It’s not a secret that black Americans live in a vastly different world than white ones.
Case in point: Black men and women live in fear that they’ll be pulled over or approached by police, worried that they may suffer violence or, worse, may end up dead after the interaction.
One white woman highlighted this huge disparity with an impactful Twitter thread describing her many interactions with police over her lifetime.
It starts when she was just 15 years old and caught shoplifting:
When I was 15, I was chased through a mall by police who were yelling “Stop thief!” I had thousands of dollars of stolen merchandise on me. I was caught, booked, sentenced to 6 months of probation, required to see a parole officer weekly. I was never even handcuffed.
THREAD:
— Krista Vernoff (@KristaVernoff) June 15, 2020
And continues to another incident when she was 18:
When I was 18, I was pulled over for drunk driving. When the Police Officer asked me to blow into the breathalyzer, I pretended to have asthma and insisted I couldn’t blow hard enough to get a reading.
— Krista Vernoff (@KristaVernoff) June 15, 2020
The thread continues:
When I was twenty, with all of my strength, I punched a guy in the face — while we were both standing two feet from a cop. The guy went to the ground and came up bloody and screaming that he wanted me arrested, that he was pressing charges.
— Krista Vernoff (@KristaVernoff) June 15, 2020
Nothing happened then, either:
The cop pulled me aside and said, “You don’t punch people in front of cops,” then laughed and said that if I ever joined the police force he’d like to have me as a partner. I was sent into my apartment and told to stay there.
— Krista Vernoff (@KristaVernoff) June 15, 2020
She pointed out that she doesn’t have a criminal record:
Between the ages of 11 and 22, my friends and I were chased and/or admonished by police on several occasions for drinking or doing illegal drugs on private property or in public. I have no criminal record.
— Krista Vernoff (@KristaVernoff) June 15, 2020
Moral of the story? White people almost always survive their encounters with the police. The same is not true for black Americans.
I’m asking the white people reading this to think about the crimes you’ve committed. (Note: You don't call them crimes. You and your parents call them mistakes.) Think of all the mistakes you’ve made that you were allowed to survive.
— Krista Vernoff (@KristaVernoff) June 15, 2020
A black woman responded with her own thread that’s similar to Vernoff’s, except her experience was the opposite:
I did a thread like this, except it was the opposite, and traumatic. To know that we grew up under the same law is so unbelievably problematic I don't know where to begin. Here's mine. https://t.co/Ma8vGDKGak https://t.co/gUv5eybrNM
— Qasim Basir (@qasimabasir) June 17, 2020
No matter how you feel about politics, I think we can all agree that Vernoff, a showrunner for “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Station 19,” has certainly given everyone lots of food for thought, right?
Did you ever make mistakes in your youth that involved the police? How do you feel the police handled you or your friends?
The post White Woman Shares All the Times She Encountered Police and Was Let Off the Hook appeared first on UberFacts.