My Mother And I Had Common Ground

In August 1964 things changed when a car broke down near the intersection of 22nd Street and Columbia Avenue. Two policemen one white, one black arrived and told the driver, a black woman named Odessa Bradford, to step out of her car. When she refused, they tried to

Driving while Black” is vernacular in the Black community that refers to police protocols that use “traffic laws too frequently stop and detain Black motorists for vehicle searches without probable cause or reasonable suspicion that would warrant being stopped by the Police (9,10).”

Moreover, minorities were detained for longer periods of time per stop than whites, and were 80 percent of those whose cars were searched after being stopped. The discriminatory treatment of minority drivers was duly noted by Volusia County Sergeant Dale Anderson, who asked a white motorist he had stopped how he was doing; the motorist responded “Not very good,” to which Anderson responded, “Could be worse – could be black” (civilrights.org, 2011).

With this new evidence, millions of white people now have a substantial insight into the nightmarish reality that black people have to live day after day. In state legislative hearings carried out by the Black and Latino Caucus of New Jersey, the interviews of former state troopers revealed that barracks bulletin boards were once covered with racial epithets and that troopers would use racist banter over the radio, describing cars with black drivers as “buckets of coal.” This testimony, along with other first- hand accounts given at this conference provides proof that when entering encounters with African- Americans, police often have a pessimistic view instead of an objective one.

In 1890, the Separate Car Act was enacted in the state of Louisiana requiring whites and non-white Americans to travel in separate railway cars. As a result, a passenger, Homer Adolph Plessy took a seat in a “whites only” car in one of the Louisiana trains and refused to move to the “blacks only” car and was subsequently arrested despite being only a eighth black.

In 1891 a group of Creole professionals in New Orleans formed the Citizens’ Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law. They hired Albion Tourgée, a Reconstruction-era judge and social reformer, as their legal counsel. As plaintiff in the test case the committee chose a person of mixed race in order to support its contention that the law could not be consistently applied, because it failed to define the white and “colored” races.

Racial profiling is a tool used to target a certain group, majority blacks, by pulling him/her over for reasons other than what the traffic stop should be or not. To the average person who does not experience this will view as a non-issue or not a big deal. But having an experience as a victim of racial profiling can leave a psychological scar for many years, depending on the severity of the traffic stop. The statistics show that these incidents are not random, but shows a systematic pattern of law enforcement misconduct rather it’s coming from the individual officer or the police department, it’s clear that racial profiling has a disparate and degrading impact on blacks. Driving while black (DWB) demonstrates, reflects, and exacerbates important issues we face today when talking or debating problems within that involves the police, criminal justice, the courts and the law.

When asked about an impactful person in my life, my mother always comes to mind. It’s not at all surprising to hear that the person who raised me helped determine my life, but sometimes it’s rather

Similarly, in Louisiana 1896, Homer Plessy was arrested because he sat in a railroad car designated for the white population. Plessy was 7/8 white but he was still seen as a black man by the supreme court in the

In an analysis on racial profiling, criminologist Shaun Gabbidon discusses the racist practices of the Maryland State Police and how the department was able to reduce profiling by changing its policies. He explains, “The policy targeted Black drivers who were felt to provide ‘the biggest bang for their buck’. As a result of the suit, in 1993, the Maryland State Police was required to track its traffic stops” (Gabbidon). This requirement produced shocking data which revealed that officers could determine the race of drivers just by their vehicles or driving patterns and that officers refrained from pulling over many white traffic law violators who should have been stopped. For instance, it is possible for police officers to distinguish what neighborhood a driver is from based on the parking permit stickers affixed to their cars. If someone is from a predominantly minority neighborhood, then it is clearly more likely that they belong to a minority race. Additionally, in regards to driving patterns, they found that it is more likely for a Black person to not wear their seatbelt than a White person and it is more likely for a White person to speed than a Black person. As a result, to pull over more Black drivers, there may be greater emphasis put on pulling over drivers who are not

Kowalski, B & Lundman, R (2007) Vehicle stops by police for driving while black: common problems and some tentative solutions: Journal of criminal justice, 5(2),165-181

My grandma Linda was her only daughter. I spent weeks at Ma’s house in Holstein, Iowa. Christmas for the Grell’s was always hosted at Ma’s house. When I was young she would take me swimming at the communities pool, and ice cream afterwards. Ma’ was an expert cook, her favorite summer dish was fried chicken. She was nearly famous for that fried chicken. In September of 2012 Doctors discovered a tumor in Ma’s liver. Ma’s children paid for an assisted living home in Sioux City, Iowa. She pasted away March 21, 2013. Leading up to March the relationship between my mother and her parents decrepitated. My grandparents refused to come to my high school graduation.

She also taught me to finish something if I started it, and that carried over to my reading. If I start reading a book I always finish it and do my best to understand it. So, she instilled what I know about reading and she influenced the way I read. She always told me, when I was younger, to pronounce my words right so that when I get older I would pronounce my words right. All that she has said to me and taught me when I was coming up as a younger child helped me get to the level of reading I am on today and also to the level of understanding I have of all the words I read. Without her encouraging me in this way I would have had problems understanding things that I read and wouldn’t be as smart as I have grown to be. I am very thankful of how I was brought up as a kid.

On January 5, 2009 my father pasted away. He and I did not have the typical father-son relationship; we did not have a relationship at all. I presumed that it would have a little if any affect on me. However, as the semester continued, it seemed to get worse. Besides my father’s passing, several weeks later my grandmother was diagnosed with dementia. It was difficult for me to deal with, but it was more difficult for my mother to handle.

What can one say about their mother? One may talk about her positive and negative