White male harassed by black cop. Another 'teachable moment'?

Originally posted on my Facebook page on August 2, 2009…

It's a good thing we've had a recent 'teachable moment' about racial profiling. Otherwise I might not have had to deal with a recent hassle myself.

Friday night, since I am a poor grad student with no life, I decided to kill some time at my office. Finally around 12:30 a.m. I decided I would go home since I was starting to get sleepy. On my way out of the building I pass by a campus policeman. He begins to question me. No problem; people have stolen things from the science building and he doesn't know who I am or what I'm doing there that late. I respectfully answer his questions about who I am: I am a graduate student in the biology dept., I have keys to the building, I show him my university ID. That's reasonable. I comply.

I thought about the Henry Louis Gates/Sgt. Crowley ordeal and how this is similar, yet opposite. You see, I am white and the officer is black. I wondered how he might react if I acted like Gates acted and said something about his mama. I decided I didn't care to find out. He continues to question me: I give him my address, my phone number, my SSN, and tell him where I'm from. I tell him I'm from GA originally. I still can't stomach telling people I'm from TN. My driver's license is issued by the state of TN, but I'm a Georgia Boy. I tell him, though, that I moved to TN after leaving GA. He tells me he's from AL. I refrain from telling him any AL jokes. "Hey, did you hear they're going to build the world's largest zoo? Yeah, they're just going to put a fence around Alabama. Those animals!"

He asks to see my driver's license. Is this much questioning really necessary? I show him my driver's license. He calls dispatch and has them run my license number to make sure I am who I say I am. "This is strange," I thought. "Most cops let me leave whenever I tell them I'm a grad student. At most I have to show them my university ID or my set of keys." I figure if he decides to frisk me then I'll say something about it being because I'm a white man in America.

We have to wait for dispatch to run my license. Meanwhile the mosquitos are biting me and we make small talk to pass the time. He's nice enough and I'm respectful; I don't feel the need to say, "You don't know who you're messing with." He says as soon as we hear back about my license I can be on my way. Finally, after several minutes, dispatch reports back: "Jonathan Stanley. Henderson, TN."

He says I can go and tells me that they are being extra vigilant because of what happened on campus last week. For those unaware, the week prior there was a shooting at some apartments on campus at about the same time of morning. Someone was shot in the foot during a burglary. They haven't found the two suspects yet. "I understand," I tell him. He continues, "We're just checking everybody out until we find the suspects."

Again, I tell him I understand. As I'm walking away I thought to myself: "So he's questioning me that much because they haven't found the suspects yet? But it should be pretty obvious that I'm not one of them. I don't have a muscular build like one of them, and I don't have a tattoo on my neck like the skinny one...oh, yeah, and I'm not BLACK!" But at least the cops at ASU aren't engaging in racial profiling!

I wonder if I can be invited to the next Beer Summit at the White House. I'll have a Dr. Pepper, please.