Now, don’t get mad until you read the whole thing! I am in no way trivializing the cause of ‘Black Lives Matter’! I am a huge supporter of that. I just couldn’t help noticing that there was a small segment of white America… no, not the racists… that seemed genuinely more shocked by the African American men being handcuffed and escorted out of a Starbucks than they are when the news shows police officers shooting unarmed African American men.
I have a theory about why this might be. It is because your average white American doesn’t have that many face-to-face dealing with the police, and when they do, it is usually a polite affair. Even when getting a traffic ticket, most white people don’t feel that they are in any danger. They might even feel safe enough to give the cop a little attitude. Either that, or they just accept the ticket with no complaint, knowing full well they did what the ticket accuse them of.
That is because your average cop approaches the average white citizen in a manner that is not at all the same as the way they approach African American males.
In fairness to white people, the idea of worrying that a nervous cop might shoot you during a routine interaction doesn’t occur to most white people because it isn’t in their experience. Most white people haven’t been frisked or held at gunpoint. On the other hand, most white people have been to Starbucks, probably many times.
I am not making excuses for white people. I am just making an observation.
Pouring My Art Out 