Question for you, dear readers.
What do the 1965 Watts Riot, the 1969 Stonewall Riots, the 1973 one in Jamaica, Queens, NY, the 1980, 1982 and 1989 riots in Miami’s Overtown neighborhood, the 1992 Rodney King one in Los Angeles, the 2009 Oscar Grant one in Oakland, and the 2014 Ferguson, MO riots all have in common?
The answer is that all of them were triggered by Black people fed up with the systemic police brutality aimed at our community and zero accountability for the cops perpetrating it.
This short list of police brutality-fueled U.S. riots demonstrates that they are, sadly, as American as apple pie. What’s also sadly apparent is that far too often, the folks dying at the hands of killer cops are predominately African American.
In 2019, according to the Mapping Police Violence database, Black people were three times more likely to be killed by police violence than our white counterparts. Out of the 1099 people killed by the police last year, 24% of them were Black. In 2017, we were 34% of the 1127 people killed by police in the US.
We’re only 13% of the US population.
Back in 1978, my teenage self received the learner’s permit that would ultimately lead to my getting a driver’s license. It was a day that should have been a happy milestone in my young life.
Not long after we arrived back home from the DPS office (Department of Public Safety, our Texas state troopers), my father sat me and my brother down on the couch, and proceeded to give us the conversation that all African American parents dread — that conversation about the American justice system and police brutality.
During “The Talk,” as we call it in the community, my father told us what not to do in a traffic stop:
Don’t make any sudden moves the cop will interpret as hostile.
Announce in a loud, clear voice you are reaching into your glove compartment for your car registration or when you are reaching into your pocket for your wallet to get your driver’s license.
Don’t attract attention or give the police a reason to pull you over by speeding.
Don’t do more than five miles over the speed limit so that if you find yourself in a speed trap, you can simply take your foot off the accelerator pedal and slow the car down quickly without hitting your brakes.
If you’re doing a road trip, stick to interstate highways and stay off the back roads that run through small towns.
Knowing I have a Taurus temper combined with a propensity for bluntly calling crap out, he warned me not to make any sarcastic comments that would anger the cop. Just limit what I had to say to “Yes, sir” and “No, sir.”
Your goal in any traffic stop, he said — especially if it involves a white officer — is to get out of it alive.
That conversation was over 40 years ago, and I still remember it. It also occurred at a time when the Houston Police Department was so out of control, we sarcastically changed the “Wear The Badge That Means You Care” recruitment ad slogan they used to “Wear the Badge That Means You Kill.”
