On Wednesday I found myself in the Kent Public Library, to write and print out a letter. Kent, if you didn't already know, is one of those Republican outposts in "progressive" King County. While there, I observed something that caused me to remember an incident that occurred several years ago. Before the library’s remodeling, the lobby had a bench and public phones. Because the librarians never enforced the “Quiet Area” rules or became annoyed when you asked them too, I sometimes sat in the lobby to conduct my work. One day I was typing away on my laptop when a Kent cop came in and stood directly opposite of me; he stared at me with this sneering expression, apparently his pose of “intimidation.” I don’t know what it is about me that makes people behave in this fashion; maybe it is because they sense that my comportment and attitude suggests fearlessness and perhaps disdain. He needed to show me that he wasn’t just some high school-educated thug, but that his badge and gun gave him the “authority” to force me to feel fear of him. He just stood there for what seemed like an eternity, and finally I asked him why he was staring at me.
Naturally, all I had to do was open my mouth to give him the “excuse” he needed; he advanced toward me the several feet between us and demanded to know what my “problem” was. When I feel I am completely in the “right,” I can become quite animated in standing up for my civil rights; a librarian, a white female with short gray-blonde hair and an judgmental look about her, observed the goings-on and without inquiring what the issue was told me to leave; apparently I was just some “Mexican” who if you took your eye off of him, he was bound to be up to no good. I was not a human being with “normal” human feelings, but some “vermin” who could be shooed away like any old “pest.” But I was a sergeant in the Army, I have a college degree, and worked most every day for the past 20 years I’ve lived in Washington. I never sat around collecting unemployment checks or plotting how I was going to obtain money by illegal means—I went down to the temp agency and found some way to earn money until I obtained a full-time job. But people on the street don’t know any of that; they just go on the basis of their prejudices, like this cop and librarian.
After that incident, I emailed a complaint to the King County Public Library, and received the predictable apologia for the behavior I was obliged to endure. So I didn’t return to the library for long time; I only go there now if I need to print a letter, because the paper is free (unlike the Seattle Library). But on this day I was conducting my usual business when I observed that in the meeting room there was a group session involving a Kent police officer, mothers and their pre-school children; all were white save one or two who appeared to be Southeast Asian. The officer was showing them the hardware he wore around his rotund midsection (I supposed he was selected for this “duty” because wasn’t particularly intimidating), which, of course, wasn’t supposed to scare them. They were a little young to understand that when they got older, they ought to be careful about any “furtive” movements they might make, because it might be construed as an excuse for the officer to use his hardware on them. The officer did the standard speech, telling the kids to avoid strangers and not go into any strange cars. I’m fairly certain that the officer couldn’t recall right-off any recent incident of this type, although a more common scenario would be some vindictive parent, unhappy that her ex-spouse was awarded visitation rights, kidnapping the kids.
When he was done, a librarian stepped in and told the kids “Remember, the police are your friends.” I suppose it didn’t surprise me one bit that she was the very same woman who ordered me to leave the library just because a Kent cop (and probably herself as well) saw me not as a human being but some shifty-looking “Mexican” who was guilty of just being. The truth is that the police are your “friends” until you are old enough to understand that they are capable of doing “unfriendly” things to you. And not everyone is so sanguine as that white librarian. On Firesign Theatre’s “Shoes for Industry” compilation of skits from their 1960s and 70s comedy albums, there is a skit called “Deputy Dan Has No Friends.” A man is describing the contents of a Spanish-language coloring book for children, which features a Deputy Dan, who works for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (apparently similar to the Joe Arpaio-run Maricopa County, AZ department). The book has a much different message for Latino children:
“Don’t get into any strange cars with Deputy Dan.”
“Deputy Dan will walk small Chinese children across the street,” but when you see him, “Run like hell when you cross the street, because Deputy Dan is after you.”
“Deputy Dan will knock us down when we are injured by a car.”
“Never open the door for Deputy Dan; he’s on the other side.”
This was 40 years ago. Of course this was meant as social satire, but there must have been reasons why many in the Latino community might hold viewpoints like this, and I don’t think the atmosphere in which such attitudes could flourish has changed much—perhaps have only become worse. And why should it have? Take for instance the “Get to know your local cop” events in Bellevue’s Crossroads neighborhood, where the police gather-up swat team gear and armor-plated assault vehicles. Why do they need this in Republican Bellevue? Because Crossroads is where Bellevue’s small minority and immigrant population is likely to be found; the “natives”—moneyed paranoids and racial bigots—want to “impress,” or rather intimidate, them with the city’s military-style firepower, just in case they get “out of line.” I recall that the city tried to “reach out” to the minority and immigrant community in other ways, by hiring an artist to design “multicultural” metallic sculptures to place at bus stops in the neighborhood. The designs were shown to “community leaders” for their approval, but the project was halted because the “natives” didn’t like them. Frankly, my impression was that they were too abstract to tell exactly what they signified, but apparently for the “natives” anything that they couldn’t understand was too “multicultural” for their narrow minds to accept—like that Kent librarian’s. I'm afraid I just have to call it as I see--and experience--it.
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