Barack Obama’s days as president are winding down, and with them go the false hopes of his black brothers and sisters who thought America would finally be theirs.
It isn’t theirs. Neither is it mine, and it probably isn’t yours (whatever your skin color).
As any ordinary non-black American could have told ordinary black Americans: You can’t depend on politicians, especially those in the stratosphere.
Here in Oregon, we have a U.S. senator whose New York townhome recently went on the market for $7.5 Million. What does Sen. Ron Wyden’s life have to do with mine? Well, we both have light beige skin. That’s about it. (I also once worked with one of his old girlfriends.)
How is it that American race relations have blown up after almost eight years with a black president?
The myth of white privilege.
For too many black Americans, nothing has changed. Did they expect cops to stop looking for criminal suspects who were black when there was someone “who looked like them” in the White House? Did they think cops would no longer pull over black drivers who appeared to commit traffic violations?
If that’s what they expected from a black president, perhaps they should have come right out and said so: “We want the laws rewritten. No more traffic stops of black people. Ever. No more arrests of black people. Ever.”
Having a black president didn’t give black Americans a license to run from police or permission to put up a fight, but it looks like that’s what they expected.
White motorists are stopped by police, too. White suspects also resist arrest. When the encounters go awry, though, it isn’t necessarily treated as news.
What does it say about the black community’s relationship with crime that a willingness to cooperate with police is considered “acting white?”
In the midst of the recent racial violence, some media have offered a bright spot – the Atticus Finch virtual reality headset. The concept is based on the philosophy of fictional defense attorney Atticus Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee.
In the book, Finch tells his young daughter that the best way to understand someone else is to walk in his shoes. The makers of this virtual reality headset, which resembles elaborate ski-goggles, designed it to increase the user’s empathy. It takes the user into various scenarios in another person’s shoes and has them react.
The subtext of some of the media stories about the virtual reality headset is that it will open up the world of black America to white America. Why stop there? Perhaps black America should open its eyes to white America.
Here are five encounters that my brother has had with police over the years. How would a black man, wearing a virtual reality headset, react in these encounters?
First a description of my brother: He has light beige skin, stands 6-foot-2, is solidly built and in his younger days looked like a brawler. (Donald Trump would love to have my brother’s hands.)
INCIDENT #1: My brother was flying from Klamath Falls, Ore., to Phoenix, Ariz. While standing in line waiting to board, he noticed two cops looking at him. He thought he was being paranoid (he hates flying), but then another cop joined them, and the third seemed to be studying him too.
The next thing he knew there were two cops standing on one side of him and three on the other side.
“We need to take you out of line and speak to you.”
My brother told himself to cooperate. Why not? At one time, he wanted to be a cop. Then one of them grabbed his arm.
“I jerked away from them. I could see right then they changed.”
As they walked him away, people stared. The officers took him down a hallway, and the moment he was out of public view, they told him to put his hands behind his back. They handcuffed him.
They led him into a small room.
“Being in handcuffs, the room feeling like it’s closing in on me, I started to panic,” he said.
The cops told him he fit the description of an escaped convict who was believed to be armed and dangerous. They needed to verify his identity.
One of the women who worked refueling the planes at the airport knew my brother from having worked with him at a supermarket. She had seen them leading him away.
“He’s an escaped convict,” someone told her.
“He is not,” she said.
While the police were confirming my brother’s identity, his plane took off. Eventually, they determined he wasn’t an escaped convict, uncuffed him and showed him a picture of the man they were looking for. My brother said he did resemble the guy. He tried to joke with the police.
“He does look like me, except I’m better looking.”
The officers apologized and told him they had arranged for him to be on the next flight. Our older brother, who worked at San Francisco International Airport at the time, was more upset. He told my brother he had grounds for a lawsuit.
“I ended up showing up in Phoenix two hours later. It wasn’t like it was the end of the world,” my brother decided.
INCIDENT #2: My brother was living in Southern Oregon and had just purchased an older car that still had California plates. He left the parking lot of Wal-Mart in Talent, Ore., and pulled into traffic. It was a brightly lit commercial area. He saw an oncoming Talent police car go past him and noticed in the rear-view mirror that the cop did a dramatic cowboy turn and came up behind him, lights flashing.
My brother sized up the cop as he walked up to the driver’s-side window: “He was a belligerent prick.”
“What are you stopping me for?” he asked the cop.
The officer didn’t answer directly, just wanted to see his license, insurance card, car title. He examined them and re-examined them and called for reinforcements.
“Listen asshole. Either tell me why you are stopping me, or this conversation is over.”
Two more officers arrived.
“You’re nothing but a candy-ass,” my brother told the cop.
Meanwhile, his wife who was sitting in the passenger seat, was growing increasingly upset.
Finally, the cop told my brother his license plate light was out.
“How could you tell my license plate light was out with all the lights on around here?” my brother asked him. Then he laid it out to the cop what was really going on:
“You saw an older car, you saw it didn’t have Oregon plates, you thought you were really going to collect, thought I wouldn’t have insurance, wouldn’t have papers, and you were going to collect big money from me for the city of Talent. Write the ticket.”
Then the cop one-upped him to remind my brother who was boss.
“I’m not going to write you a ticket. I’m going to give you a warning.”
INCIDENT #3: My brother was driving from California to Oregon, and it was extremely foggy. He was going about 40 mph on the freeway. It was still too scary for his wife and son.
“Honey, slow down,” his wife said.
“Dad, slow down,” his son said.
My brother slowed to 30 mph. Everybody was passing him – except for the California Highway Patrol officer who pulled him over.
“Have you been drinking?” the officer asked.
“I don’t drink,” my brother replied.
“He hasn’t drunk in years,” his wife chimed in.
The CHP officer told him he was driving so slow he thought he was drunk. My brother laughed.
“I’m so glad to hear you say that, officer.” Then he explained why he was going 30 mph.
INCIDENT #4: My brother was working for a maintenance company in Portland and driving a company truck that ran out of fuel by the side of a freeway outside the city. A state patrol officer stopped to see what was wrong.
The officer looked in the back of the truck and noticed there was a gas can. Since the truck was in a dangerous spot, and there was nothing else going on, the trooper offered to give my brother a ride to a gas station.
“I have to follow regulations, though,” he said. “I’ll have to frisk you.”
Anybody driving by would have seen my brother with his hands on the hood of the patrol car while the officer gave him a pat-down.
INCIDENT #5: My brother was managing an apartment complex in Portland, and his two young daughters were visiting him. He saw a man in the parking lot take out his penis and urinate in front of the girls.
Enraged, my brother confronted the man and slugged him. The guy got up and staggered away. The police arrived, and my brother told them what happened.
“If he comes back again,” one of the officers told him, “knock him out and give us a call.”
Each one of these incidents could have ended differently for my brother. At the airport, had he run from police, what would have happened?
During the traffic stop, even though he mouthed off to the cop, he still cooperated. What if he had refused to show his license, etc.? When he called the cop a candy-ass, what if he had made a movement with his hands – towards a pocket or to open the car door?
When he was pulled over by the CHP for driving too slow, he kept a sense of humor instead of railing at the officer for not going after speeders.
When the Oregon State trooper frisked him, he didn’t protest even though a public pat-down can be humiliating.
When the Portland police didn’t immediately offer to go hunt for the guy who urinated in front of his young daughters, he didn’t get in their faces and yell, “If this were the mayor’s neighborhood, you’d do something!”
If my brother had been black, and if any one of these incidents had turned deadly and led to a media pile-on, President Obama would have been quick to find common ground with him. Without knowing any context, Obama would have intoned against systemic racism and the criminal justice system as he has in every high-profile, officer-involved killing of a black man since he took office.
On Sunday morning after three police officers in Baton Rouge were shot dead, Obama had the gall to say: “Everyone right now focus on words and actions that can unite this country rather than divide it further.”
In seven-and-a-half years, Obama has divided this country like no other president. (Who could have predicted in 2008 that Americans would be arguing about transgender bathrooms?)
His daughters will never wear a police officer’s uniform. His daughters will never be forced to live in a high-crime neighborhood.
His black daughters can “act white” with no condemnation.
If more black people were encouraged to do the same, perhaps they could catch some of that white privilege that they think abounds.
– Pamela Fitzsimmons
“Obama had the gall to say…” In the age of Trump I think it is no longer possible to accuse anyone else of exhibiting “Gall”.
I’ve never expected much from Donald Trump so it would be hard for him to irritate me. He’s not a Republican or a Democrat. He belongs to the Celebrity Party.
Obama, though, what a disappointment.
Just so I understand where the bar is can you tell me a President who for you wasn’t a disappointment?
I don’t have a standard to point you to, Tom, since I don’t usually get my hopes up over presidents. At least I didn’t until Obama’s “historic” victory. I had friends who were convinced that he was going to be something special for America, that he would be the best thing that could happen to the black underclass. Some of their optimism rubbed off on me. Thus, the disappointment.
Hillary vs. Trump? The presidency isn’t what it used to be, but neither is the electorate.
If Obama were anyone else he’d be called to account. If a gay man of accomplishment died and at his memorial a prominent official said “There are of course Americans who find his lifestyle an abomination…” there would be universal condemnation.
Speaking of studies…this one by Harvard is fascinating…
https://www.nber.org/papers/w22399.pdf
“On the most extreme use of force – officerinvolved
shootings – we find no racial differences in either the raw data or when contextual
factors are taken into account”
Thanks for the link. I only skimmed that 63-page report. Roland Fryer, the author, acknowledged in a New York Times story that he was surprised there was no evidence of racial bias.
The problem with these studies is it’s difficult to know all of the factors involved. The cop’s bias is questioned; the black man’s bias is not. I understand why blacks don’t like cops, but I also understand why cops are more leery of blacks. You can’t make the two sides accept each other.
In the Times story there was this quote from Fryer: “It is hard to believe that the world is your oyster if the police can rough you up without punishment.”
Maybe that’s part of the problem — thinking the world is supposed to be your oyster. For most people, it isn’t.
I think this fellow Dunphy is an LA Police detective. He writes with current, first-hand police experience. I often disagree with him, but his seems a legitimate view.
His platform is at PJ Media a conservative website where I often disagree with the writers.
If you click on his name you’ll land on a page with past columns and so can assess his batting average and his judgement for yourself.
Jack Dunphy is the pseudonym of a police officer in Southern California.
https://pjmedia.com/blog/the-origins-of-the-war-on-cops/?singlepage=true
I read several of Jack Dunphy’s columns. (A friend of mine in law enforcement suspects that “Dunphy” is more than one cop or that the original “Dunphy” has passed it on to other officers.)
Anyway, I think Dunphy hits the mark most of the time. I liked his analysis of what’s wrong with the news media. He’s also right about the next Orlando. Of course, there will be another.
Here’s an example of where the media’s one-sided inquisitiveness meets the next Orlando: Among the photos used relentlessly by the media following Omar Marteen’s rampage was of a protester holding a sign saying “Stop Killing Us.”
Since when did gays become sole homicide targets? Welcome to the great wide world that heterosexual men and women (of all colors) have been living in. Yet such photos were used repeatedly. The Portland Mercury even slapped one on its cover.
Another thing about the Dunphy columns was some of the comments. Quite a range. On the Orlando piece, one commenter invoked memories of Castle Bravo and laid out a disturbing scenario: “I’d turn the (Kaaba) into a quark-gluon plasma with a B-41 thermonuclear weapon.”
Could something that catastrophic be realistically planned for America? I hope not. The Obama Administration has been using drones to drop bombs on civilians, which invites a come-uppance.
Interesting how our media condemn some single acts of violence and urge a collective deep breath and conversation over other acts of violence. It wouldn’t surprise me if violence nurtured by groups like Black Lives Matter and ISIS ends up swaying the presidential race more than the media or Republican/Democratic party leaders.
Thank you for the clear, direct, and representative (and brief) personal examples of police contacts. Many men and women have had similar experiences.
However, reality has long since ceased to matter. The raw data doesn’t support the assertions of police racism, the refined data doesn’t support the assertions, and personal experience doesn’t support them.
If Black Lies or the President or enough university professors were to assert that gravity were a lie, provided a racial element could be introduced, it would become racist to assert its existence.
“Are not the satisfactions of being a good man among our common men not adequate for us anymore?” I loved the sentiment of that quote from the eulogy that begins ‘The Big Chill’ and I think of it when I hear Obama or Carter described as presidential failures. Obama and Carter are examples of not so much great men but decent men. For me that’s at the top of the list of the Presidential job description but apparently it’s a character flaw in leadership in this day and age because it makes you a loser. Trump cannot even pretend to act like an adult let alone a decent human being. I’m a parent and I’ve raised toddlers and Trump is an overgrown toddler and that should be terrifying. To hear intelligent people blithely say our Government can handle a crazy president because of the separation of powers put in place by the founding fathers. That the system has even let someone like Trump be put up for vote shows some serious cracks in the foundation of our Government. A year ago I joked that our next president would be a Republican no matter who the Republicans ran as a candidate hell the Republicans could elect Hitler after 8 years of a Democratic White House. Ha ha. I was joking and now we might all die laughing. Remember that the Weimar Republic was a representative democracy with separation of powers too. Hitler was elected.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. That’s a good quote from “The Big Chill.” A friend of mine likes something similar from “Saving Private Ryan,” where the man saved by Tom Hanks’ character (who is deceased), is in his 70s and visiting the U.S. Cementery in Normandy, and he asks his wife, “Was I good man?”
We live in such a celebrity-driven age that merely being good or decent is treated like a big so-what. If you’re a nobody, who cares how decent you are? With Carter and Obama, once they became president — and thus celebrities — their decency quotient became irrelevant.
Trump has been a celebrity for years. That’s where he gets his power and ability to draw public and media attention. The movie quote that this presidential race reminds me of is Howard Beale’s “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore” from “Network.”
What’s interesting in your comparison of Trump as an overgrown toddler is that too many Americans now act like overgrown toddlers. It’s practically encouraged.
Look at how the media, some politicians, our educational institutions, the mental health-substance abuse treatment industry and parts of the criminal justice system have embraced the latest psychological theory that the human brain is still developing well into our 20s. Thus, adolescence lasts until … who knows? Maybe the “experts” will eventually decide that adolescence runs until age 30. (How did the men representing the generation in “Saving Private Ryan” manage to save the free world considering how young many of them were?)
If Trump gets elected, are we all going to die laughing? I don’t think he’s going to get elected. I can almost write his concession speech: “It’s just as well I didn’t win the White House. I’m not ready to downsize.”
That doesn’t mean a Clinton victory is anything to cheer. Historic or not, it’s time to scale back the Inaugural festivities.
Well then the denial of a Trump Victory will certainly be a reason for a National Holiday. A global exhale that will probably cause a slight uptick in the CO2 levels.
Believe it a mistaken belief that Carter and Obama are “good men.” Both have been made grotesque by the ailment of opportunism.
An objective review of Obama’s rise to power in The Windy would tell one all one needed to know about that “good” man.
An uglier soul or character than Obama’s has never set foot in the White House and that is going some. Then again, I look at his dialogue as coming from a different film, The Usual Suspects. His actions, too.
A good that Obama does share with Carter is more or less a permanent good press, with the current occupant well, no need to carry on. But, hey lets us break that glass ceiling in November! Heaven knows what all would break with Trump triumphant.
Is there a Troll Guild? Do you organize like labor unions or are you independent contractors? Do you publish a style guide there seems to be some real uniformity to trolling posts it can’t be accidental.
Well, I suppose someone disagreeing with your POV merits name calling and it does seem to be a tactic one could acquire while “parenting.” Moreover, I think I can understand your impulse to go for a “guild” analogy.
The fear of facism, Hitler, Wiemar thing – it doesn’t work at all, trollistically speaking.
I think the man that was born of immaculate conception in the stable of Chicago ward politics is a major four-flusher. And I stand by my assertion that he’s been given an absolute pass by the media. The chief reason to elect a Republican is so that the news people will resume their duties as gadfly, muckraker, and truth hunters.
As a citizen, a man and a parent you should embrace paragraphing.
Tom and Larry: At the risk of sounding like a badly written editorial, you both have good points.
Congratulations, Larry, for defending the Republicans. I’ve been asking friends if they know anyone in the Portland area who will say they are voting for Trump. They couldn’t think of anyone. As one of them pointed out, it would be an invitation for vandalism to even put a TRUMP bumper sticker on your car.
And, Tom, I understand why you think Obama and Carter are decent men. In Carter’s case, he turned out to the most useful ex-president. (He built houses for people!).
The media have been soft on Obama, and it did not help him. That may change once he leaves office. There’s a hint of it in the Aug. 1 “New Yorker.” In a story called, “The Guantanamo Failure” by Connie Bruck neither Obama nor Clinton come off looking honorable or even decent. They are in over their heads. More critical coverage like this could have helped Obama be a better president.
The media’s coverage of Trump is classic pack journalism. Do they assume he’s going to lose as badly as Goldwater so they don’t have to try and appear fair? The media run the risk of turning Trump into an underdog — and Americans love underdogs.
If I vote for Trump I prefer not to think about it right now. The other option is not to vote at all.
I see Hillary in Frank Underwood terms but with out the political skills.
Reagan blew my mind and I thought of him as a bizarre hallucination for years. But, I now accept that he was his own man and have to admit he was effective in areas that matter to me. I was in Central America (including Nicuraguga) for part of his first term. His actions there were ghastly and …
I have a friend whom I keep at a distance. He is a merciless and successful charlatan. The key to his success is twofold – he believes his own rubbish and he knows to an inch how far to push a lie, swindle, or other crime. This is how I see the Obama’s.
When I read about them I am put in mind of the Massachusetts journo who noted the entitlement benefits Mary Jo would have received because of Teddy’s political efforts, had she lived. Well, yes. I suppose had she lived she would have seen great entitlement changes.
The future will be savage on the Obamas for their race-baiting and grim and grimy determination to keep the nation divided by any means possible. The better for voting coalitions.
Bernie Sanders is nothing.
Yes, the media is so rabid in the attack of our own PT Barnum that they might just lift him over the top.
The Soviet Union unraveled so quickly, The Eastern Bloc …It can happen to us in my lifetime. I’m 61 this year I no longer have the massive physical vigor required for survival in a societal collapse. It is not difficult to foresee an existence in some awful drab world similar to that in which the Russians lived in in the wake of their 1918 revolution.
The only fact I know of in favor of Carter’s decency is that he wasn’t permitted to cross the threshold at the White House by the present administration. that, and I think the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Bowden was fair in his exculpatory book on the hostages.
Bowden and Langewiesche and Filkins – journalists who do their job. I support Portland’s unmentioned but very good Michael Totten, too.
I was still teaching in 2008 and voted for Obama. I don’t want a do-over. I want him to live up to all the expectations! Instead we got the Black Lives Matter and a media that adds fuel to the fire every chance it gets.
A friend worked for Bernie, and when I told her I didn’t think Trump was the devil incarnate she threatened to end our friendship if I voted for him. This is what political conversation has come to!!
I can’t vote for Trump. Like Larry says, he’s PT Barnum. I’m also sick of Hillary and her lies. FOUR YEARS OF THAT VOICE? As for the dire warnings about Trump’s access to the nuclear codes. We trusted Bush-Cheney with them and survived.
Trump has kids. He doesn’t want to destroy the world. If the truth is known he didn’t intend to go this far. That’s how desperate Americans are for change. For me it would be better not to vote.
I like your prediction on Trump’s concession speech. Downsizing! That’s how he’d look at the White House.
A step down!
We could learn something from the Brits on how to choose a leader.
Your blog commentaries on race and police work are some of the best I’ve read. I’m ex-cop who took disability retiremnt because of work injuries I sustained from one of those unarmed guys whose supposed to be so harmless.
One thing that hurts cops in this country is this notion that we’re The Finest. Cops are like anybody else. Some better than other, some just competent, a few who are time bombs. Calling us The Finest sets us up to standards even Obama couldn’t meet.
Your brother’s encounters with the cops could have gone wrong if he’d done things different. He stayed smart even though he was pissed. When your brother mouthed off to that cop who pulled him over, he knew how far he could go. He didn’t reach for the cop’s gun. Michael Brown would still be alive if he’d done things different.
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