The Occasional Observer

Thomas Sowell. The Economist. The Pundit. The voice of reason crying out in the wilderness against the trumped-up nonsense that comes from those who profit from racial animosity (you know who they are).

A quick web search would lead you to truck loads of great material from his gifted pen, but I was spurred to issue the second Occ Obs S.C.A. by his most recent column. It's a relatively simple piece, pointing out how, as a society, we could be so much better than we are if we would assume the best of those around us, instead of the worst. Coming from a man who writes text books on economics, this column is more of a letter, an exhortation, like one you'd get from a parent or a grandparent rather than a professor. And for many conservatives like myself, that's exactly the spirit in which we receive his wisdom.

I'll copy a portion of his column below, though I would encourage any of you unfamiliar with his writings to do some more looking around:

Twice within the past few years, I have been pulled over by the police for driving at night without my headlights on. My car is supposed to turn on the headlights automatically when the light outside is below a certain level, but sometimes I accidentally brush against the controls and inadvertently switch them to manual.

Both times I thanked the policeman because he may well have saved my life. Neither time did I get a ticket or even a warning. In each case, the policeman was white.

Recently a well-known black journalist told me of a very different experience. He happened to be riding along in a police car driven by a white policeman. Ahead of them was a car driving at night with no headlights on and, in the dark, it was impossible to see who was driving it.

When the policeman pulled the car over, a black driver got out and, when the policeman told him that he was driving without his lights on, the driver said, "You only pulled me over because I am black!"

This was said even though he saw the black man who was with the policeman. The driver got a ticket.

Later, when the journalist asked the cop how often he got such responses from black drivers, the reply was "About 80 percent of the time"...

...Recently I pulled off to the side of a highway to take a picture of the beautiful bay below, in Pacifica, California. After I had finished and was starting to pack up my equipment, a police car pulled off to the side of the highway behind me.

"What's going on here?" the policeman asked.

"Photography," I said.

"You are not allowed to park here," he said. "It's dangerous."

"All right," I said, "I am packing to leave right now."

"Incidentally," he said as he turned to get back in his car, "You can get a better view of the bay from up on Roberts Road."

I then drove up on Roberts Road and, sure enough, got a better view of the bay. And I didn't get a ticket or a warning.

In a world where young blacks, especially, are bombarded with claims that they are being unfairly targeted by police, and where a general attitude of belligerence is being promoted literally in word and song, it is hard not to wonder whether some people's responses to policemen do not have something to do with the policemen's responses to them.

Neither the police nor people in any other occupation always do what is right but automatic belligerence is not the answer.