Excerpts from an encounter:
“I’m very pissed off,” Brockman responded. “I think if I was a white representative that you guys would’ve been like ‘OK, sorry sir.’”
The trooper said race had nothing to do with it.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Public Safety said the traffic stop was handled professionally.
Brockman claimed that what was inaudible is that the officer questioned whether the BMW he was driving was stolen. Brockman said that should not have been in doubt because it had a special House member license plate on it.
I am sad to say that nearly all my progressive friends have come to the conclusion that Rep. Cecil Brockman was the villain in this story. You might say, "C'mon Steve, 'villain' is a little over-the-top. I just think he was wrong." But the reality is, when something like this happens, we look at it through the lens of our own behavior. If somebody says or does something we wouldn't do, they fail our test. But for most of the folks reading this, that test is faulty. Why? Because if you're not African-American (or Latino, or Middle-Eastern, etc.), you're not driving around under the constant dread of being targeted by law enforcement because of the color of your skin. And you're not approaching life from the perspective you have to be prepared to provide proof of your innocence at a moment's notice, every hour of every day. In many ways, living under that dark cloud is akin to the environmental conditions that produce PTSD in soldiers: Constant fear and dread. And yes, law enforcement officers experience that as well, and we should do everything we can to ameliorate that effect. But not at the expense of the freedom and quality of life of a quarter of our population.
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