THINGS THAT REALLY PISS ME OFF #2 RACISM IS ALIVE AND WELL IN SMALL TOWN OKLAHOMA

My daughter, Cheyenne, has been friends with Brandon and Jessica for about 3 years. Brandon and Jessica are 16 year old twins who are very nice kids and they are black. Actually, they are half-black but they look black. And that's all that matters, right? I mean racism is based on judging someone simply by their appearance. These kids don't dress in gangsta clothes or talk like thugs. They are polite, well-dressed kids.

Brandon and Jessica live in Coweta with their Aunt because of their mother's failing health. Occassionally, I go get them and drive them up to visit their Mom for the weekend. This evening was one of those times. Cheyenne and Harmoni and I went to pick them up and we were all making the one hour drive go by quickly by joking around and making Cheyenne sing when we didn't like what was on the radio.

Then, as we turned up the on-ramp to get on I-75, there were 3 highway patrol cars. I said, "Wow, must be a convention." As we passed them, one of them pulled out behind us and stopped me on the spot. I wasn't speeding, I used my signal, my tag is in order, we were all wearing seatbelts. I am a serious stickler about that. The officer stepped out and motioned me to come back to his vehicle. When I got there he explained that he didn't want to approach the vehicle because of my dog. Those "drug-dealer dogs don't tend to like uniforms." Excuse me? (See my earlier post, "Things That Really Piss Me Off #1.) Yeah, we were off on the wrong foot.

I told him I would like to know what I had done to be stopped and he said I wasn't wearing a seat belt! I told him that I most certainly was and that you would not ever catch me not wearing one. So he radioed on of the other conventioneers and asked if he had witnessed someone not wearing a seat belt in my truck. The other guy (sounding like someone from Deliverance, I swahr) said, "yeah, it was that kid in the front right seat." Officer #1 asked if he had noticed whether the driver was wearing one or not. Officer hick says, "I couldn't tell about him or the girl in the middle cause 'that kid' caught my eye whippin' his around like it was hot - scrambling to put it on when he saw us."

Okay, first, I am not a him - Officer Hick obviously didn't even see me. Second, Brandon was wearing his seat belt from the time I picked him up. All the kids were. My officer doesn't really care about any of that; now he wants to know "who that kid is and where I'm taking him." I explained and he then told me that he was going to give Brandon a seat belt ticket and that he would have to come back to the vehicle to receive it. He practically sniffed Brandon like a drug dog before letting us go.

I told the kids that it was pretty obvious that it was racial. Jessica said she was glad that I had said that 'cause she was thinking it but didn't want to sound paranoid. Brandon quietly said, "I don't think they liked seeing me sitting beside Cheyenne." I believe he was right and isn't that a sad state of affairs. Those kids have to go through every day of their lives wondering whether or not they are being judged by what nice decent kids they are and how hard they work at their school work and their after school jobs or by something a little simpler and a whole lot more complicated - the color of their skin.