The whole notion of being docile around a police officer is an utterly terrifying norm. This isn’t the fucking hunger games. Citizens don’t need to be sweet to you, especially when you’re fucking wrong and they know their rights. They shouldn’t have to cower and fear and put their tails in between their thighs because the police academy has a tendency to accept shit heads who need to make up for their dominance complex.
Not to stomp all over this post or anything, but I got pulled over in Los Angeles in 2009. It was after a concert. The police tried to say I squealed my tires at them, which I definitely did not do, don’t know how to do, and besides the fact I had no music on and my windows rolled down so I absolutely knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I did not do it. As a result, I was calm and relaxed, I wasn’t afraid. And it absolutely perplexed them, one of them even got angry and started to yell at me. They kept insisting I must be drunk, I kept saying, “Give me the test then,” but it seemed like that was the last thing they wanted to do. Until finally, one of them was getting so irate that his partner separated him from me, and gave me the test. Finally, I was dismissed, and the arguably nicer (though not by much) officer said to me, “Can I ask you a question? Why aren’t you afraid of us? I think my friend is upset because you’re not afraid of us and usually people are.” And I said, “If I haven’t done anything wrong, why should I be afraid?”
But after that, it sat with me, that they expected me to be afraid, and they wanted me to be afraid, and it sat with me that they completely made up a reason to pull me over. Since then actually, I’m much more afraid of cops than I ever was before that moment.
