General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: When Traffic Stops Go Bad -- How Cops Demean Black and Brown Men [View all]pipi_k
(21,020 posts)that being white and/or female makes a difference in treatment...
No. Sorry.
Two incidents from the mid 1980s:
1. I'm driving to work in a light rain on a state highway in my little Honda Civic when I'm pulled over by a State cop. Reason? Because my headlights were not on. I'm not disrespectful to him. I do what he tells me to do. I open my glove box to get my registration and he sees a bottle with white stuff in it. "What's that??" he asks. "Salt", I said. "Why are you carrying salt around?" Me: "Because I eat at fast food places a lot (I did) and always forget to ask for extra salt (true)". I forget if I invited him to sample some of it to verify what I told him. He was NOT nice to me. Gave me a warning...whenever the weather is bad enough to use windshield wipers, drivers must always have their headlights on.
2. Trip to Canada that went bad. Boyfriend (at the time) and I stop at customs coming back to the US and are questioned by a very nasty agent who decides that two white people in an older model car who don't answer him the way he wants them to are a couple of drug smugglers or worse. We are pulled over and subjected to humiliating car and body searches. Meanwhile, I am sitting there wondering how many real smugglers/terrorists are slipping through. In the end, we are allowed to go free with a half-assed apology.
White people. White man, white woman.
It really can happen to anyone.