Walking a thin blue line in a black-and-white world

The #CrimingWhileWhite hashtag, is it bragging on the perks of white privilege or a show of solidarity and acknowledgment of the pervasive feeling that young black men truly are under constant suspicion by cops?

Undoubtedly it’s both, as there are terribly bigoted jerks and those who want justice in equal measure in this country, no matter skin tone; and social media has a great way of the bringing out the worst and the best in us.

Clearly very drunk and very aggressive, the cops were called on me at a local bar nearly 15 years ago, to which the officer told me to drive myself home. I drove, but not home.

Less than an hour later I was smashing empty beer bottles on the bar at another tavern and then wrapping my pickup around a power pole/car port.

Not so sure that was #CrimingWhileWhite, but it was clearly a case of getting away with something that in hindsight someone else might not have gotten away with. Maybe a young black man wouldn’t have gotten off so easily.

I’m certainly not bragging about my “white privilege,” and had never given it a second thought in this racial context until coming across the hashtag in the last few days. But double-standards do exist, and while some of us see these racial injustices in every corner, others still want to bury their head in the sand and insist we’re in a post-racial society.

Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and right here at home, Tommy Yancy Jr., have taken us to very distinct and divided places in America at the moment, differences that even our black President and black attorney general are coming down on the side you’d expect formerly young black men in America to come down on.

Many people do not like it. This roiling undercurrent of racism that has always been here has really begun to spill over in public protest and private opinion because of these cases and the heightened sensitivity they bring with them across the nation. And this isn’t all white racism, either.

The idea of aggressive law enforcement focusing on and profiling young black men is both inextricably linked to this conversation and standing apart as just another byproduct of an existing racial divide.

When trying to understand it all, to be fair and just, how can anyone, black or white, land hard on one firm statement over the other — cops’ war against black youth vs. “if you don’t do the crime, you don’t have anything to worry about.”

It’s not that simple. To choose one over the other with no grasp of the gray areas or an effort to grab hold of empathy and understanding is to discount the feelings of African-Americans living in a world non-blacks cannot understand, a world informed by a shameful history of abuse.

To that end, how can we simply dismiss the fact that most police officers and law enforcement agents are just trying to do their jobs — fairly in way more instances than not — and just want to go home to their families at the end of their shift?

The militarization of local police forces is a scary thing, whether you’re black, brown or white. There are very few situations that call for a militaristic response, and the toys of the trade often seem more like badges of honor for departments than weapons to be wielded.

That is not most cops; that is not most police forces. Not all cops get off scot-free for committing crimes, cover for each other, or have grand juries set up to avoid punishment.

Likewise, not all young black men are up to no good, they don’t all need to be followed, and not all lawbreakers deserve the crushing force of punishments that don’t fit the crime, even when they resist.

We could go back and forth. And many of us will. Because we must. In the open. It’s the only way to deal with it.

Hatred of cops, broad brushstrokes of brutality; it doesn’t work. Cops kill black youths, never pay the price; it might feel true today, but it isn’t a certainty.

In a way, I guess I’m tiptoeing around the topic, trying to grapple with my own opinions and inherent prejudices, just as many people of all different colors and creeds are doing at this very moment in history.

All Band-Aids need to be ripped off for a good healing, and this is no different.

This column originally ran in the Imperial Valley Press, Dec. 5, 2014.