| SpokenTruth said: Most relevant song of the moment. Eminem - Untouchable. |
This video....It kinda hit me....Personal experience....I've had some interesting encounters with cops over the years. Many. I have been screwed a few times, once very badly, but generally it's been positive. This makes me think of one time 2 cops had guns drawn on me, screaming, "throw down your weapon!" and I refused, because I didn't want to have to wash it. I slowly turned, and raised my hands, holding the weapon between my thumb and index finger, prompting the officers to take it from me. Which they did. No taser. They didn't even take me down, or get physical. At all. It's a whole thing. Tough to detail outside of a book chapter.
I could detail the whole encounter, in explicit detail, but suffice it to say, I was quite confident in my ability to negotiate my way out of having to wash my weapon, while avoiding being shot to death, and I was successful. I wasn't even close to thinking about racial disparity at the time, only drawing upon past experience, and my desire to not have to wash my weapon.
But any time I actually think about it in comparison to the worst case scenarios in the U.S., or even here in Canada, it really puts things into perspective. I'm definitely a white boy.👦 In Canada, especially in my part of the country, it's Native Canadians who struggle in very similar ways to the African American population in America. I hate posting about shit like this, and only usually engage in important topics in person, in conversation. So I take some comfort in knowing that this post will be buried in a music thread.
I do have a fair amount of experience with police as white man though, mostly in my 20's, but the incident here happened at that most tempestuous of ages, 38. I hate to say it, but like the song says, it's embarrassing. I mean, throughout human history, racism, tribalism, nationalism....it's always there, from every angle, and from all people...but these cops are European, like me, and it's fucking embarrassing. Again.
