Anonymous wrote:AA woman here and I attended a friends party this weekend, got into my car to leave, started up my car, pulled out of the parking space in front of my friends house, thump, thump, thump, realized I had a flat tire, got out of my car, checked out the tire, sure enough completely flat, sat in my car for about 2 minutes, contemplating next move, decided to just pull back in to space, walked back to my friends house, but didn't want to go back into the house as, it was late, the weather was bad, and I knew it would just be easier to deal with in the a.m., I know that people would have offered to help, but I didn't want to impose on anyone, Ubers are cheap and plentiful and we were only a 10 min drive from home.
So I pulled out my phone and summoned an Uber, next thing I know, not more than 5 minutes later, speeding around the corner, 2 Vienna police cruisers with search lights on... someone had called the police on me and my little boy, maybe the caller, called the police because they were concerned for our safety, thought the police could help, but I doubt it since the the police came around the corner at breakneck speed in, heavy pursuit mode.
They didn't see me, as I was sitting on my friends porch, but they did see all the extra cars parked in the street, the music coming from the house, and the lights on, so they probably figured it out for themselves, that a party guest was either looking for a parking space, or leaving the party, they left fairly quickly after doing a slow drive by.
If I hadn't been sitting on my friends porch at the time, and had instead still been in my car, perhaps I too might have become another statistic. Law abiding middle aged AA mom, blasted to little bits, in front of her baby boy -- crime having the audacity to be in a neighborhood someone didn't think she should be in.
If I had been of any other race, perhaps I might have flagged down the police to ask for help, but being an AA person, I know that doing so might have cost me, and or my son our lives. So I sat quietly in the dark, on the porch, hoping that they would leave before the Uber driver showed up.
Things black people can't do -- we have to be careful when we go to certain neighborhoods, if we have car trouble we can't expect to be given the benefit of the doubt, and we can't assume the police are there to serve, protect or to help us, as doing so could end in getting you and your family roughed up, or even worse. . . shot dead.