So white privilege or was it because I kept it civil and low key? Hard to know, but one reason I long ago adopted this stance when dealing with the police is that I once was leaving a concert with a buddy at Lakefront Arena. A traffic officer waved us out to the right as we exited the lot but my friend wanted to go left. He gave the officer a quick wave saying was going left and turned that way. We made it about 10 feet when two other officers stepped in front of the car with their hands up. They told my buddy he couldn't make that turn even though the street was wide open and it was the way we'd come in. He argued saying there was no reason he couldn't go the way he wanted and in about 5 seconds flat they had him out of the car, cuffed and lying with his face in the street. I got out to see if he was ok and was cuffed in about 5 seconds and sitting on the curb. We stayed that way about 15 minutes while they did whatever then they arrested him for disregarding an officer's command and threatened to charge him with attempted murder (!) for "trying to run them over." He went off to jail and I drove his car back to his house at about 10mph.
The cops way overreacted. They acted like real pricks the whole time and obviously got off on roughing us up some. In short, the Tyreke Hill video really brought that back, except I think we were driving an old jeep not a McLaren. Thank God we weren't (very) high or drunk or who knows what they might have charged us with. This kind of thing wasn't that unusual and over the years a lot of my friends (almost all white boys) got arrested and man-handled by jacked-up cops at one time or another. And my old man told me exactly what many black fathers tell their sons: don't eff-around with the police. Don't argue. Don't move too quick. Follow instructions. It seems though for a lot of black guys that equates to being a punk. You've got show the cops something, stand up to them, don't let them push you around. Man, everyone knows how that's gonna end 9 out of 10. As soon as I heard Hill tell the cop "hey, don't tap on my window!" I knew where it was headed. And honestly, I think it would have ended there for me or anyone else. Doesn't make the cops right. But it does make it predictable and pretty universal.