Racism: I'm White, Not Stupid

Disclaimer: Below you will find no links to violent imagery. If you want to find examples of some of the things I discuss here, YouTube is a good place to start.

I recently had a Moses Moment. Just prior to my mom's passing last July, I found out that my paternal grandfather's lineage included a fair amount of Sami First Nations - from Norway. I'm probably the whitest guy in the world and aside from the Spina Bifida Limp, I don't look at all like what they call a "visible minority" on Canadian Government forms. But like Moses, it wasn't like I was prejudiced against certain people before I found out I was one of them.

Moses was rescued in a basket by an Egyptian princess, so the story goes, because his biological mother wanted to make sure he didn't end up being forced to build the pyramids under threat of death. So he lived his entire childhood and some of his adult life believing he was Egyptian, not Hebrew.

I've driven a 1989 Hyundai Excel that barely ran, 1990 Chrysler New Yorker Fifth Avenue, a 1988 Chrysler New Yorker, a 2004 BMW 745, a 2008 Chrysler 300C and a 2020 Mercedes-AMG E63S. I don't say this to brag, but to make the point that in over 20 years of driving, I've never once been pulled over by a police officer. Ever.

If I go on YouTube, within seconds I can find hundreds of well documented examples of more melanated people being pulled over and accosted by police for no damn reason. What's the excuse this week? Burned out tail light? Been there. Total beater? Absolutely. Car's "too nice" for someone like me to be driving? Tell me about it. But in all that time, I've never had a cop pull me over for any reason.

The one time in my adult life that I was in a car that had been pulled over, the car, a Chrysler 300C, was indeed mine, but a buddy, a mechanic, was driving. They let us go with no problem. I understand those cars are referred to by some as "pimp-mobiles," so I'm guessing had we been some other colour in America, it wouldn't have mattered what we said or did. If you don't think racial profiling exists, ask a non-white person. People as a whole aren't paranoid for no reason.