves, were in.
The traffic stop must have lasted around half an hour. The sunny day had descended into twilight. The officer returned with the driver’s paperwork and a written warning. In a stern tone, he advised us to go home. The driver, hands shaking, pulled back onto Main Street, keeping her hands at 10 and 2 the whole way back to Wakefield, a town that borders Melrose, and is, per the 2010 census, 94.7 white and 0.9% black.
I never forgot that traffic stop. At the time, I didn’t see it from many angles. I understood that teenagers are often stopped for seemingly innocuous reasons. I also knew that black people were unfairly targeted. This information was intrinsic. When my crush said that the overreaction was due to the color of his skin, no one in that car gasped with amazement at such a proposition.
Is it possible that the officer responded the way he did for reasons other than age and race? Sure, it’s possible. But it didn’t feel that way then and it doesn’t feel that way now.
I attended the protests in Boston on Saturday, August 19, 2017. I didn’t see every speech or event but I did listen to many black speakers. They gave speeches about income inequality, the cost of housing in Boston, and the very real concerns and fears they have when they call the police for assistance.
Hope Coleman spoke. Police shot and killed Hope’s son, Terrance Coleman, on Sunday, October 30, 2016. Terrance had documented mental health issues and he needed medical assistance. His mother called and requested that assistance. EMTs arrived along with police. From there, Hope’s perspective and the official’s perspectives diverge. Hope says her son was unarmed while the police claim he had a knife. In the end, Terrance was dead.
On November 1, 2016, the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) addressed officials Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, Boston Police Commissioner William B. Evans and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh in an open letter. In it, the organization asks the officials to do things like acknowledge Hope Coleman’s account of that day publicly, conduct a thorough investigation, and to invest in mental health services, among other things.
I ask my fellow white people, what is so offensive about these requests? When officials refuse to publicly acknowledge Hope’s claims, does it not suggest that her voice is unheard? I encourage you to read the YWCA’s letter in full and to read about their organization, whose mission statement is: “We aim to end racial disparities, end gender disparities, and promote social cohesion”. What part of that is there to disagree with?
Much hullabaloo is made today about identity politics, mostly proclaiming them as misguided at best and destructive at worse, but to that I would say, who are we but our identities? The motto of the United States is out of many, one (e pluribus unum), but, without the many, what, exactly, do we have?
