I am one of five children in my family. I have an older sister and three little brothers. A couple years ago, when one of my brothers was 16, he got pulled over with six of his friends in the car.
Here are some facts:
Being recently 16, my brother was not supposed to have more than one non-family member in the car
There were 6 minorities and one white person
They were told they "matched the description" of someone who robbed a dance studio nearby
While searching the car, the cops found nothing. What were they looking for? They'll tell you the speaker that was "stolen", but in reality they were looking for anything at all that would validate pulling over this group of colored kids. Had they found one thing, my brother and his friends would've gotten in trouble for that, as well as my brother getting in trouble for having more than one non-family member in the car. Seeing as how they found nothing, and it was a wrongful traffic stop, there was no ticket given, and they got in trouble for nothing.
My brother cried when talking to my parents on the phone about it. All of us have faced some sort of racism growing up before, but being profiled by the cops and not being able to do anything about it is so much different.
My brother is not the first person this has happened to either, and definitely wasn't the last. Young people of color get pulled over all the time and are racially profiled, only they don't always get off as easy as my brother.
Comments