Lights flipped, pulled over, relax brother
JC Ousley
Houston, TX
In 1998 I bought a new red corvette despite my mother’s plea, she said the car was trouble for a black man. On the day the car was delivered, I was driving to my parent’s home to show off my new vette when I was pulled over by three Chicago police cars, the officers, all white, had their guns drawn as they approached me. There was a black officer who arrived later and remained in his vehicle, I looked directly at him and he looked away. The officers asked me where I was going and what I did for a living (I’m a medical professional). I politely told them and asked why I was pulled over. I never got an explanation. While I waited for them to check my plates and registration, I took the opportunity to have the “talk” with my 6 yr.old son who was in the car with me. The officers returned my drivers license and registration and told me to have a nice evening. Shaken, I continued on to see my parents and I never told of the incident. My son who is now 20, never forgot it.
Never arrested for Driving While White.
Deb Vaughn,
Gaithersburg, MD.
I can drive around with anything in my car and never get a traffic stop. If I were a Person of Color, that would not be the case. My parents never had to have “the talk” with me…
Terrified of driving because I’m black
Andre Conway,
Beachwood, OH.
I am an 18 year old`African American man. Even though I am happy about being black, at the same time I am terrified of getting pulled over because of who I am. All the killings that are going on in our country just by police officers are crazy. Black people are losing their lives by just getting pulled over. That is not cool at all and that hurts because one of those people could’ve been someone I knew or even me. And I find that really messed up that I have to worry about not making it during the day just because I’m driving a car while black.
Black, he fixed it and me.
Winslow Parker
Portland, OR
Back story: She was from upstate New York, I from San Diego; both of us from snow-white neighborhoods. It was 1971. Grey-brown smoke on the the northern horizon still lingered in my mind; Watts burning. We moved into the thin white line on the eastern edge of the Grand Concourse young, naive and terrified of the mixed-race neighborhoods that spilled into the center lanes of the Grand Concourse on weekends. We walked to work through the neighborhoods and swept broken glass from the playground of the school where we taught.
One evidence of our naivete was the presence of our Pontiac Tempest living with us in the City. One Sunday, shopping for some small item of furniture, we parked under the elevated a few blocks west of the Grand Concourse. Returning to our car, it refused to start. My knowledge and ability at car repair, then and now, fits into a thimble with room left over.
I raised the hood, gazing with glazed eyes at the engine. I fiddled with a wire and shouted to my wife, “Try it again, trying to impress my bride.” She did. It clicked but no response from the engine.
“Having a little problem?” The words drifted over my left shoulder. I turned and look up and up and still farther up till I could focus on the black face of one of the tallest men I’ve ever seen.
“Problems?” he repeated.
“It won’t start,” I mumbled, fear gripping my gut, knowing I’d lose my money or worse before this interchange ended.
He leaned into the engine compartment beside me, touched a wire and said, “Try it again.” Nothing. His hands disappeared into the engine’s innards. We repeated the process.
“I know what the problem is,” he said. “You need a new thingamajig.” (Substitute some car part for “thingamajig”–I don’t remember and probably never knew what it was anyway.)
“I’ll be back,” he said. “I’ll run down into Manhattan and get the part.” He jogged across the street to the elevated stairs and disappeared.
Some time later, he reappeared with the part, removed the old one, replaced it with the new and said, “Try it again.” The engine roared to life.
I turned to him in amazement and gratitude and thanked him. It was truly an amazing thing. I reached out between us to shake his hand; his engulfed mine. He smiled and turned to go.
“Wait, let me pay you.”
“No, man,” he said and finishing the turn, disappeared into the crowd.Something melted within me; a bit of fear slid away, a lot of mistrust, a block of prejudice I hadn’t even known lived inside of me.
Black, he fixed it and me.
I’m tired of fearing the police.
Brier,
Olny, MD.
I’m white, but I’m poor, I drive a beat up car, often with people of color in my car, I am not a threat to anyone. Don’t come at me with your hand on your gun. Don’t pull me out of my car and put me in handcuffs because I wear hand-me-down thrift store clothing, I drive a beat up car, and my friends are black. I am not guilty of any crime and neither are my friends. Don’t judge us and we won’t judge you.
Evident when driving on the highway
Casey
St. Peters, MO
Driving brings out the worst in all of us, no? I think I have done a good job in life of respecting people for who they are in spite of having been exposed to many stereotypes and prejudices, some involving race, in my short 30 years…but then I catch myself being cut off while driving. And what are always the first things that come to my mind? How do I handle this situation mentally? I don’t typically just think, ‘what a terrible driver’. It usually comes with some eye-rolling and an acute awareness that the driver’s license plater says ‘Texas’ loud and proud on it, or that they’re driving a Mercedes, or that they’re driving an old beater, or that they’re a certain race or that they even appear to be a certain stereotype within a race. I think to myself, ‘go figure, they’re XYZ.’ Maybe the person is actually quite like me, driving a car quite similar to mine. ‘This is why women have such a bad driving reputation,’ I think to myself. ‘Thanks, lady, for re-enforcing the stereotype.’ As if it’s no shock that I was cut off because of some physical, geographic or material attribute that has nothing to do with what just happened…even when they’re similar to me. The truth is that I’m angry because I feel like I have been wronged. I would be angry no matter who did this. So why do my thoughts instantly conjure up ‘excuses’? I’m sad that I think this way, but acutely aware that we are all guilty of this at times – even if it remains an internal thought. Driving in a car is just an easy example because it is something that nearly all of us can relate to, obviously these instantaneous thoughts seep into other facets of life without my realizing it until I really dig back retrospectively.
I was at Michele’s talk last night in St. Louis, and I think the most important message in that talk was supplied by a story she told regarding her grandmother: ‘Focus on the children’. I don’t want to harbor these thoughts, perhaps that’s why I’m so aware that I just had them. So why are they there? Perhaps because I was exposed to them, whether at home, school or work, somewhere along the way my brain decided that ‘this is how you react to being cut off on the highway.’ Maybe if we all resisted tagging on that extra, unneeded thought when driving on the highway with our kids, they would never have those thoughts. Maybe we could just say, ‘Ugh, what a bad driver, they could have caused an accident,’ instead of tacking on that bit about ‘ah, they’re XYZ, go figure’.
No black people in your car.
Cynthia Cahoon
Moyock, NC
In 1970, I was a junior in high school and new to that school. As a member of the drama team, I made friends with Julia and Carlton and friends ere few and far between when you’re new. Since I had a car, after school and before drama practice, I would drive my friends to the nearest store for snacks. Somehow my parents found out my friends were black. I was threatened with the loss of car privileges if I ever let a black person in my car again. “What would people think?” I cried for hours. How could I tell some of the best friends I had made in my new environment that I could not be friends with them, only because of their skin color? It was a life- changing moment for me.
Good intent can still be racist.
Thomas Hei
Newcastle, WA
It doesn’t matter if one uses the N-word maliciously or benignly not intending to harm, it can still be racist. If I accidentally hit someone in my car, I am still held accountable.
