Walking up to the driver’s side of a pickup that was “pulled over” by Lowndes County sheriff’s deputies Tuesday evening in the Oak Grove MB Church parking lot on Taylor Thurston Road, the pastor and I muttered our lines to ourselves as we shuffled closer to the vehicle.
Part of a law enforcement-led demonstration, our instructions were to approach the driver, ask for his driver’s license and proof of insurance and not reveal the faux stop was for a malfunctioning tag light until the driver had produced those items. The deputies leading the demonstration implied we’d get some pushback. We just didn’t know in what form.
We found out soon enough.
As we reached the rear of the pickup, a man who had been lying in its bed jumped up and started hollering — a move that sufficiently startled the pastor and me and froze us in place momentarily.
“See. Y’all would be dead,” said the man in the back of the truck, who is a former law enforcement officer and a member at Oak Grove.
The demonstration kicked off a community meeting mostly held in the church fellowship hall where more than a dozen church members — all African-American — heard from law enforcement, a local defense attorney and media members about issues ranging from their individual rights to how media cover crime.
Lesson 1: Law enforcement is a difficult, nuanced and dangerous job full of surprises citizens can’t fully understand unless they are placed in that position. That maxim seemed to be accepted without debate.
From there, however, the conversation turned to a subject that struck me at my core — these black church members began thoughtfully discussing how they, their children and grandchildren can most effectively stay safe from harm during a traffic stop.
The answer, which came from the defense attorney, who is white, was “comply.” Even if they believe their rights are being violated, even if they know they are being mistreated without cause, “comply” and file a complaint later.
In fact, she added: “The only unacceptable thing (on a traffic stop) is for you to lose your life.”
Their dignity, apparently, is fair game.
Her advice, sadly, is probably accurate. But the point is, I don’t really know.
We don’t talk about traffic stop safety at my church because we know we don’t have to. And I’d wager it’s not a subject that comes up often at community meetings in Columbus’ Southside Historic District or down South Montgomery in Starkville either.
But in a society where we are far more likely to acknowledge — as we all should — the perilous nature of policing, regardless of color or whether we have experience, certain segments of that same society (white people) struggle to offer that same respect to the black experience with law enforcement.
We fail, often, to acknowledge the fact that African-Americans have community meetings centered on “surviving traffic stops.” We ignore the fact their fear is informed by something real — whether it’s the historical journey of black heritage from slavery through Jim Crow to now, or the more recent string of YouTube videos where “bad apple” police officers who are decidedly white mistreat, injure or kill otherwise “complying” black citizens.
And often, we don’t just ignore it. We make excuses for it.
“If they would stand for the national anthem, stop sagging their pants and take off their hoodies, then maybe they wouldn’t seem so suspicious,” comes the prevailing sentiment.
But that assumes several fallacies: that all black people sit for the anthem, sag their pants and wear hoodies; that any of these things, in themselves, actually constitute criminally suspicious behavior; or that we, as white folks, have the moral authority to dictate how other people should behave.
Plus, are we really saying with straight faces that if black people checked all the “social norm” boxes we deem appropriate that we wouldn’t just come up with a longer list? History tells us that’s a damn lie.
Law enforcement, at least locally, seems to be beginning to understand my point. The officers at Oak Grove Tuesday acknowledged the trust deficit many black people have with police while at the same time not betraying their own experiences and expectations for safety. There also has been at least one example in the Columbus Police Department in the last year where officer mistreatment of a young black man on a traffic stop was dealt with swiftly, fairly and decisively once city leaders became aware of the issue.
We can all exist in a society where we want safety for law enforcement and also work together to reduce the need for “traffic stop safety” conversations in black communities.
Until we get there, though, kudos to the folks at Oak Grove for the well-planned, substantive discussion about a very real issue.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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