The Time White Privilege Saved My Customer’s Life
When I’m not writing and the world isn’t socially distancing I tend bars. A purveyor of lagers and a mint muddler. That’s me. The gift and the curse of bars are people. You meet cool ones and real assholes too. You make friends for life and others that you forget about.
Regulars can be a mixed bag. Especially where I worked. Cambridge, MA. The home of MIT and Harvard. I spent four years honing my craft in that beautiful restaurant. Learned a lot about myself and other people too.
Funny story before I continue. We were located right in the heart of Harvard Square. Our clientele was a mixed bag. Accomplished professors, ‘my shit don’t stink’ graduate students, families, lacrosse bros, and celebrities. Sean Astin, Sara Bareilles, Adrian Grenier, and Brian Cranston, to name a few. And one more that I still laugh about.
I shit you not, Malia Obama handed me a fake ID one night. On God, I swear. She was wearing a denim jacket and it was her freshman year at the university. I felt bad telling her that I couldn’t serve her, but I had to. I didn’t take the ID though. If you read this Malia, I’d love it if you signed it and sent it to me.
Back to the point. You meet a lot of people working behind the bar. Some regulars become your friend. I had one such friend up in Cambridge, MA. He told me a story one day a few years back and I want to share it because it’s important.
He avoided death at the hands of two police officer because he was white.
I knew he had a drinking problem. I knew this because he told me and I was the guy that fed his vice most nights. Responsibly, I assure you. We had an agreement with one another that no other bartender was aware of. An unwritten code between two friends.
He confided in me one day about an incident he had the night before. We spoke on a Monday and he had spent the Sunday before at a Red Sox game. We were both fans. He told me he drank way too much between before the game, at the game, and the bars after. And he had driven to the ballpark.
Driving normally wasn’t an issue in our agreement because his girlfriend lived within walking distance of my bar. He told me that he was over halfway home when it happened. Unsure of how things went wrong, he said he may have been distracted by the music blaring through his blown-out speakers.
He was on Commonwealth Avenue. A popular road in the Boston area. A well-known feature of Commonwealth Avenue is that one of the Green Line MBTA trains runs through the center of the two-way street. He rammed his tire into the curb next to the tracks.
The jolt sent him to race towards the road’s shoulder. He said to me “I thank God no one else was on the road right then. I didn’t look at all when I shifted lanes”.
Catching his breath, he saw it. The absolute worst art class you’ll ever take. A lesson in primary colors. Flashes of red and blue.
He said he panicked. Drove down a side street and cut around the grocery store. The blue and red amalgam caught up to him.
My friend was white and this cop was black. I remember he told me that this officer was cool. He could tell from the beginning.
The officer was gentle, he said. He talked to my friend like a person and asked questions. He didn’t treat him like a drunkard or a fool that fucked up his tire. My friend was a little younger than me, probably 21 at the time because I was 23 when he told me.
The cop gave him a sobriety test on the side of the road. We don’t know if he passed or not. The officer didn’t cuff him.
Everything was cordial, or so my buddy told me. He said he wasn’t afraid of the officer at all. He was white, why would he fear the police?
But then, he said, things changed when backup arrived. They pulled up in a police van. Now he was nervous.
Two young white officers stepped out. The type of young that probably just finished their sixth month of training. My friend said they stood to the side. Just there to be there I guess.
After the original officer finished with him, he asked my friend to take a seat on the sidewalk. “Hang tight for a minute” or something along those lines is what I imagine the officer said.
It was then that things got dicey.
The two young white cops started chirping. My friend was wasted so their observations were probably correct. But you know what happens when you give the wrong guy a badge. They grow a pair for the first time.
My friend, who I promise you can be a hot-headed asshole, chirped back. He stood up. It was a bad idea.
He delivered firm lip service. He said he cursed a lot but didn’t remember which profanities he said to the two Jump Street lookalikes. “Wannabes” and “posers” were the words he described them to me as.
The two white cops inched towards him, but the veteran officer intervened before anything escalated. Like my friend said, he was cool.
The senior officer had cited my friend for three traffic violations. A hefty fine indeed, but no DUI. And no arrest.
On top of that, the senior officer gave my friend a lift home. He opened the door to the back of his black SUV and helped my friend in. No handcuffs.
The officer gave him the type of talk a father gives his son. One from the heart, with respect and love behind it.
My friend ended up going to court for the ticket, as the officer recommended he do. All charges dropped. No points on his license, no insurance raise, no handcuffs, and no loss of breath. The only damages were having to pay to replace the tire he hit and the fees owed to the one-time lawyer he hired.
I’ve been thinking about this story a lot. I wonder if the two white officers would’ve have acted differently if my friend weren’t white. My gut reaction is that things would have been very different.
My friend’s life was saved by his white privilege on that night. The two chirping cops were slow to move on him. A privilege indeed. He skirted by, but didn’t realize by how much back then. He was glad that he wasn’t arrested and that he could still legally drive. He didn’t think once about being happy to be alive. He didn’t know better.
If you haven’t realized yet, from the way I know all the details of the events years later, there is no friend. All the stuff about the bar is true, including the Malia Obama story.
My friend was me. And I am lucky. My white privilege saved my life that night. I’m aware there’s no way to know how those two cops would’ve handled the situation if I were someone else. I wonder what might have happened if the senior officer wasn’t there to control the situation. I have his badge number still, and I am forever grateful for officer number ________.
