![]() Behind me, I could see, smell, and hear a dog in the back seat. I sat in the passenger's seat of the car. It also seemed unsafe to have me exit my car – on the highway side – for his convenience.Īs I walked alongside speeding trucks to his car, I thought of the letter to my mother: If I die. I assumed a large part of what officers do, especially during traffic stops, is go back and forth between cars. I figured that my questioning or resisting could only make things worse for me or my students, though it seemed beyond peculiar to me. "So I won't have to keep coming back and forth," he offered as he gestured toward his car and the highway behind him.Īfter barely a beat, I agreed. It was such a strange request he must've sensed my reluctance. I only remember him, blank-faced and blue-eyed, speaking directly to me: "I'm gonna have you get out of your car and come sit in mine." I'm not sure the cop made any outward acknowledgment of the student's divulgence. Perhaps he understood something about authority that I hadn't yet registered. This was information I would not have offered, but I assume the student thought it would make the exchange go smoother. We're students at the University of Virginia, and he's our professor." The student I had reached across, nervous as well, interjected through the silence, "We're coming from a conference at Virginia Tech. ![]() I'm certain at one point I addressed the officer as "sir," which, despite my years in the South, still felt unnatural. I tried to keep them on the steering wheel and appear unfazed. As I reached across the front seat to hand over my documents, my hands trembled. In front of my students, I was trying to pretend I wasn't afraid. On everything that might have mattered later, I blanked. But I don't remember the officer's name or badge number. It was mid morning, and the sky was clear and sunny. I vividly recall the silver car with its blue lettering. I distinctly remember the dull gray of the officer's uniform when he got out of his vehicle, and the K-9 patch pinned to his chest. But there are most certainly differences in the ways I feel, likely related to the fraught refuge afforded by my new job.Ĭode Switch K.A.A.N. Not because I think it's a safer state than South Carolina, or because the police or surrounding white community here are less hostile. Credentials aren't what make people people.Īnd yet: Living in Virginia I find it more necessary, but a bit less stressful to drive. My work and life should not matter differently as a result of my credentials. ![]() But living Black in America is often coupled with intimate understandings of how little a title, a job, or education matter in interactions with people if they see you as a threat.īesides, I wouldn't want that type of credibility or protection anyway. is "a bad document identifying the fugitive as a citizen." In other words, it pretends to give credibility and security to people like me, who have long been kept out of academia. The presumed authority related to my job has sometimes taken me by surprise. My work hadn't changed, I thought, and neither had I.īut there was a barely perceptible shift in going from student to professor. And as I had in South Carolina, I immediately began trying to resist the everyday white terror that seemed to consume the town. My new home, like my old one, is deeply invested in whiteness.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |