There reason it is distressing to have an encounter with a police officer is because they are trained to expect normalized behavior, which is fundamentally biased in favor of the wealthy, the calm, the unexhuberant, as well as the white, and that which comports with the exertions of the state, to wit: authority. I have had many encounters with officers, and all of them were modified in terms of pleasantness and safety according to the formal circumstances. This is bizarre. On the street, there was a fundamental expectation of the possibility of violence. That is a strange expectation for a human being to have in an interaction with another human being. In the office and seminar, there was an expectation of deference towards me. I expect and know down to my very being that people of color, especially those who live or see themselves as a living in a culturally distinct though still very American context, find themselves in an existentially outside, non-conformist position, meaning that there is an expectation, even by the most refined of authorities, that they are deviant. This has got to be horrific.
Posted on: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 00:51:57 +0000
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