A White Woman (Me) and a White Cop in Richmond, Virginia

A while ago, I was driving down I-64 in my conservative silver Volvo, which is the kind of car that subtly identifies its owner as middle-aged and law abiding—at least I think it does. I was heading home from Richmond, Virginia, late one afternoon. I was tired. I was tired because I was still responsible at that time for my parents, one sinking into dementia, both with multiple health problems. The last years of their lives wore me to a nubbin, to speak in my native Southern parlance. I slept fitfully; I worried constantly; I too often had to fight like a pit bull for their care. I lived in an almost relentless storm of problems.

A few weeks earlier, driving sleep-deprived down a different highway, I had felt my eyes close uncontrollably, and I’d slipped for just a second or two into hazy oblivion. It was long enough for my car to shoot, at 70 miles an hour, across the centerline and onto the opposite shoulder of the road. I clung, wide-eyed, wide-awake, to the the steering wheel, as the car plunged like a bucking horse over ruts of grass and rock, finally settling, at my frantic braking, to an uneasy stop. 

Well, that was scary. Never again, I decided. Never again will I try to blink my way through that kind of bone-tiredness. I will responsibly pull over and allow myself a few minutes of safe sleep. And this is exactly what I was doing on that afternoon outside Richmond, Virginia. 

I had parked, well off the traffic lane of an exit ramp, and was taking a short, attention-reviving nap. It turned out to be a very short nap, indeed. I was jerked awake by the blast of a police siren from a patrol car pulled alongside mine. I quickly took in the situation, and had this brief, idiotic thought: The patrolman must think I’m ill. I’ll reassure him that I’m alright, and he’ll be on his way.

“I just got tired,” I said. “I needed to pull over for a few minutes.” 

My admission was met by aggressive silence and a baleful stare. I was nonplussed—I realized I was not being helped, whether I needed help or not, by a public servant, the kind for whom my taxes pay. I was being assessed by an arrogant, empowered man, young enough to be my own child, for my possible part in some odd illegal activity.

“I could write you up,” he informed me, eyes narrowed to threatening slits, “for sleeping on the highway.” He’s dead serious, I comprehended, or I would have laughed. (I did, days later, describing it to a friend, when she nodded appraisingly and repeated, “Mary Cail… sleeping on the highway,” as though such criminality elevated me to a decidedly higher rank in her view.)

I avoided further incident by invoking my most obsequious, sunshine and sweet tea accent. “Oh, I’m so very, very sorry,” I cooed, eyes lowered in repentance, “I just didn’t realize I was not ab-sooo-lutely, every little, itty-bitty centimeter, off the highway!” I said this while thinking Give me any real trouble, and you are going to regret it. He continued his power-happy diatribe for a minute or two and then roared off, no doubt in search of a victim more suited to bullying. 

If I had been a black man at the mercy of that particular cop, I feel certain I would  have been jerked out of my silver Volvo and, at the very least, subjected to verbal abuse and a breathalyzer test. But I implicitly knew the only real power this police person could wield over me was the power to cause me delay and frustration. I also knew that there were effective ways I could ensure his embarrassment in the aftermath, depending on whether I wished to pursue it. I wasn’t afraid. I was irritated. But I am white—if in the throes of encroaching ageism, a different form of discrimination that might have been at minor play then.

Bryan Stephenson’s aptly titled book, Just Mercy, details his activism with the racial inequities of our criminal justice system. Stephenson is a Harvard-educated attorney. In the book, he relates being stopped at night for the sole reason (as I recall) of his being a black man, perceived by a cop as suspiciously out of place in an upscale neighborhood. Stevenson’s awareness of danger is palpable. His plight is easy for me to imagine in light of my only experience with a traffic infraction in more than three decades. I cannot, however, pretend to know what it is to live in fear because the color of my skin places me, even in legally sanctioned and nonviolent situations, at unjust peril; that the color of my skin can result in my being utterly vulnerable, in rapidly passing moments, to the snap judgments of a racist cop; that my very life is threatened, and there can be no aftermath, should life actually be lost, in which I assert my fundamental rights.

I highly recommend Stevenson’s book and, as well, Twelve Years a Slave, by Solomon Northup. No thinking person could read Northup’s book and not be moved by his perseverance, tolerance and sheer wit or by the book’s indicting portrayal of slavery. Likewise, it’s hardly possible to watch recent news stories and videos and not feel incensed that those whom we’ve entrusted with our safety could feel justified in deliberate acts of brutality and murder. 

I get it that police work is frightening and that fear is one of the most dangerous emotions, motivating, at times, tragic reactions. But it wasn’t fear motivating that Richmond cop’s reaction to me, pulled safely off the road in the middle of the afternoon; it was belligerence, poor judgement, immaturity and entitlement, backed up by a gun. I’m glad I was a white woman and not a black man that day. Racist acts are preventable: They are prevented by hiring smart, sensitive people and providing them with appropriate training—there can be no doubt that many cops deserve the badge they wear and wear it honorably. Racist acts are prevented by getting rid those who’ve sworn, by way of the Law Enforcement Oath of Honor, never to “betray… my character,” when it becomes evident that their character is so grievously lacking and unsuited to the tasks of law enforcement.