So I'm a white girl from a very white suburb and I have never really dealt with REAL racial discrimination up close and personal-- until tonight.
My friend BP invited me to a party tonight and I was sooo excited to go with him because I knew it was going to be a good time. I knew we would be drinking there and I was hungry so I asked him if we could stop by our dorm's nacho night and get some food before we went. He agreed and we stopped by and got some food-- SOOO GOOD! Then we went to his buddy E's car and waited for their other two friends C and T. C & T get in the car and we start driving to the party. Next thing I know we're pulling into a one-way drive by accident and then there's the flashing lights of cop cars. Ok, so E made a traffic violation. No big deal, RIGHT?! So then the female cop comes up and tells E his brake light is out too. Still, NO BIG DEAL. Next thing I know, she's asking for ID of everyone in the car because she smells alcohol (I was in the passenger seat and didn't). And then TWO OTHER COP CARS COME IN and another kept circling back every couple minutes. BP, E, and I were chewing gum. C&T weren't so she made them get out of the car while the 3 of us waited 15 minutes bc we'd been chewing gum. They both refused a breathalyzer and she put them in the back of a car. Fair enough. So when our 15 minutes were up, she made BP and I both get out of the car. She handled me in a decent manner. Obviously she was firm because I was a minor and SUSPECTED we'd been drinking. This was my first breathalyzer I blew a 0, obviously. BP had to go next. She was soo rude to him. She spoke to him in a raised voice, while he politely answered every one of her questions. When she asked if he'd been drinking and he said "No" she looked at him and said, "Well, I dunno, but we'll see if that's the truth." (Why would he lie? The statement was completely unnecessary.) He also blew a 0. Then E went. E got frisked, handcuffed, and taken away. Apparently something was wrong with his ID and the fact he was driving a car from Georgia. So they sent BP and I back to the car, told us we'd probably get pulled over again bc of the brake light, told us to pick up E in 45 minutes, and sent us on our way.
What gets me is that the two sober people in the car (besides myself) were the black guys. The white kids were the ones who ended up in trouble. Also, why was a total of FOUR CARS needed to handle 5 kids who were clearly not out to make trouble? E later told us it happens to him almost all the time when he's on the road past 11. This is so wrong it's unbelievable. In our time pulled over we saw 2 other cars do the same thing ours had done in the one-way drive and various others on the road. Why our car? Why so much backup? Don't tell me racism doesn't exist. It does, and the varying treatment of the passengers in our car is proof.
What gets me is that they treated the sober people, who were the most polite to them (and just happened to be black) worse than the guys who were clearly drunk douches and were white.
This post was originally written by E3
University of Michigan · Undecided · 15 Dec 2006
