I started writing this piece a while back, then put it on the shelf “to cool.” As I suspected, the media would give me another chance to engage, and they just did. There’s a New York Times article entitled “Black Behind the Wheel” (link). Here’s an excerpt that interested me, dealing with when the driver, a black man, was pulled over many years ago in rural Arkansas:
I heard the shrill siren of a patrol car, and saw flashing lights in my rearview mirror. I cut off my music, and pulled to the side of the highway. A white patrolman, hands on his holster, moved toward my vehicle. . . . I was petrified. When the patrolman asked for my license and registration, and where I was going, I channeled my elders. I kept my hands visible and was performatively polite, even reverential. This routine always fills me with self-contempt, but here, on this lonely highway, it seemed to be working. The policeman disappeared into his patrol car, and left me waiting and waiting. Eventually, he returned and without a word, handed me my I.D. and walked off. I sat there for a few moments, shaken. I lived. But a part of me died that day.
Ron Stodghill, “Black Behind the Wheel”
The writer’s reference that he “channeled his elders” calls to mind “The talk.” Perhaps you’re already familiar: “The talk” is a discussion black parents have with their children, explaining how to behave when the police inevitably confront them, just for being black in America. The talk may be prefaced with a lengthy discussion of violence perpetrated against innocent victims, or the inherent racism of American society in general or police forces in particular, but it always ends in a series of rules: here’s how to behave to avoid becoming the next statistic.
The premise of the talk is that very bad things can happen to you for almost no reason, if you’re black. The point of the talk is to provide some rules for how to behave with cops; if you follow these rules, you may avoid providing any reason for police misbehavior. To that point, it all makes sense to me. What confounds me is: I had it. Not just any talk, not a vague discussion, but “the talk.”
My Dad gave me the talk when I was a teenager, and we were the whitest of white-bread families living in a quintessential small town in the middle of middle America. My Dad was a career State Police Officer: more than thirty years as a patrolman, detective and senior leader. He wanted to pass on to me exactly what the police were thinking, what they are trained to do, and how to respond. It went something like this:
For the patrol officer, there is no such thing as a routine stop. When a police officer pulls a vehicle over or stops someone on the street, they do so for a reason, and it is not to complement them on their sartorial style. Since it almost always involves some negative outcome (a fine, an arrest, or just an ass-chewing), there is always the possibility of the recipient reacting badly. If the police officer forgets this, his next stop may be his last.
The officer is not on a hair trigger. He just realizes he is ruining your day, your week, or maybe even your whole life. He takes no joy in this, but it is his job. He is used to hearing excuses, threats, crying, pleading, swearing; he doesn’t like it, but it is nothing new. Your stop or interaction is unique and important to you; to him, it’s one of ten he will have during the shift, and they all go down mostly the same. Every day. For a career.
The officer must quickly make a judgment about you as the person being apprehended. In the officer’s world, there are two types: “regular people” who are generally remorseful and compliant, and “jerks” who want to confront, resist, fight, or flee. If there was ever a time when first impressions are important, this is it. How the interaction goes down generally depends on in which of these categories the officer places you.
Because of the inherent uncertainty of the interaction, the first rule of police interactions is to establish and maintain control of the situation. This means the officer is in charge, and the other person is under the officer’s control, responding to the officer’s commands. Nothing else happens until the officer establishes control, and if he loses control, nothing else happens until he re-establishes control. Notice that there is no accounting for the views of the individual: no debate, no discussion, no protest. Control must be established and maintained. The officer will give you a series of commands based on his training, view of the situation, and what he suspects has happened. He expects you to comply, even if the commands make no sense to you.
I listened to my dad’s talk and took it to heart. As a practical example, back in college days, a buddy and I went out joy-riding on the interstate in upstate New York. He gunned his muscle car up to almost one hundred miles-per-hour as we flew down the open road, until we heard the telltale wail of a siren catching up from behind us. As we pulled over, we both had a good laugh until the officer used his loudspeaker to order the driver to turn off the engine, drop the keys out of the window, exit the car with his hands behind his head, and kneel next the car door. I was still laughing until the officer ordered the passenger–me–to do the same. Excessive, no? When it was all said and done, the officer explained that a similar car had been used as a getaway vehicle in an armed robbery that morning, so we were initially given the full “fleeing felon” treatment . . . but only a fat speeding ticket in the end.
When I have been stopped for speeding, I turn off the radio (I never access a phone in a car), and wait with the window down, my hands at ten-and-two on the steering wheel. I only respond to the officer, never initiate or extend my remarks. End with “sir” or “officer.” Make no excuses. Answer only what is asked. Be completely honest. I make no move without first explaining what I intend to do, and then asking the officer for permission. I make it clear to the officer by my words and actions that he or she is in complete control.
How has that worked for me? Pretty damn well. I have a penchant for exceeding the posted speed, at least on highways (not where pedestrians are present). In over forty years of driving, I have received exactly one ticket from an officer (I don’t count a couple speed camera tickets, as they are just a tax for driving fast). I got that one for doing twenty-five in a fifteen mph zone of desert highway at the entrance to Fort Huachuca, Arizona in 1983.
Oh, I’ve been pulled over many, many times for speeding. The worst case? Seventy-five in a forty mph stretch of I-395 in downtown DC about twenty years ago, during morning rush hour. That officer was leaving morning PT at his station and couldn’t believe how I blew past him as he entered the highway on-ramp. He was sweaty, angry, and ready to chew me out. When he asked for license and registration, I explained the former was in the inside pocket in my suit coat, the latter in the visor above my head, and could I please reach for each in order? When he asked how fast I was going, I said “at least seventy” and he corrected me to “seventy-five.” He asked if I knew what he could do because of my excessive speed and I replied he could have me incarcerated overnight for going more than twenty-five mph over the limit (it pays to know local laws if you intend to break them). He asked, with several colorful adjectives and adverbs, whether I was late for work (“no, sir”) and what could possibly justify going that speed (“nothing, sir”). So why was I speeding, he demanded? I explained that I had been stuck in traffic on the 14th Street bridge, and when the traffic cleared I just gunned it on the briefly open road. No good reason, just an explanation. Our calm exchange helped him regain his composure, and after giving me a good butt-chewing, he left me with a verbal warning and the admonition that if he ever caught me speeding again, it would include a visit to a station.
This was not a one time thing. Every time I have been pulled over (save the Military Policeman in the desert), I have received nothing more than warning. As a teenager, I even talked my way out of a “failure to stop” at a stop sign by calmly explaining that I had stopped, but the officer could only see my vehicle after I proceeded through the intersection. It helped that there were huge snow piles on either side of the street, and that I had completely stopped.
Now I am not advocating using these rules to avoid due punishment. I am simply arguing that the rules embodied in the talk work. Many police interactions today are filmed by bystanders or body-cams. And in so many of the cases, the suspect flees, or argues, or resists, or swears, or spits, or refuses to comply. Apparently the message from “the talk” about the rules is not getting through. Check out this Washington Post story, which makes much of a traffic stop for running a stop sign. The embedded video is seven and a half minutes long, but it includes nearly everything someone can do wrong. Luckily, it ends with a simple arrest, not a homicide-by-cop. But if you google so many of the more famous incidents which are heralded as exemplars of police brutality or racism, they inevitably begin with the individual not behaving according to the rules of “the talk.” Mr. Garner. Ms. Bland. Mr. Brown. Apparently even Mr. Floyd. And the list goes on.
Let’s be clear: nothing excuses kneeling on a man’s neck for almost nine minutes. I’m not arguing here about the justice or injustice of these cases: I’m arguing about “the talk.” I hear that so many people are giving “the talk,” but I wonder about that because I am not seeing much evidence anyone is listening. I doubt folks are listening because their actions don’t correspond to the rules of “the talk.”
I remain perplexed why the writer in the Times article felt self-contempt for behaving the same way I was taught to behave. More confounding, why he wrote “a part of me died that day” when his behaving according to the rules of “the talk” worked? I want to suggest “the talk” is important, and that behaving by its rules is neither contemptible nor demeaning: it just works. for everyone.
That’s a talk worth having, and one to which more people need to listen.
