Back Off!

From Menletter July 2009

By Tim Baehr

The blue lights flashed in my rear-view mirror. I responded with increased heart rate, a fluttering in my stomach. And by pulling off the highway onto the shoulder. I had passed a state cop, who at the time had another car pulled over. Now he was after me.

My mind was racing, trying to sort out the possible reasons for being stopped. I hadn't been going much over the speed limit. But I was driving a sporty little car. A cell phone clipped to the visor might have looked like an illegal radar detector. And my friend in the passenger seat was a slender Mexican with darkish skin and a short beard. He might have been mistaken for a Middle Easterner - a potential terrorist.

I also had an image of state cops in my head. No-nonsense. Alert to danger. Willing and able to act first and ask questions later. Would we be frisked? Would the car be searched? Would we be arrested?

The Statie approached the passenger side of my car. Standard safety procedure to keep him out of traffic on a narrow breakdown lane. But he'd be getting a good look at my friend.

I was formulating all sorts of explanations for my passenger's appearance and not-perfect English as the Statie asked for my license and registration. And I was at a turning point.

If I assumed that we were being stopped because of a somewhat swarthy, suspicious-looking passenger, I could have been indignant and defiant. After all, neither of us had done anything wrong, and I could see being pulled over as highly suspicious. Maybe this cop had something to prove; maybe he had a brother or sister in the military, fighting terrorism. I fantasized reaching into the glove compartment for my registration and being confronted with a gun - or even a bullet - from an overeager, scared, angry cop.

You could say that I lead a very exciting and dread-filled fantasy life. But don't judge if you've never faced a cop for what seems like no reason.

Indignant and defiant. Not really my nature. I was actually frozen in fear. But I had to do something other than just sit there mute. So I told the truth: "I'm very nervous about this. I've haven't been stopped in years. It may take me a couple minutes to dig out the registration. It's in here." Keeping both hands visible, I reached slowly for the glove compartment.

And the cop said, "No problem. Take your time."

He examined my documents and handed them back to me. "Reason I stopped you is that when you drove by me back there it sounded like your muffler had a hole in it."

Now this was something I could handle. I told him that the muffler was relatively new, that it was tuned to sound sporty, and that it was identical to the original equipment. But, I said, I'll have my mechanic check it out.

We were soon back on the road, unticketed, unharmed. I had had a chance to back off from a confrontation, and I did. Fear had not turned to anger.

Fast forward to a recent confrontation involving Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, Jr., a prominent African-American college professor, and a sergeant from the Cambridge, Mass., police department. Gates, returning from a long trip, found his front door was jammed or warped, and he and his driver were forcing it open. A passerby saw this and called the police to report a possible break-in by two men.

Sergeant Crowley arrived to find Gates inside. Words were exchanged. Gates was apparently indignant. Sergeant Crowley insisted that Gates show a picture ID. According to one report, shouting commenced, and neither man could properly hear the other. What may have started out as fear had turned into anger.

Gates ended up in handcuffs, charged with disorderly conduct, and taken to the police station for a few hours.

The charges were eventually dropped, but not the controversy. President Obama even weighed in, calling the police action "stupid." Everyone - pundits, police union officials, politicians - started clamoring for the various parties to apologize to each other. Everyone felt his or her position was justified.

As I write this, the controversy is still hot. Obama has invited Prof. Gates and Sergeant Cowley to the White House for a beer, and they have accepted. And the President mentioned that this incident was a "teachable moment."

I've been wondering what a teachable moment would consist of in this case. The burden of racism borne by African Americans here in the US for the past several hundred years? The existence of profiling, even when it isn't called that - even when it's unconscious and not official policy? The impropriety of a police officer arresting a man in his own home for yelling at him and perhaps using crude language? The need to bridge the customary gap between "town and gown" in a city containing a university? The right of a police officer to control a situation that could get out of hand and put him in danger? All of these are very particular to the circumstances and the racial and class divisions in Cambridge.

I'm troubled that Prof. Gates seems to be emphasizing that the learning may be one-way. In an Associated Press story,

. . . Gates promised to do all he could so others could learn from his arrest.

"This could and should be a profound teaching moment in the history of race relations in America," Gates said. "I sincerely hope that the Cambridge police department will choose to work with me toward that goal."

All well and good. As far as this country has come, it has a long way to go in our knowledge of race relations. We all have much to learn from this teachable moment.

However, I have some suggestions that might provide some much broader lessons that everyone, including Prof. Gates, can learn.

First, don't make assumptions. We can only guess what assumptions Gates and Crowley were making when they first confronted each other. The President made some initial assumptions too, despite his disclaimer that he didn't know all the facts of the case.

Second, look beyond categories at the individual. Gates is African-American. Crowley is a cop. We can spin these categories into labels and attributes and then into words and actions that have nothing to do with the individual parties. We might do well to at least be aware of our tendency to see people as categories of gender, race, ethnicity, age, or social class, and then instead try to respond to the persons we see before us.

Third, don't make a single confrontation carry the burden of long-term grievances. Once we cross that line, we're screaming about our entire marriage when the issue at hand was whose turn it was to take out the garbage. I would guess that long centuries of racism and long decades of police officers being subjected to verbal abuse were the gasoline poured onto the sparks of the Gates-Crowley confrontation. There are better forums for addressing long-standing or systemic problems.

Fourth, recognize a no-win situation. When neither party is likely to prevail, and they keep at it, everybody loses. Sometimes even when you win you lose. In some settings, like a bar fight or road rage incident, the loss can be somebody's life. In the current case, neither Gates nor Crowley emerged a completely sympathetic figure.

Fifth, lower the volume. Maybe even shut up and listen. A lot of fights start when one side feels dismissed and doesn't think it is being respected enough to be heard.

Sixth, back off. The only behavior we can control or be responsible for is our own. Often the person to walk away from a fight isn't the loser but the one who has resolved the situation by showing the most self-control.

Any one of these lessons from the current "teachable moment" could prevent a lot of grief.