The secret white world, according to some minorities

[Honeycombe8]

The Gates incident has reminded me of a skit that Eddie Murphy did once on SNL. He is made up as a white person, and goes through his day, to show the audience the "secret" world of the white person. Like any Eddie Murphy skit, it was pretty funny. He goes to the store, and when he reaches into his pocket to pay, the other customer in the store leaves, and the white clerk signals to him that he doesn't have to pay for the item. The white clerk indicates '''' you know, between us....you don't pay. Then Murphy goes on to do other things, and when no one else is looking, he gets favored treatment all along because he is white.

Sometimes I think that some minorities think something not too far from that skit. The skit was funny because it was so not reality, but maybe a tad close to how some may envision reality for white people.

It is true that minorities are hassled by cops every day. But it is also true that thousands of whites are hassled by cops every day...because of how they're dressed, who they are, where they live, or who they aren't (Harvard professors or wealthy people, for instance). I'm a white woman, but I've had cops be really mean to me just giving me a speeding ticket. You'd have thought I'd just run over some kid intentionally. Despite my being respectful and cooperative, too.

Having white skin doesn't mean we float through life without difficulty or hassles or enjoying some regal status. Despite all past Presidents being white, that hasn't seemed to have helped any of us regular, white people get paid more or have better parents or get a better education. If we're rude to policemen, we can expect to be treated accordingly. Here in Texas, you'd be arrested if you yelled at a cop. I don't know if the charge would stick, but they'd slap handcuffs on you for that.

Ava Gabor, another rich person who thought she could treat a lowly working officer disrespectfully by slapping him, found herself arrested. As did Mel Gibson, Robert Downey Jr., Sean Penn, and a whole host of rich white people.

Every day, thousands of white people land in the slammer, and are stopped and given traffic tickets or scrutinized through secret cameras in stores if they dawdle too long on one aisle. I can imagine that the minority person may be scrutinized a bit longer and harder, but they would scrutinize all of us. There's no white ticket out of being watched, scrutinized, hassled, and having to comply with rules and requests by the authorities.

Every day, minorities are hassled even more than white people are. I get it. But the Gates incident was not one of those occasions. It does a disservice to the real incidents to try to compare the Gates incident to the others. Gates....a wealthy Harvard professor, is not a young black man dressed in hip hop fashion who is hassled daily by the police. Not even close. Gates just flew off the handle, and the way I see it, thought he was too important to have to comply with a working person's request, and of course, he no doubt has some trauma from his experiences as a young man, that he revisited on this new person who was doing nothing more than his job. Older folks can be like that. That's why older folks are slow to accept gay marriage, mormons as Presidents, women as equals. It's just hard for them to move into a new century.

I will admit, though, that women in general, of any color, probably get gentler treatment from authorities, as long as they're respectful or act reasonably. But maybe it's because we women are more likely to behave reasonably with figures of authority than men?