Please mark true or false

Roller coasters are so much fun.

Roller coasters are terrifying.

Horror movies are the best movie genre.

Horror movies are the worst movie genre.

Cilantro is good on everything.

Adding cilantro ruins a recipe.

Seems silly, doesn’t it? There is no true or false; it all depends on your experience. If roller coasters make you sick, you won’t like them. If horror movies give you nightmares, you will avoid them. If you love cilantro and someone hates it, you wouldn’t defend its flavor and impose your opinion on the other person, right?

So why, do we as White people, insist a Black person’s experience with the police must be the same as our own? We call the police, and they are responsive, respectful and on our side. Why do we insist that must be everyone’s personal experience with the police? And in insisting it must be, aren’t we insisting the White way is the right way? Is a White person’s view more correct than the view of a person of color?

In my family we have four people, three White and one Black. My husband and I have had only very positive experiences with the police. My White son has also only had one experience with the police where he was the designated driver and was pulled over for having too many passengers. He too had a positive experience, although he did receive a ticket.

My son who is Black can’t say the same thing.

His first experience with the police was when he was a young teenager helping out at a family business. He was standing at the business and was surrounded by three police cars who were there for him. His crime? He was black and wearing shorts and a t-shirt and therefore “fit the description” of someone who stole an iPad.

His second experience was when he was walking at night near his college. A police car with its lights on pulled up next to him. The officer got out and asked my son for his ID. He asked him what he was up to, where was he going, where was he coming from – you know the stuff they ask you when you are “pulled over” for walking. Has that not happened to you? Me neither, and I walk quite a bit. Interesting, isn’t it?

His third experience with the police was when he was walking again. This time he was with two friends, and one of them was also a person of color. They were stopped on the sidewalk, put against the car, searched and asked to hand over their ID’s. The office asked “what are you up to? Going to smoke some weed? You look like you are up to something.” When the office found nothing incriminating, he told them he was “watching them,” and then let them go on their way. The problem was, he took AND KEPT their driver’s licenses. My son went back the next day to look to see if his license was on the ground somewhere. The officer happened to drive by at the same time. The officer asked again, “what are you up to? Why are you back here?” What are you doing?” My son explained he was looking for his driver’s license and asked the officer where it was. The officer explained to my son that he “was not the DMV.” He “didn’t know where his driver’s license was. It must be lost.”

His fourth experience was this past fall, driving home from his part-time job. The police followed him, pulled him over and explained there was a robbery. He asked my son if “he had seen anything suspicious.” Interesting isn’t it? I have never been pulled over and asked if I had seen anything suspicious. Something makes me suspicious that my son once again, fit the description of being a black male. Perhaps the officer wanted a whiff of the car or my son’s breath?

Should my husband, white son and I insist to my son who is black that the police are not racist and are all good people? Should we deny his experience and tell him his multiple times being pulled over might be just some bad apples? Or perhaps should we acknowledge there might be a difference between the way white people and black people are treated by police?

Parents of White children fear car accidents, overdoses and suicide taking their children’s’ lives. Parents of Black children fear the police will murder them. It seems wrong to correct them.