I was speaking to Daniel, a concerned, upscale dude who graduated from MIT with a degree in something I can't quite grasp. He was asking me about the recent unrest in Harm City as he drove me across town, and asked me for a concise cause.
I replied, "The drug war is a war on the underclass, therefore you have an alienated and restive underclass—the police force is an army of occupation, an understrength army."
Daniel continued. "I can see what you mean. I ran in the D.C. Marathon last weekend, and the police who secured the route were all very polite, helpful, professional—until this one officer ignored a traffic signal and nearly hit me. I yelled at him, 'Hey, that's against the law! You can't do that.'"
"He then stopped and addressed me in manner that was chilling in its menace. Sure, he was only one cop out of the bunch, but, in his mind, he was above the law and very willing to impose his lawless will on a person of the class he is ostensibly serving and protecting. So I could well imagine if I were a low income kind of guy how bad it could be. So your point is that this is probably one of those cops active in—and therefore callused by—this war on drugs?"
"Yes, it becomes a culture. A culture does not require full participation for its norms to be imposed."
"Norms, which, in this case, constitute a culture of intimidation?"
"A necessary culture of intimidation if a small number of cops are to impose their will on a relatively vast underclass."
"Okay, so what is the solution?"
"I don't believe in solutions."
"I am sick of hearing that. You have named a concise cause, so name a concise solution."
"Okay, send me back in time—you can surely build a time machine—so that I can murder William Bradford and his Pilgrims when they land at Plymouth Bay. That out to nix the drug war, and prohibition."
"Yes, prohibition was such a roaring success it is astonishing that we walked into this 'War on Drugs' so wide eyed. Thanks for the food for thought."
"Thanks for the ride Daniel, and please, don't mouth off to a Baltimore city cop—okay."
Just as the Baltimore Riot stew began to ferment, a few readers and myself were conducting a discussion on police harassment in Baltimore. The bottom line on the riots was that it had almost nothing to do with the death of Freddie Gray, which merely served as an excuse to vent long developing hatred for the police force. The truth, However, remains obscured by his plight, with the media only interested in examining the spark that lit the torch, without a care for how long the thing was soaked in flammable angst engendered by the federal drug war. 5/2/15
Correction: On one of the comments at the base of this article I mentioned that Charles was harassed by cops a lot after he shaved his head. He just told me that the driver for this seemed to be his snappy little pickup truck, and that, as soon as he switched to a small sedan he was no longer targeted for regular police stops, even though his head is still shaved. 5/3/15
Oliver Responds to A White Girl Tale
For some of Oliver's Harm City experiences checkout Oliver On Stupid Shit and Taking Out The Trash
Interesting read. I was expecting a little harsher viewpoint. I do disagree with it being a persecution complex. I have no misconceptions that cops can mistreat anyone but what I realized the older I became was that it is different. At one point in my young adult life, I lived close to Belair Road and Erdman Avenue.
I literally could count on both hand how many times I left my house and WAS NOT pulled over by the police. It made me hate driving. These stops resulted in 0 tickets and despite my continued questioning as to why I was being pulled over, I can count on one finger how many times a reason was actually given. I always had my registration up to date, always took care of my car, I don't smoke and have never had a warrant. So the reasons begin to thin out.
I'm not even going to talk about actual treatment by them as that would take a book and based off the premise of the stop... well it could only go up from there. It wasn't until I got older and moved to nicer areas that I realized my daily meeting with cops should never have been routine, and when it does happen, and I request a supervisor, I should actually get one. Just realizing how normal I felt it was [to be stopped by the police] when I was a kid shows me its very difficult to understand the flip side unless you experience it, because in my case I never even knew there was a flip side.
James on The Systemic Purpose of Police Harassment
You know Oliver, I can count on two hands how many times I have been harassed by cops and on one hand how many times I've been given a reason. Roughly, this means you have been harassed by cops about 100 times more often than I have living in the same area, and honestly, I look a good deal more sketchy than you and have broken more laws.
Many whites will say, 'But yeah, James gets picked on by black guys more often than Oliver does so it evens out.
It does not even out.
You have been attacked and threatened by black males roughly at the same rate as I have, as their decision to be aggressive is not systemically driven but makes more subjective sense and is based on opportunity in an environmental context. On the other hand your mind bogglingly more frequent harassment at the hands of the cops represents The System attacking you—which is a literal order of magnitude worse than being attacked by an private individual or individuals. My recent post Jack Dynomite And Jillneequa is based on numerous real accounts from black coworkers, and is in no way an exageration.
For the readers who may not know, Oliver and I have been acquainted through boxing and have inhabited the same areas of Harm City over the same period, roughly 2002-2015. We have even had a cop follow us around in the snow while Oliver was driving me home from the gym—we supposed on suspicion of a drug deal—out in the County.
I have a theory that this harassment is all by design, as it feeds The System. Most urban black folks—who lack Oliver's insight, education, and experience in other environments—who grow up getting their asses kicked by cops just for being black, develop a deep resentment toward authority, laws, and the white community that the police seem to be serving. Of course, the police only serve The State, but impressions count. Terrorizing blacks causes tension between the races that justify the existence of The State as a peacemaker. There is also the fact that the black community generally refuses to help police out of a very reasonable suspicion of animosity. This cultivates crime in that community, thus limiting the upward and outward mobility of its members and keeping them close to the centers of State power in subsidized ghettos, a readymade mob to threaten sissy suburban whites in times of economic woe.
This has a terroristic effect on whites, who cannot even imagine the frequency of harassment by police against hard working young men, who actually make up about half of the black male population—about the same ratio as in white communities. However, due to the abuse by police, a much larger ratio of blacks practice violent crime, interracial crime, and, most often, passive aggression as a way to set up confrontations. This behavior is planted and cultivated by The System. 100 years—and more so the further back you go—blacks were less likely to seek confrontation and commit violence than whites. Do not forget that the figurehead of the KKK, Nathan Bedford Forest, considered the black man to be a more peaceful and harder working fellow than the whites of his day [even though he did beat one black field hand to death with an axe handle for challenging his authority], who he regarded as superior war-fighting material, having led them to victory in over 30 battles.
It is now the other way around. For instance, yesterday I boarded a bus loaded with college students and working adults, all black; not a criminal in the bunch. Exactly half of the seats were full. Every passenger had placed their hand bag or purse next to them, necessitating a confrontation or a submissive request on my part. Depending on my mood I might go right for confrontation by moving the objects, which always causes a rush to move it by the owner. However, on this particular day, one of the 34 people saw that I would need a seat and placed her bag on her lap—which is law in most mass transit systems—while most looked stone-faced forward, denying my very existence unless I brought attention to myself and set up a possible confrontation. This is a working crowd of students. On buses packed with youths I have often had to physically move people to sit down.
Such situations for a person like Elaine—a white female suburbanite—are nothing short of terrifying.
The primary ripple this causes among whites is an aversion to vigilante behavior. Yes, I wrote that. Most whites regard blacks—who have been made passively and actively defiant through law enforcement abuse—as a predatory species. I know about a dozen white women who have been raped, and have declined to tell male relatives for fear that they will avenge them and end up in prison as the outnumbered victim of blacks.
Oliver, I see this as a cycle of cultivated fear that preys on us all for the benefit of The State. Even when the white cop who makes a miscalculation when dealing with a defiant criminal gets persecuted by the press, he is still serving the larger State, the Federal police, to whom local police powers are in the process of aggregating to due to these local events.
And I have a bone to pick with you young man. When you don't show up for a training session, and do not inform me by phone, the first thing that crosses my mind is that you are getting a shoe polish shampoo from a squad of Baltimore's finest. So, the next time you reach for your sweats to come to the gym and some vixen drags you back into bed, at least give me a text such as, "Hey James, coming up for air, see you tomorrow."
The effect I see in the white community is support for police violence based on the mob violence in Ferguson, and the fact that black on white violence is underplayed in the national press. In terms of The State cultivating animosity among social factions any inequity on either side of the coin is a plus, with black and white animosity both beneficial to government growth.
The underlying driver is the opposing view of the crime-alienation process. In traditional one-race societies all you had to do to keep order was alienate or ostracize a person. In a mixed-race society this ideal of alienation losses focus. For instance, in white America, being convicted of a crime brings alienation. Your family disowns you and lets you rot—you are an undisciplined failure. In black America being convicted of even the most heinous crime does not dampen familial and community support, as virtually all black men have been unjustly targeted for violence by police—black and white police—according to a century-old theory and culture of police work that is more akin to military occupation than to the type of rural policing that most American whites in my age group grew up with. Coming from these two opposing views of community policing I see now chance of a shared view but continued divisiveness, which, in the end, only benefits the federal government.
I'll post this as an article and would like your commentary.
Oliver must be especially dangerous and suspicious looking. Like actor Peter Falk (Colombo), who apparently looked so much the part of the stereotypical criminal type that he was frequently detained and questioned by police all over the world. I've see how that works myself. Likewise Oliver must resemble one of the actors from "The Wire" or something. He has hot looking women hanging on him all the time to boot. But he doesn't look like a user...Hhmmm. Yep, that guy must be dealing dope! One of these days we'll catch him holding. It would seem that the police are just being proactive in their own minds then. Like they say, Life comes to resemble Art more often than Art resembles Life. Especially nowadays, when people's perceptions and expectations are so often shaped by what they have seen portrayed on television and in motion pictures. It would appear Harm City is a particular pathological case as well. I have never watched "The Wire", but from my readings of reviews of the show I gather that the basic premise of the storyline is that everything in Baltimore is dysfunctional and everyone living and working there is compromised and corrupt as a result. Is that that an accurate assessment (of either the show or the city) or am I way off base?
About the Wire, it's reputation is well deserved and it is an accurate depiction of inner city life in Baltimore in the late 90s. The most interesting character is Omar Little [a composite of a few real killers] who is a homosexual hunter of drug dealers.
When we consider that any white man on foot in Baltimore, that does not dress like a preppy, a hipster, or in a suit, and is not elderly and/or disabled, will be stopped by the police about once a year on suspicion of drug activity, we have a start on understanding this. Policing in Baltimore is driven by three things in order of priority:
1. Qualifying for federal funding which means fighting the drug war and building arrest-based stats toward that end
2. Responding to news stories for political reasons
3. Protecting major business like hospitals, and neighborhoods with strong business associations.
In other words policing Baltimore is all about targeting criminal males, most of whom are either pedestrians or are black. Like a Navy SEAL oversees the cop is looking for MAM [Military Age Males]. Therefore white men on foot and all military age black men are stopped as a matter of course. One year when O'Malley was in office 1 in every 6 Baltimoreans was arrested! Since they were mostly black males that meant that half of all black men in the city during that year were arrested! Oliver was one of them. No charges, of course.
I ran a supermarket for 4 years from 01-10. During that time I employed over 100 black men and just under 20 white men. I cannot recall a black male employee who was not detained or arrested on his way to or from work [even my elderly receiver who was dying of cancer. In fact I had three advanced cancer cases on staff who were all arrested for the crime of walking to work, with one of them being white. Two were named Jimmy, and they were all in their 60s and 70s.], and will estimate the occurrence to be three-quarters, with one quarter being attacked by other black men. Of the 15-20 white men, one quarter of them were attacked by black men and one quarter of them were detained or arrested by police.
This seems ridiculous, and it is. But it is also Baltimore!
I have some theories on why, also based on my experience with police and the 7 interviews I have now landed with cops—all reluctant interviews—and three with threats made to me; nice polite threats really—that being the most unsettling kind.
The BPD has no community support and is not sustainable by the Baltimore tax base. This causes increased aggressiveness in prosecuting the 'war on drugs' which further undermines any community support, for reasons including a resulting lack of attention to non-lethal violent crimes.
As any tiny occupation force does, the BPD feels alienated and outnumbered. The only East Coast cops who have it worse are in D.C. In the 90's five cops were murdered by individual black males in a guerilla war against the drug task force. Dudes would just walk up to their cruiser and shot them. It is well known among cops that few gang members, and few men in general, will attack cops or kill the drug dealers cops are essentially tasked with defending. Those who do kill, and therefore pose a threat to police, walk alone.
It will fascinate you to notice that very few men in Baltimore will spend any amount of time on the street alone without 'packing up.' Those who do walk alone and do so with an easy confidence—as opposed to the furtive darting figure of the dopefiend—are not people you mess with, unless you are the apex predator—the cop. If the cops are lions than, to them, Oliver smells a lot like a leopard that needs to get back in his tree.
Incidentally, my white fighter, Charles, has been stopped by cops many times since he shaved his head.
Although Oliver and I are not violent, we are both generally alone for various reasons, not the least of which is we don't fear these goddamned hood rats!
The very same body language that comes with this attitude brings police attention. Cops fear military age men who do not show fear and who travel alone.
An interesting aspect of this, is Oliver's driving. Most young black men in Baltimore never drive alone! Seriously, it is so rare for a young black fellow to have a car, once he gets one, it's like an amusement park ride for his friends—a ho magnet. Oliver has been in business for himself installing electronics and contracting to cable companies since he was a teen, and mostly used his car to work, and to go to Judo and boxing—not places friends want to go—placing him alone in a car, as a black in Baltimore, which says drug mule, pimp, care thief, or hitter.
The cops are looking for the nail that is sticking up.
The white trash guy alone on foot is considered a feral drug scrounging beast with a warrant hanging over his head, a stat waiting to be tallied.
The young black man alone in a vehicle is obviously a criminal, for he either stole it or is using it for crime, or bought it with drug money!
I suspect we will find similar Trends in places like Camden, Toledo, Cleveland, Flint, those various dumps in Upstate New York, etc. In the dying mid-sized American city the old style white laborer on foot, or the young non-criminal black male motorist are rare creatures and are assumed to be denizens of the crimescape.
Thanks for the info on Peter Falk. That is hilarious.
Baltimore is dysfunctional.. but that being said I don't know of a major city that isn't at least slightly in the same boat. Atlanta, LA, Houston, Detroit, Miami at least are some of the ones i can vouch for having the same or similar 'dysfunction'. As for my appearance being part of the reason I was pulled over at a high rate, apart from attaching a pic and having a poll taken i'm not sure how to know if that's valid. But i will say 2 things, 1 a sketchy appearance should not be grounds for pulling someone over and legally it is not. It can especially be difficult when picking out 'sketchy' characters from different ethnic backgrounds. If I were an officer in Japan and I went off appearance to guess which people were yakuza i'm certain i'd be wrong 90% of the time. A funny movie Harold and Kumar go to Guantanamo Bay satirizes this, when Harold and Kumar escape prison and accidentally drive into what they think is a sketchy neighborhood. The locals are playing basketball in the street, and a giant african american male , played by Lester Speight(who coincidentally is from Baltimore), grabs the ball and yells with dominance, which both Harold and Kumar perceive as a slow motion roar. They then attempt to make an erratic u-turn to escape the inevitable but they crash into a fire hydrant disabling their vehicle. Water spews everywhere getting everyone wet, and shorting out the locals boom box. So Harold an Kumar witnessing this and seeing Lesters character grabbing a tire iron assume a severe ass whippin is coming and elect to run on foot. As they run off Lester's character yells after them, "Where are you going? We were just going to help you change your tire..." at which point someone else rolls out a spare tire.. Lester's character ends up being a dentist with his own practice and no criminal record. Just a movie but it illustrates the old adage 'dont judge a book by its cover' and i'd like to add especially if you're an officer and its illegal and causes more harm than good to the community that you police. It's not worth the 10% success rate to turn 70+% of the black populous against you. 2 if the reason I was pulled over so often was simply my appearance, then I'd assume I'd still have the same rate of being pulled over now but that's not the case. My appearance hasn't changed much but if anything I probably look more suspect now as I've grown a beard and switch between a bald head and locs. At that time I was pretty clean cut and no facial hair. But like I said, not much physical change to account for my current lack of harassment, except for a physical change of address. Now I still do get stopped or followed occasionally but its not even close to the frequency that it was.
For the record I'd say Oliver looks like heavyweight contender Shannon Briggs as a middleweight.
Speaking of which, in Teddy Atlas's autobiography, he describes being with Shannon in a white area and having an entire crowd of white men attack Shannon on pure impulse. This was the day before the fight and Shannon would kill normal people if he hit them. So Teddy fought these guys off on his own while Shannon made his escape.
My favorite movie scene for police harassment was the first Rambo film, in which Brian Dennehy played a part that I am familiar with meeting from personal experience, often wearing the same type of jacket John Rambo was wearing.
I think what this comes down to is police looking for out of character or out of place individuals. Groups, even obviously violent groups, are avoided by cops in Baltimore, who have left me standing on the street in front of a mob of black kids that were breaking store windows and just cruise away, while they have also selected me and harassed me for being white and alone in the Baltimore night within moments of me being harassed by crowds of black kids, which, again, they drove right by. Yet they will single out a lone black man like Oliver and my employees. This all points to policing of the individual, of the State's sheep dogs herding us sheep back into the fold.
I think it is a simple instinct among loyal slaves of a system to pressure odd individuals into conformity. In some cases the cop is so totally off base that I get the impression that his suspicion of me—and some like Oliver who have shared their experiences—was based only on impulse.
An interesting corollary was a woman I coached last year who drives a sports car and is incredibly attractive. She gets stopped on average twice a week by Baltimore County cops. Think about that. Twice a week for 20 years now. And we know these stops are instinctive, don't we guys? Who would not want to talk to this chick? Well, the cops have an excuse to speak to her, as she is driving the roads that they police for their political masters.
Thanks Oliver.
LOL! Well Oliver, James, There is obviously something about you both that bothers people on some level, whatever that common denominator might be. The police in particular, and when the police are bothered about something they act. It's just a cross you'll have to bear.
Based on what you are telling me James, the police in Harm City operate on the assumption that, with very few exceptions, everybody in the city is a "player", for anyone not engaged in criminal activity has long since moved away. Crime in the city has become so overwhelming over the years that Baltimore has in effect become a penal colony, full of either criminals plying their trade or social outcasts seeking a place to flop. Therefore, the police are corrections officers supervising inmates, rather than "peace officers", because there is no peace to keep. It scarcely matters then if the inmates in this penal colony resent the "screws" or not. Certain politically protected classes of inmates get left alone, but other than that, community support of the police isn't required. The only portion of the community left that still supports law and order are retail business concerns, analogous to the prison canteen serving the inmates (and providing what's left of the tax base of the city). We have learned long ago that cities with little to no business tax base left have to hand out a lot of fines in order to finance city government and/or obtain money through state and federal subsidies. So far The Woman doesn't appear concerned about most of the inmates fleeing the colony.
You are correct Jeremy. The outnumbered police, awash in a sea of criminals, many of whom have never been caught, are not comfortable with men who are unafraid and also not part of the political/corporate hierarchy.
It is natural, and me being older, and more worn down by the years, am less bothered by it than Oliver. In fact, I am now proud of being harassed by police, and if they stop it I might complain like some woman who is finally too old looking for the waiter to card and feels like she has been cast aside.
Unfortunately this type of aggressive occupation style policing has gotten us to where we are. I don't know if there is an alternative at this point. For the cops to back down now will turn this into a South African style ghetto, as decades of these practices has forged a rabidly aggressive criminal class.