Last week I was riding the train home from Minneapolis to downtown St. Paul, on my way to where I’m staying for the summer. It was late and I was tired, so for much of the trip, I was half-dozing. At Victoria Station, two transit police boarded, and I came to attention.
Amongst the responsibilities of the transit police is to board trains randomly and check for proof of fare. As I pulled out my fare card, I noted that the White cop was working the train car from the front, and the Asian cop from the back. There were Black passengers. There was a White cop. Experience has taught me that this math doesn’t add up well.
The Black man in front of me pulled out his fare card for the White cop, who ran it through his hand-held scanner. “This says the last fare expired yesterday at five p.m.”
“Ah, yeah, I forgot about that,” said the Black man.
“Don’t worry, it’s no problem,” said the White cop.
Things could go much worse, and I knew I had to do something, but all I could think at this point was to follow the trio as surreptitiously as possible.
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And, like a fool, I believed the White cop. I pulled out my only cash, a ten, in case I could jump in and offer to pay the passenger’s fare.
“Could you pull out your ID, sir,” said the White cop. The Black passenger complied. Obviously, there was a problem.
The White cop signaled to the Asian cop behind me while radioing his superiors. “Yes, I’ve got a passenger here, John Doe, Minnesota ID #654321.” Something was going down. I fingered my phone, regretting that I haven’t yet upgraded to a smartphone, that I’m not able to record any shenanigans I encounter.
“Say, what’s this arrest we have on you?” said the White cop.
“DWI, but I served my time.”
“Did you miss some sort of class or something?”
“Naw, man, I took care of everything, I’m telling you.”
As the train zoomed on towards downtown, I thought about the White man who hit my brother last November and who has thus far served only one day of jail time for his DWI.
The White cop handed the Black man a phone. “I’m going to have you call whoever you were going to meet with, let ’em know you’re not going to be home tonight.”
“What about these groceries? They gotta eat.”
“Don’t worry, we won’t let your food go bad.” I figured the perishables weren’t going to reach their intended destination. Still, I fiddled with my useless phone and the long-irrelevant Hamilton, helpless and hopeless.
When we reached Central Station, the White cop and the Asian cop had the Black passenger in cuffs. Things could go much worse, and I knew I had to do something, but all I could think at this point was to follow the trio as surreptitiously as possible. I trailed them around the station, zipping through the contact list on my flip phone so as not to arouse the cops’ suspicion. They looped around the station, towards my transfer point. The Black man spotted his friends waiting for him.
“Are you guys really cops?” asked a young woman. “Is he really going to jail?”
“No,” said the White cop, “we’re fake cops and we’re taking him to fake jail.”
The two cops led the Black passenger onto the westbound train to his fate. I boarded the bus. I was humbled and humiliated, but I was at least going home, unlike my fellow passenger. Who knew what awaited him.
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We Whites cower behind a mantra of “All Lives Matter,” which reflects a first-grade comprehension of justice and empathy.
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Yesterday morning, word broke of the murder of Philando Castile, and for some weird reason, my instinct was to check his photo, to see if this was the same man I saw on the train a few days ago. The chance was minuscule that it could have been Philando Castile, and of course, they weren’t the same man.
In retrospect, I’m embarrassed that this is where my mind went. Because as soon as I saw the words “Black man,” I should have thought of any of the Black men in this town who are my friends and acquaintances.
We are fools to think we live in a color-blind society; the statistics and the lived experiences of people of color simply do not bear this out. We Whites cower behind a mantra of “All Lives Matter,” which reflects a first-grade comprehension of justice and empathy. Or we defend our racist actions by claiming, “But I have Black friends,” when if that were the case, we would shut up and actually listen to our Black friends and their stories of oppression and discrimination.
We have built a society in which we flinch at the approaching Black man on the sidewalk, in which we cast him in our shows as the drug dealer or the pimp or the layabout, in which he can be arrested or even executed on sight for no reason—like Philando and Alton and Tamir and Trayvon and so many more—when the White man can expect for his misdoings a slap on the wrist.
Don’t tell me you don’t see race, or that you have Black friends, or that all lives matter. Do something, even if it’s something as simple as shutting up and listening.
Me? I’m writing, because I’m a writer and that’s what I do best and do most. And I’ll keep writing against the degradation of people of color until I don’t need to anymore.
What are you going to do?
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Photo: GettyImages