I am not without some racial empathy of my own, having had similar run-ins with the police in Arlington, Virginia over the past 15 years. Therefore, given that I always managed to reason with the good ole boys who ‘racially profiled’ me, I find it incomprehensible that Gates was unable to do the same in this situation.
(“The Arrest of Prof Gates Was Probably Justified,” The iPINIONS Journal, July 21, 2009)
This, in part, is how I expressed dismay after learning that Black Harvard Professor Skip Gates was so seized with racial inferiority under routine questioning by a White cop that he became belligerent and ended up getting arrested.
Which brings me to Tyler Perry – the Black entertainment mogul who has become so rich and powerful in Hollywood that only people like Oprah, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg can be considered his peers.
Perry took to his Facebook page on April 1 to give his 6.9 million friends — what he deemed to be — an important lesson in racial profiling. It is noteworthy, though, that he began this lesson by announcing that the incident in question occurred “a few days before President Obama was supposed to speak at my studio.” Because this casual bit of name dropping betrays the sense of entitlement that got the police’s attention.
In any event, this lesson consisted of Perry going on about how his “security team” instructed him to take safety precautions when driving to avoid being followed. Evidently, these precautions include making illegal turns, which he did one night and was pulled over by the cops.
He claims that when the two “White officers” approached and cited his traffic violation, he informed them that he was merely taking safety precautions as instructed. Instead of evoking sympathy, however, this merely incited incredulity. What’s more, before he could intone the customary, “Don’t you know who I am?, one of them startled him by banging on his front passenger-side window, exclaiming that his window is tinted and demanding he wind it down immediately.
His very long story short, they gave him the third degree, you know, as if he had stolen the expensive car he was driving. But soon a Black officer arrived on the scene and, according to Tyler, “He took one look at me and had that ‘Oh No’ look on his face.” Suffice it to say, he finally got the special, celebrity treatment he felt he was entitled to — complete with profound and profuse apologies.
But, for Perry, the indignities they inflicted upon him had to be redressed. He informed his friends that this was a classic case of “racial profiling,” which could easily have unfolded in Rondney-King fashion had he not heeded his Mama’s admonition to effectively play Uncle Tom when dealing with the police. More to the point, though, he vowed his intent to have no less an authority than the FBI investigate the way they “badgered” him.
But here is why this is such bullshit, and why compelling the police to investigate his claim is just an appalling abuse of his celebrity power and a waste of their time:
This would be racial profiling only if the police clearly stopped Tyler for no other reason than that he was “driving while Black.” But by his own admission, the police stopped him because he committed an egregious traffic violation. (What his “security team” told him to feed his paranoid self-importance is no justification for breaking the law.) Moreover, the police can argue that, for all they knew, it could have been Bruce Willis behind the wheel when they stopped him. After all, his windows were tinted, which itself gave them probable cause to stop him.
Therefore, that Tyler thinks this is a clear case of racial profiling says more about his ignorance and conceit than it does about corrupt policing in the city of Atlanta. This is brought into stark relief when juxtaposed with the clear case of racial profiling that led to the infamous killing of Trayvon Martin.
Not to mention the irony of making this specious charge while taking such obvious relish in the celebrity treatment the police eventually accorded him once they realized he was “Madea” in drag.
Frankly, his account is an insult to the thousands of Black men (like me) who are really racially profiled every day and who get unfairly ticketed … or worse. Of course, because he posted this rant on April 1, I suppose one could dismiss it as just a pathetic, attention-grabbing April fool’s joke.
Get over yourself Tyler!
Related commentaries:
The arrest of Prof Gates was probably justified