Civilized Privilege

I'm here to acknowledge my privilege.  I really was born with a silver spoon in my mouth.  Know why?  Because I was raised surrounded by civilized people.  I could care less what color they were--in my small, northwest Illinois town, I saw how civilized adults handle conflicts with the police.  And my "civilized privilege" marked me for life--let me explain how:

We had an overzealous cop in our county named Jeff.  I had a run-in with Jeff at a football game: I was just walking with the crowd, minding my own business, and ran across a can someone had thrown on the ground.  Being a typical kid, I kicked it out of the way.  Nothing malicious, no mischief--I just kicked a pop can out of the way.  Jeff was behind me--he ORDERED me to pick it up and throw it in the trash or he was going to haul me off to jail.  No, I'm not exaggerating, and no there isn't more to the story than this.  When I told him that I hadn't put the can on the ground, he said "I don't care" and made sure I picked up the can--someone else's litter--and threw it away.  Due to the way I was raised, I didn't defy his authority.  But that was just a taste of Jeff's love affair with being a cop.

Jeff had an annoying habit--he'd regularly arrest teenaged boys for stupid garbage and haul them off to the county jail.  Clearly, he loved his job.  The at the county jail, someone would have to come out and apologize to the boys, let them know that Jeff had no legal right to arrest them, and let them go home.  As you can imagine, people got disgruntled.  Before long, they had had it. 

So one afternoon, I walked into a local Hallmark shop. The owner was circulating a petition (notice the word I used--"PETITION"--not a "WE DEMAND" letter, not a threat) asking the authorities to send Jeff for more training so he'd know when he could and could not arrest people.  They weren't trying to get him fired.  They didn't want him punished.  In fact, I heard the lady say, "we're not trying to make trouble for Jeff, we just want...", you get the idea.

The result?  Well, someone got the message and calmed Jeff down--whether that meant more training or just getting his butt chewed out by the chief, I never knew--but Jeff grew into his position and went on to have a long-term law enforcement career, and everybody was happy.  I've seen other examples of over-aggressive police that did not have such a happy ending as this, but the problem always got resolved the same way: people went to board meetings, went to the mayor, wrote letters--you know, things that civilized people of all racial and cultural backgrounds do to get action--and made sure that their voices were heard.  They DID NOT bow up to the cop, get shrill and "in-your-face", or treat the cop with contempt while demanding their version of justice.  There's something to be said for "save it for the judge" (or the mayor, the city council meeting, the news, etc.).

Once my cousin--as a teenager--got stopped by the state police in front of the post office.  Thinking he was a wanted criminal, the trooper had him out and jacked up against the car getting padded down and--I believe--put in handcuffs.  My cousin remained polite and respectful.  They soon figured out that they had him confused with someone else and turned him loose with apologies.  When his mom and dad asked him how he responded, he said "I wasn't going to back-talk a cop!"  He was right.  There is nothing to be gained by resisting the police at the scene, talking back, getting vulgar, yelling and being belligerent--civilized people don't act that way. 

So yeah, I had "civilized privilege"--and it has helped me out in a lot of conflict situations.  Wish more people had it.