Darkies beware
My wife got pulled over for speeding the other day. You know the drill: following traffic on a multi-lane street on the morning's commute, last in the line of cars that pass a motorcycle cop -- 41 in a 30. Nothing surprising or unexpected there, and my wife was in the wrong for violating the speed limit.
But when the officer took her license and registration, he did something unexpected: he asked what state she was born in.
Of what possible relevance could that be? She's operating a legally registered vehicle with a valid license, and the law she violated is applied the same no matter where one is born -- as, indeed, almost all laws should be. The only information of relevance is all on the license and registration forms, and the only thing the officer needed to verify was whether or not the information was accurate.
So I should point out that my wife looks the Mexican-American that she is: dark brown hair, light brown skin, dark brown eyes (I'll probably catch hell for that last part, because her eyes are actually hazel). Walking down the street, she can be mistaken not only for Hispanic, but also North Indian and even indigenous American. Much as the voice in Poe's "Murders at Rue Morgue", her features evoke in observers any number of possible ethnicities. And, of course, in Colorado Springs, that means Mexican.
Does the officer's question make sense now? Not really, because even a foreign-born individual can be legally naturalized. But I think we can guess why he asked it. And the fact that he asked it calls into question why he chose to pull over my wife in the first place: was it just that she was the easiest to catch, as my assumption would be? Or did the cop see a possible illegal alien and wanted to enforce national immigration law?
I might quibble about jurisdiction on that question, or I might laud the officer's diligence. Except that the only thing my wife was doing was speeding, along with other cars on the road -- and that strange question asked by the officer implies that she would have been pulled over for driving the speed limit, more slowly than traffic: because that would have been suspicious.
Paranoid? Well, my wife has another anecdote. While looking for a friend's house at night in Sugarland, Texas, she was pulled over by a local cop and told to leave the area. That was just pure racism, and the racist assumption that a darkie could be interested only in committing a crime in that area. Most blacks probably have a passel of these stories. In fact, at Rice University, my wife's alma mater, black students complained of being stopped by campus security and asked to show identification every day ('cause, you know, they all look alike). This more recent occurrence is a little different, because the racism is used to presume that a crime has already been committed: violation of immigration laws. Just because she's the archeypical latina.
The personal advice columnist in Latina magazine (which my wife subscribes to; don't ask me why) recently wrote that she carries her passport everywhere, just in case she's stopped and asked to prove her citizenship. When my wife visits her folks in southern Texas, she carries her laminated birth certificate. I talked about this in an earlier post, but think of the ramifications. What if you were stopped by every cop who saw you, or any plain-closthed government agent, and required to prove you were a citizen. Not just once in a while, but every fucking day. Twice, three times a day, even. What if you had to prove your documents were legitimate, or had to wait while the officer so validated? How many such cases would you tolerate? As many cases as the 30000 individuals on the TSA watch list have had to tolerate?
I'm getting ahead of myself, though, with regard to my wife's speeding ticket. She was speeding, after all, and other than that she has not been so scrutinized (by law enforcement) here. But times are changing: states are passing laws that allow them to verify the citizenship of individuals in certain cases; local agencies have for years been getting federal money by trumpeting and trumping up security threats. With illegal immigration being equated to terrorism, can my wife and other darker-skinned Americans look forward to being stopped on the sidewalk or in their car by police officers required or itchin' to snag an illegal? My son is the kind of light-skinned hispanic that members of La Raza won't talk to, but what if our next one is more representative of the mestizo portion of his or her heritage?
And don't get me started on immigration.
But when the officer took her license and registration, he did something unexpected: he asked what state she was born in.
Of what possible relevance could that be? She's operating a legally registered vehicle with a valid license, and the law she violated is applied the same no matter where one is born -- as, indeed, almost all laws should be. The only information of relevance is all on the license and registration forms, and the only thing the officer needed to verify was whether or not the information was accurate.
So I should point out that my wife looks the Mexican-American that she is: dark brown hair, light brown skin, dark brown eyes (I'll probably catch hell for that last part, because her eyes are actually hazel). Walking down the street, she can be mistaken not only for Hispanic, but also North Indian and even indigenous American. Much as the voice in Poe's "Murders at Rue Morgue", her features evoke in observers any number of possible ethnicities. And, of course, in Colorado Springs, that means Mexican.
Does the officer's question make sense now? Not really, because even a foreign-born individual can be legally naturalized. But I think we can guess why he asked it. And the fact that he asked it calls into question why he chose to pull over my wife in the first place: was it just that she was the easiest to catch, as my assumption would be? Or did the cop see a possible illegal alien and wanted to enforce national immigration law?
I might quibble about jurisdiction on that question, or I might laud the officer's diligence. Except that the only thing my wife was doing was speeding, along with other cars on the road -- and that strange question asked by the officer implies that she would have been pulled over for driving the speed limit, more slowly than traffic: because that would have been suspicious.
Paranoid? Well, my wife has another anecdote. While looking for a friend's house at night in Sugarland, Texas, she was pulled over by a local cop and told to leave the area. That was just pure racism, and the racist assumption that a darkie could be interested only in committing a crime in that area. Most blacks probably have a passel of these stories. In fact, at Rice University, my wife's alma mater, black students complained of being stopped by campus security and asked to show identification every day ('cause, you know, they all look alike). This more recent occurrence is a little different, because the racism is used to presume that a crime has already been committed: violation of immigration laws. Just because she's the archeypical latina.
The personal advice columnist in Latina magazine (which my wife subscribes to; don't ask me why) recently wrote that she carries her passport everywhere, just in case she's stopped and asked to prove her citizenship. When my wife visits her folks in southern Texas, she carries her laminated birth certificate. I talked about this in an earlier post, but think of the ramifications. What if you were stopped by every cop who saw you, or any plain-closthed government agent, and required to prove you were a citizen. Not just once in a while, but every fucking day. Twice, three times a day, even. What if you had to prove your documents were legitimate, or had to wait while the officer so validated? How many such cases would you tolerate? As many cases as the 30000 individuals on the TSA watch list have had to tolerate?
I'm getting ahead of myself, though, with regard to my wife's speeding ticket. She was speeding, after all, and other than that she has not been so scrutinized (by law enforcement) here. But times are changing: states are passing laws that allow them to verify the citizenship of individuals in certain cases; local agencies have for years been getting federal money by trumpeting and trumping up security threats. With illegal immigration being equated to terrorism, can my wife and other darker-skinned Americans look forward to being stopped on the sidewalk or in their car by police officers required or itchin' to snag an illegal? My son is the kind of light-skinned hispanic that members of La Raza won't talk to, but what if our next one is more representative of the mestizo portion of his or her heritage?
And don't get me started on immigration.
posted by heavynettle at 09:37
2 Comments:
That sucks, man. The old "DWB" (or "DWH" in this case.) Maybe the officer was just on the look out for Texans? God knows that crowd can be dangerous behind the wheel!
But seriously, I'm not in favor of mindless quotas in general, but my guess is that the cop who pulled your wife over doesn't know many "people of color;" which is a shame, because it makes it tough for him to serve and protect the community in a meaningful, neutral way. More minorities hires on the ColoSprgs police would probably go a long way to fostering better ties between the police and the (increasingly non-white) community.
Just wondering, but does the city police force have a policy about what they'll do to enforce immigration law? Most city forces I know refuse to ask about citizenship because they assume, quite logically, that if people are afraid the police are looking to deport them that people won't help police by calling in crimes, etc.
Did your wife ask why he asked? Or is she just tired/resigned to the whole thing?
To be honest, before you asked that I had only the vague impression that I had heard or read somewhere that Colorado and its law enforcement agencies would be more vigilant in identifying and detaining suspected illegals. Thank Brin & Page for Google, man. I found this piece from Longmont that summarizes a number of bills that passed, like, three months ago that not only authorize Colorado State cops to notify ICE when they suspect an arrestee of being an illegal, but also coercing (under threat of denial of state funds) localities to do the same. The state doesn't appear to apprehend the subtle (well, pretty obvious) point you raise about preserving a local sub-community's trust.
Anyway, it's not the CSPD enforcing immigration law, but it may translate into individual officers poking around a little when they stop somebody who may be an immigrant. Not that your average CS cop would stop, say, a red-head.
But Colorado Springs has also taken steps in acquainting itself with the Hispanic population, regardless of status: staff and volunteer translators on call or in the car, and . . . well, that's all I can think of off-hand. It's not really so much a city force's complete unfamiliarity with "coloreds", but rather what (an extremely stupid) one might conclude is a reasonable use of profiling, unofficially employed in varying degrees by different officers and stations. And, of course, the outcome can only be irritation by legals and increased mistrust by illegals -- and therefore, you know, more unreported crimes and stuff like that.
But, in this and other areas of polities, there is hope. WIth Money magazine labelling the Springs as the best big city, maybe we'll attract more level-headed (or, you know, irrationally tilted to the left) professionals who'll dilute the unrelenting inanity of the religious right and Republicans here.
To answer your last question, she did not ask. I mean, we saw Crash, man. Even apart from that, of course, it's never particularly wise to antagonize a cop during a traffic cop (and, for some cops, asking a question is antagonistic), and my wife's defense lawyer friend advised her not to bring up the question at her hearing (which could be construed as tiresome cop-bashing), but to raise it in a separate letter to the court or the CSPD.
I'll post the outcome of that hearing, of course.
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