Thoughts from the ammo line

[Valin]

Power Line:

Scott Johnson

July 29 2016

Ammo Grrrll draws on a REVEALING RIDE-ALONG chronicled by former Pioneer Press and Star Tribune columnist Nick Coleman wasy back when:

 

About 15 years ago, when the “Driving While Black” meme was just finding purchase in the public mind, ultra-liberal Twin Cities columnist Nick Coleman, son of a Democrat pol, no friend to Power Line, was invited to go on a ride-along with the police. I knew Nick personally, not as a close friend, but more than an acquaintance.

 

I’m sure that Nick badly wanted to support the notion that the cops were engaging in racial profiling. But Nick was honest enough to make several very telling observations that I remember to this day. I tried in vain to find the column to link it, lest you think I am making up his observations. They were striking enough that I remember them clearly, but you’re just going to have to trust me on this unless you have a five-year-old who is more skilled on the Internet than I am. Here are several observations to the best of my recollection.

 

One: that with tinted windows and the cover of darkness, he failed to guess the race of the occupants in cars the majority of the time. It can’t be profiling if you can’t even SEE the occupants of the car.

 

Even in broad daylight, the eyes and mind play tricks on a person. I have a pretty hilarious personal experience with “eyewitness” identification. Some years ago I was walking around the lake in my neighborhood. My vision was 20/10 and I did not yet wear glasses. I was perhaps a quarter mile away from an approaching figure. My heart leapt with joy as I was sure that my beloved husband was jogging my way. I waved enthusiastically and crossed the street to intersect with him in hopes of a quick kiss. The figure was tall, with his trademark curly hair, wearing the blue jogging shorts he normally wore.

 

As the person got closer, I was gobsmacked to discover that not only was it NOT my husband, it wasn’t anybody’s husband. (Which was probably just as well since it certainly looked like I was coming on to him!) It was, in fact, a tall, black woman who was a little taken aback to see such a friendly lady waving at her and grinning like a fool. Got the race wrong. Got the sex wrong. And thought she was someone I had been married to for 30 years. Oopsie. Haven’t we ALL waved at someone we thought was someone else and then pretended to be fixing our hair or something in embarrassment? But mistaking them for your own husband?

 

(Snip)