(ThyBlackMan.com) Yesterday, I was on my way home from Bible Study, diagnosing a little of Trip Lee’s music, when I notice the blue light special. The cop jumps out his car with flashlight shining and…
This is the point when things change depending upon the perspective. If I was a white guy, I would think nothing of it and chalk it up as a mistake. But, I am a 6’3, 270 pound black male riding in a truck with chrome rims, so I fit the stereotype that scares police or deems me as a problem. So I presume the stance-two hands on the steering wheel. (Funny thing about this is that I just had a conversation with a white sister, that as black father we have to teach our sons this stance as soon as they learn how to drive.) The officer comes up to the car and says license and registration. I respond what is the problem. He said, “You made an illegal turn into the far lane.” My thought and response was “are you serious.” Now instantly, I thought he was stopping me because of 
the area I cut through or simply because I was black.
True be told, he was just stopping me because he was doing his job and I was wrong. He said he had been in a real bad accident, so he was real anal about those types of turns. He did not give me a ticket but just wanted to make sure I knew.
It was at that point that I realize that racism is a built in trait of America that rears its head at the slightest appearance of maltreatment. It is so woven into the fabric of the American psyche that it is goes unnoticed the majority of the time. It is a response to the years of unfair treatment from the hegemonic forces-local and governmental- that hindered the humanity of a particular group of people.
The response is a conditional relapse of disavowed power coincided with the stark reality of life. In other words, racism is a reactive emotion for those who thought they had something but find out that it was actually worthless. In America those experiences come a dime a dozen. White folks believe that racism in almost non-existent and blacks see it all the time, sometimes when it is not there. The reaction though is always a permanent emotion for both sides due to the sheer nature of living under such an environment built on false premises in America.
Here is another dynamic, white folks are now starting to feel this pitch because the tide is slowly turning as they become the minority. Now they are starting to feel like they are being racially engaged in their life. It is not a fun feeling- I can assure you. Bottom line is that I am starting to buy into Derrick Bell’s ( author of Faces at the Bottom of the Well ) perspective more and more, as he suggest that racism is never going be eradicated from the fabric of America, so deal with it.
The question that is left on the floor, “Is this ultimately going to signal the destruction of any type of unity across racial lines?”
At the end of the day, I saw that regardless of the reason that a cop pulls you over, for most black males there is an instant hatred that swells up inside of them. Rather wrong or right, the feeling that occurs when one is pulled over is deflating. Racism is always at the first thought that arises out of the experience.
Staff Writer; Brian Foulks
More articles can be found over at Mr. Folks personal website; Brian Foulks.
