Do even white people trust the police\u00a0any more? What should I do if a cop wants me to pull\u00a0over? Try to\u00a0keep rolling\u00a0until\u00a0I can stop in an area where there are witnesses,\u00a0hoping someone\u00a0will take a cell phone video in case things go\u00a0sideways? Is the cop\u00a0going to tase me\u00a0if I don’t bow and scrape? Do I have any recourse if he does? Well, at least being shot to death isn’t my primary concern, being white and all.<\/p>\n
Like everyone else, I’m thinking of\u00a0the videotaped\u00a0murder of Walter Scott<\/a>, an unarmed\u00a0black man, by a white cop\u00a0in North Charleston, South Carolina.\u00a0I’m not surprised to see conservative whites\u00a0in denial over\u00a0this or similar videos showing cops beating, tasing, choking, shooting, and killing unarmed black men. I’m not surprised to see conservative whites\u00a0expressing racial solidarity\u00a0and a fawning\u00a0devotion to authority by setting up fund-raising pages for white cop executioners\u00a0on Facebook. A certain segment of the population simply\u00a0will not learn\u00a0or grow\u00a0when it comes to race; they are lost and will never change.<\/p>\n So ignore them, right? Don’t let them get under your skin. Yes, but the media keeps handing them an open mic. Driving home from the museum yesterday, I listened to one such, a veteran white policeman interviewed by a BBC correspondent on my local NPR station.<\/p>\n The\u00a0authorities in North Charleston did everything right, according to this veteran law enforcement officer, firing the cop who shot Walter Scott and charging him with murder. The BBC interviewer failed to point out that the authorities didn’t do anything until the New York Times published the video.<\/p>\n The veteran cop\u00a0insisted the killing in North Charleston\u00a0“can’t be linked” to other confrontations between black men and white policemen that have been in the news. He said this\u00a0two or three times during the interview, and the BBC interviewer never called him on it.<\/p>\n The killing of Walter Scott can’t be linked to other killings of unarmed black men by white cops? Really? Because you say so, buddy?\u00a0Let’s look at just two other videotaped killings of\u00a0unarmed black men by\u00a0white cops: the shooting of Oscar Grant<\/a> at a BART station in Oakland, California\u00a0and the chokehold suffocation\u00a0of Eric Garner<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0New York City.<\/p>\n