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Notes -
Football player Tyreek Hill was arrested the other day during a traffic stop. Because he refused to keep his tinted windows rolled down for the officers, they commanded him to get out of the vehicle. Because he refused to get out of the vehicle, the officers forced him to the ground for a detainment. In Florida, officers have the right to command you to keep the window low enough for (1) communication and (2) officer safety. This appears to be a universally agreed upon fact before this event, as for instance in a video by a criminal defense attorney specifically about a Floridian just two weeks ago, and in legal advice proffered online just a month ago.
Let us assume that the officers knew who Tyrell Hill was, which isn’t a given because of the arresting officer’s thick Latino accent. They would have every reason to treat him with precaution because of his domestic violence and assault record, meaning that a concern for officer safety is legitimate despite the subject’s fame. And really, even thinking about a subject’s level of fame before enacting a law or police procedure should make us recoil. We don’t want to do that, right? We should treat everyone the same. The typical talking heads, of course, are calling this police brutality.
I am interested in how this scene would be treated if the subject were of a different appearance and nature. Tyreek, a 1%er super-wealthy person of privilege, is extremely rude to a working class minority police officer. Let’s imagine some white CEO stammering to the minority police officer, “don’t knock on my window… I’m going to be late… don’t tell me what to do!”, while ignoring the officer’s requests. We would all agree that this behavior is unacceptable. We would rightfully delight in his retribution, being placed on the ground in subservience to the Law. The comments would read like, “white man realizes the law applies to him”. But Tyreek, a (former) criminal, has a social privilege that would never be afforded to a white CEO: he is a star athlete and the public implicitly expects less of him because of his genetic nature. I can understand the public behaving like the public, but it’s annoying to see media figures excusing the behavior, too.
I’m glad you made this post and not me, because I realized almost immediately that I was not going to be able to write about this in a way that comports with the standards of this forum. Seeing Reddit immediately cry about how hard it is to be a black man in America and about how “the police in this country” - and especially ”Florida police” (DeSantis is Hitler, Florida is a fascist police state) - have a horrible track record and should never be given the benefit of the doubt made me want to throw my phone across the room.
I seriously have no idea what it’s going to take to resolve the “two screens” issue we have when it comes to policing in America. Things that are obvious and intuitive to one camp - “it’s wrong for police to treat you roughly you just because you’re being an uncooperative asshole to them” or “police are authoritarian bullies who must be vigilantly critiqued to prevent them from abusing their power” - are totally alien and clearly wrong to the other camp. Add the race angle and all of the attendant myths and slander that have accumulated around the issue thanks to a coordinated campaign of lies by the media, and you have another situation that has suddenly and bizarrely become a scissor.
Football players thinking they can get away with murder and being nasty about the concept of rules applying to them isn’t really an isolated incident, and it’s fairly endemic with football players- college ballers get away with shit on campus constantly.
Extremely true, and yet another reason why the assertions that “as a black man Tyreek Hill has to be extra-careful not to invite wanton police violence upon himself” is laughably opposite from the actual truth.
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