Bad Boys II

[*michaelsean*]

(05-31-2018, 06:13 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: It's been a while since I posted on this board and in my first post back I'm actually siding with fredtoast on this. What have you done PhilHos?

Anyway.... I'm kind of in disbelief by your statement. What exactly is it about "today's climate" that makes it hard to believe that an average citizen would call the police on some black guys "doing nothing wrong"? You know what's funny is the remark itself is pretty subjective because it's left up to everyone's personal opinion of what exactly should be considered "doing something wrong" enough for the cops to need to be called. For some people, being black is enough "wrong" for the cops to be called.

Just for the record, I don't think I've ever stated my race on here (at least I don't think I have) but I am black. A black man in fact. And I have had the cops called on me when I was doing absolutely nothing wrong. My wife was actually in disbelief when I told her the story because she couldn't believe it and thought things like that "doesn't really happen". My wife is white by the way.

You know what I was doing "wrong" that warranted the cops being called on me? I was in a parking lot changing the tires on my car..... Seriously. It was a nice sunny Saturday and I thought "Hey it'd be nice to change my tires today" so I pulled into the parking lot by my apartment and started changing my tires. About a half hour into changing them I see a cop coming down the street in his patrol car. I saw him flip on his blinker and begin to turn into the lot and I immediately said to myself "Annnnnnd here we go".

The cop gets out of his car and walks up to me and asks what's going on and I tell him I'm just changing the tires on my car. The cop then literally says to me, and I'm not making this up that, "We just got a call in about you out here messing with your car". And then he proceeds to ask me questions about my car and even flat out asks me if it's MY CAR, and asked for my license and all that good jazz. You think the person that called the cops was just being a good "average citizen" and wanted to have the cops bring me a glass of lemonade?

I'll tell you why they called the cops that day.

The neighborhood I live in is a predominately white neighborhood. The car that I drive is a clean white dodge charger. When I pulled into that lot and got out of my car to work on my tires some individual who lives in one of the nearby houses saw that I was black and that I was driving a nice car and thought that either 1) I stole it or 2) that I must be selling drugs to be able to afford it. 

Do you honestly believe that if I had been a white guy the cops would have been called?

Hey MATT we figured out the man part.

Generally I’ll blame the person who called more than the cop. They rely on people seeing something suspicious and calling it in. They don’t know that for a particular person black=suspicious. Btw...who doesn’t think black people can afford a Dodge? That’s extra bad. “He’s driving a Caravan and I’ve never seen an honest black man that can afford a Caravan”