I blame Marvel Comics. Look at the black superheroes: Black Panther? Black Panther is strong as fuck. Who does that help? And Luke Cage? Luke Cage is bulletproof. Marvel Comics and Netflix are gonna get a lot of people killed! Nobody wants a bulletproof nigga. Even niggas don’t want a bulletproof nigga. When I shoot a nigga, I want him to lie down; I don’t want him to stand. I don’t want white people to see Luke Cage and go, “See—I knew these niggas won’t be stopped with just one shot. It’s like The Walking Dead: you gotta shoot ’em in the head!”
Super strength, being bulletproof: that’s all fine for white superheroes. But for black superheroes: fuck jumping over a building or being faster than a speeding bullet. Luke Cage can keep his big bike chain or whatever the hell. The superpower that black people need is the ability to have white people believe them. That’s what I want. The ability to have white people go, “That nigga’s telling the truth.”
Here, I jotted down an idea:
KennyK.com/Shutterstock
Marvel: call me up if you want to license some of this shit. I see a comic-book franchise ahead.
3. Black People Are “Different” A lot of white people find black people unfamiliar and make assumptions based on stereotypes. The fact that with no evidence so many people questioned if Obama was born in this country goes to show how white people find black people “different” and not “one of us.” When people refer to “real Americans” and so-called middle America, they’re talking about white folks who live in predominantly white areas—like in a fucking cornfield somewhere in Iowa. Never mind that black people had been pouring their sweat and blood into American soil long before most white people’s ancestors showed up here: twenty blacks arrived in Virginia in 1519, the year before the Mayflower landed. And most slaves were brought over from Africa before 1808, even before the end of slavery in 1865. That means most African Americans’ ancestors arrived decades if not centuries before the waves of Irish, German, Italian, Jewish, and Polish immigration. Still, most everything in America is geared toward white people. American culture is presumed “white.”
Forget about the fact that white people listen to a lot of hip-hop. Forget about the racial makeup of the sports teams that white people like. A jittery white cop is going to look at a black person as “different” and scary.
Let’s Work with the Racism
Take the most stereotypical image of a black person a racist cop could have: a gangbanger in a lowrider, smoking a blunt, listening to loud rap music while twirling his piece. If that’s how a racist cop sees black people, let’s work with that racism and reverse-engineer it to put the cop at ease. Cops get spooked so easily; let’s make us less scary!
If you’re getting pulled over by a cop, let’s see if we can make sure you’re not playing into racist stereotypes.
Racist Stereotype
Alternative
Drive a lowrider, pimped-out ride
Drive a sensible minivan with great mileage. (Avoid any car with a 0–60 time of less than 10 seconds.)
Listen to rap music
Listen to Bach’s Suite Number 3 in C Major, featuring Yo-Yo Ma. (Really, playing music from the past 100 years is a risk.)
Smoke weed, have a stash in car
Suck on butterscotch, have a bag of Werther’s Originals in car
Gun under the seat
Blue Lives Matter bobblehead on dash
Summary
Understanding that cops are scared of black people is one of the first steps to not getting shot. Knowing their biases can help police-shoot-proof you:
If you’re in a black neighborhood, you are in a bad neighborhood.
If you’re black, you’re strong, maybe too strong.
If you’re black, you’re different.
Now that you know what the stereotypes are, you can work with them to make yourself less shootable!
Stuff White People Say
Blue Lives Matter Guy #4: “But, DL: Cops have a hard job! You can’t blame everything on them.”
pathdoc/Shutterstock
Cops do have a hard job.
And in all fairness, putting police officers in a position where they have to be counselors and psychologists and negotiators isn’t right. Most of the time, people call the police for help, not a bullet. So it’s unfair to put them in a situation where they have to be all things to all people.
But that is the gig! And if you wanted to fix that situation, you wouldn’t fix it just by giving cops more bulletproof shit. You don’t fix it by giving them tanks and riot gear. You don’t do therapy through bulletproof glass.
And why is it that working to end racial bias in the police department is viewed as an attack on police?
The thing is that most of the people arrested in this country are white. Most of the people who shoot cops aren’t black. So what is it that makes cops think and act extra aggressively toward black people? Hmm, what could it be if it’s not race?
There are tens of thousands of traffic stops that do not end in fatalities. But out of all the stops that do end in fatalities, the largest number of them percentage-wise happen to black people. And, as we noted above, that’s irrespective of whether they’re poor or rich. The poor get shot more than anybody else, but rich black people—they get shot more than their neighbors do.
So, okay, you say, why focus on the horrifically unsuccessful stops when there are thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of successful police stops in this country—hundreds of thousands that don’t result in death. Fine. Airplanes take off millions of times a year. But if an airline has a crash—even one—we all know something went terribly wrong. So, despite all the successful flights, we still thoroughly investigate the tragedy to try to fix what went wrong so that people will feel safe.
It’s the same thing. When a police shooting happens, something went terribly wrong. Unless you believe that’s the way things are supposed to go. It wouldn’t be okay to say, “Well, planes are dangerous, sometimes they crash!” We’ve gotten really good at making sure planes don’t crash, because people want them to be safe. We don’t say #AllPlanesMatter.
And another thing: when a plane crashes, you say something went wrong with the plane, not the passengers. You don’t say, “The passengers must have done something.” And you have a black box recording the flight data so we know what happened. We don’t let the fucking pilots turn off the black box. “Well, we had a black box, but they turned it off before the plane crashed.” No. There’s one button: record.
In America, when something goes wrong, we fix it. We allocated millions of dollars to eradicate the Zika virus. Remember Ebola? Not one person died of Ebola in the continental United States. Not one. But $35 million was allocated by the end of 2014. Eight hundred fifty unarmed people get killed by the police and we worry about a mosquito.
To not work on this problem is to admit we collectively think that it’s actually not a problem. When it comes to black people, most white people would never say this out loud, but they believe this is the way the system was designed to work. It’s supposed to be like this.
5
Do Be an Angel
“He looked up at me and had the most intense aggressive face. The only way I can describe it, it looks like a demon, that’s how angry he looked.”
—Darren Wilson’s description of Michael Brown
If you have a criminal record, it’s okay you got shot. That seems to be the attitude of white people to police violence. It might be a little extreme; overkill, if you will. But basically okay.
White people think that bad things only happen to bad people. They were good people and the nice policeman let them off with a warning. See: it pays to be nice! If you got shot by the police, you must have done something bad to deserve it.
So if you want justice, be sure you’re an angel.
Police Investigations
If you do get shot by the police, you’d better believe there will be an investigation—of you, anyway. Hope you don’t have a c
riminal record! When a black suspect is shot, the media and their accomplices in the police department will be sure to make that public. Everyone will know that you “were no angel.” That’s apparently justification enough for police brutality, even killing. “See, he was a bad dude—you can understand how he might get shot.” Bad dudes get what they deserve.
So Michael Brown deserved to die because he robbed a convenience store.
So Eric Garner deserved to die because he sold illegal cigarettes.
So Alton Sterling deserved to die because he had been previously arrested for domestic battery.
With victims of police brutality, they’ll always try to blame the victim, as if the victim deserved to die. This shit’s been going on forever. In the early 1990s in Detroit, the police beat Malice Green over the head with a flashlight, killing him. At trial, the police had a coroner testify that Malice died of heart failure because of his prior drug use. Okay, so it’s his fault that he’s not strong enough to take an ass whooping?
Cops Are Presumed to Be Angels
They don’t do that with cops, though. Cops are assumed to be heroes. In July 2016, five Dallas cops were killed in an attack that had the right yelling “#BlueLivesMatter” as loudly as ever. Killing cops is terrible, of course. But are they all presumed heroes? One of the cops who was killed was described as a “gentle giant.” Isn’t that nice? To be a big, cuddly gentle giant. Makes you just want to curl up in his lap and get a big fucking hug. It’s a little different description than of similarly sized Michael Brown before he was killed (Officer Darren Wilson: “the only way I can describe it is I felt like a five-year-old holding on to Hulk Hogan”).
In any case, after Officer Lorne Ahrens was killed, he was described as a “gentle giant” and a family man; gushing news reports eulogized this fallen hero. And I’m not saying it’s right to shoot a cop. But it turns out that this gentle giant was fond of Thor’s hammer, the Iron Cross, and a bunch of other white supremacy symbols. A big hero? Maybe more like a massive racist. The Jolly White Nationalist.
Did that mean he deserved to be shot? Of course not. But neither did Michael Brown deserve to be shot for shoplifting. It’s not relevant. White shooting victims are heroes until proven otherwise. Black shooting victims had better be squeaky clean or people will say they “got what they deserved.”
List of Minor Offenses and the Trumped-Up Charges
Of course, even if you are squeaky-clean, they’ll find something to make you look bad. Since it’s important that a black victim was justifiably killed, here’s how it gets twisted after the fact to make it seem okay:
Action
Black Shooting Victim
White Shooting Victim
Drinking in public
“Alcoholic”
“Wine connoisseur”
Smoking weed
Drug user
Fair-trade entrepreneur
Got angry
“Demon”
Independent-minded
Talked back
Verbally assaulted
Gave a piece of his mind
And of course if you don’t have a criminal record, that doesn’t mean you’re out of the woods. Just make sure that no one in your vicinity has done any criminal activity that you could be associated with. Because if they can’t find dirt on you, they’ll look into your loved one’s history.
Tamir Rice was an innocent twelve-year-old boy, so the Cleveland Plain Dealer looked into his father’s history instead. They reported that Tamir’s father had a history of violence against women, to provide context—or in one Cleveland reporter’s words, “a frame of reference.” Now what the fuck Tamir’s father’s record has to do with police shooting him as he played in the park, I don’t know. What “context” does that provide, when Tamir was a victim? Here’s the context: it’s important to make sure that every police shooting looks justified.
And You’ll Look like Shit, Too
If a white person gets shot, you know they run the sweetest picture of the victim from his or her high school yearbook or a picture of them on the beach somewhere. But for black folk, they’re not running the nice smiley picture of you. Come on. You know that they’re running the scariest-Negro-they-can-find picture. It’s like a black person before and after:
You, before the shooting:
Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock
You, after the shooting:
Photographee.eu/Shutterstock
One more time. Before:
michaeljung/Shutterstock
After:
michaeljung/Shutterstock
Damn, they can make anyone look like shit.
Summary
Don’t give anyone a reason to shoot you. I’m not saying you have to be perfect, but it helps.
If you can’t be an angel, at least be a choirboy. If you can’t be a choirboy, at least get your record expunged.
If you’re perfect, make sure that your family and friends are perfect, too.
If the media can make me look bad . . . shit. You’re fucked.
Let’s Meet Some Sheriffs!
Not all cops are just cops—some are a special category: sheriffs! Sheriffs are like modern-day cowboys, a John Wayne fantasy come to life. White people just love their sheriffs. There’s just something about the word “sheriff” that tickles white people’s fancy and makes them feel like they’re still living in the Old West or something. The tough-talking, horse-ridin’, cowboy-hat-wearin’ sheriffs are still with us. The original good old boys, the original law-and-order types that like to kick ass and take names, they seem like they’re from another age. One before police reform, civilian oversight, or fair treatment. Sheriffs can dole out justice as they see fit, even if their vision is skewed. Let’s saddle up and meet a few of these modern-day cowboys:
Sheriff David Clarke
Gage Skidmore
Sheriff David Clarke: A rare black man willing to go on Fox News and toe the line, Sheriff Clarke is a tough-talking lawman who white people love. A black cowboy? Neat. Up until recently, he was the sheriff of Milwaukee County, where he liked to rail against Black Lives Matter, even though at least four people have died in his county jail since 2016. This guy is nutty. In an editorial titled “This Is a War and Black Lives Matter Is the Enemy,” he wrote: “We as a people need to declare that we stand with rule of law, and not with the false tales of the revolutionary Marxist forces, who most recently have rebranded themselves from Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter.” Um, what?
Luckily, he has stepped down to “pursue other opportunities.” It seemed like one of those opportunities was supposed to be a position with the Trump administration’s Homeland Security Department, but now it seems like that offer ain’t happening. Though who knows, maybe Omarosa’s departure provides an opening.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio
Gage Skidmore
Sheriff Joe Arpaio: One of the most famous sheriffs around, Sheriff Joe Arpaio was the recipient of a rare preemptive presidential pardon. Why did he need a pardon? Because his form of justice was ignoring court orders to stop violating people’s rights. This guy was pardoned by Trump despite some truly despicable behavior.
He ran “Tent City” in Arizona—an outdoor prison facility for people he suspected of being illegal aliens that he himself called a “concentration camp.” You know you’re on the wrong side when you run your own concentration camp. That doesn’t go well. He made inmates wear pink underwear and eat green bologna sandwiches. And he got sued.
Fox News was full of defenders of the pardon, saying, “What about all the people who have lost their lives to illegal immigrants who shouldn’t be here?” Explain to me how one thing relates to the other? How can you defend his behavior? This is a bad guy. Another example: his officers handcuffed a pregnant inmate for suspected ID theft, had the courtesy to uncuff her during her actual C-section delivery, but then slapped the restraints back on as soon as she got to the recovery room.
How does a pregnant
woman threaten law-abiding citizens? That’s what I don’t get. A baby is dangerous? This baby might be an alien, but it’s not the baby from Alien running around chomping people. I mean, babies are aliens. But it’s not that baby. I mean, everybody saw Alien, right? That is a fucking scary movie. Who wasn’t freaked out by that alien baby?
But what was I saying? I don’t understand how people who defend Sheriff Joe Arpaio can say, “My child was killed by an illegal alien, so I’m gonna make grown men walk around in pink underwear.” That’s gonna make someone not murder somebody? People will stop trying to come into our country because of the bologna sandwiches? I don’t understand the logic.
6
Don’t Drive like a Suspect
“When we make a stop, it’s not based on race or gender or anything of that nature. It’s based on probable cause that some law is being broken, whether it’s traffic or otherwise.”
—Lincoln Hampton, spokesman for the Illinois State Police
So many police shootings start when someone gets pulled over by the cops. Philando Castile was pulled over 49 times in 13 years. And yet white people drive all over the place without getting stopped. So how do you avoid being pulled over by the cops? What secrets can we learn from white people?
Okay—I know and you know that a lot of the reason black people get pulled over is simply DWB—driving while black. In state after state, data shows that police officers are more likely to pull over black drivers than white ones. Experts disagree about whether that shows that cops are racially profiling people or that the cars black people drive look suspicious. I think we understand that cops are racially profiling, but that’s a bit harder to fix. So . . . let’s fix our cars!
How Not to Get Shot Page 4