Source: Susan Chiang / Getty
At this point, saying “there are two Americas” is like saying “raisins don’t go in potato salad. It’s true, but it’s a dead horse we’ve been beating forever and white Areirica just keeps dismissing it. (In fact, it just keeps adding more raisins to the salad.)
Still, the world-wide-web keeps providing us with examples of how white people’s experience of America differs from ours—particularly when it comes to the police.
A video posted to Reddit reportedly shows an Alabama police officer in a confrontation with a white citizen that turns physical after said citizen appears to aggressively challenge said officer to a fight.
Now, to be fair, the officer did choke-slam the man to the ground after he got in his face, but that led to an actual wrestling match on the ground. They both got off the ground and continued to exchange hands (in like a finger-locking patty-cake kind of what, but still). The officer eventually tells the man he’s under arrest for disorderly conduct—a vague and lenient misdemeanor charge no black man could ever dream of getting after tussling with a cop—and the white man proceeds to resist. But through the whole thing, there never seemed to be any sense of urgency on the part of the cop, and, outside of the choke-slam, he showed relative restraint.
Where’s the drawn police firearm? Where are the tasers? Where’s the 9-minute-long chokehold? Was this cop not in fear for his life? Bruh, Black men are being heated and shot in the back for running from the police—this white man is fighting a cop and getting treated like he just barely did anything wrong. If this doesn’t put George Floyd into perspective, who knows what will.
What’s even more fascinating (at least to people who aren’t used to America being America), is that the white man stepped to a cop with his whole chest without any fear of what might happen as a result. Dude was even surprised he was being arrested. It didn’t even seem to occur to him that he could’ve been shot or severely brutalized. And that’s the thing—white people simply have a different experience with police that Black people do.
Just look at this white woman who says she and her daughter got stopped and questioned by police and is afraid that the diet version of what Black people have experienced for generations might be the “future” of policing in America.
And for contrast, here’s a Black woman who got in a Florida cop’s face and was immediately punched and tackled to the ground for it. The cop then lied and said the woman head-butted him, despite how clear it is that she didn’t.
Again, I have to be fair and acknowledge that this Black woman also stepped to a police officer with her whole chest, but imagine if she would have fought back after being taken to the ground. Also, imagine a cop knocking out a white woman for doing the same thing.
“Back the blue” enthusiasts are going to say I’m being anecdotal but the statistics on this are clear and they all add up to two Americas. That’s it and that’s all.
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