I have a story to tell

I have a story to tell.  This is a true story.  It happened to me and I didn't think much of it at the time, but then there were the riots in Ferguson, Missiouri and then the ones in Balitmore and then the Black Lives Matter Movement started and this story keeps coming back.  It wants, needs, to be written down.  So here it is:

It was the summer of 2006.  I had just gotten back from Ecuador and was staying with my parents in Seattle for the few weeks before school started.  I got asked on a date (not big deal there right, every body wanted to date me).  His name was Devon and he was biracial.  We weren't super close, or even close at all; in fact I may have only talked to him once or twice and I can't remember how we met--he may have known my sister and I think he also went to BYU.  And I never spoke to him after this date either.  Just didn't click I guess.  But we went on a date anyway.

He had tickets to a Mariner's game in downtown Seattle.  For some reason I drove.  My dad's 1998 blue Honda Civic.  I didn't know where I was going and the traffic was, you know, game day traffic.  As I got off the freeway, I wanted to turn right.  There was a white police officer not doing a very good job at directing traffic at the end of the off-ramp.  He was waving his hands all over the place not making much sense so I just waited.  He came over to my car, had me roll down the passenger side window and was a little rude in telling me where to go.  I'm not a huge fan of authority figures or having people be rude to me or tell me what to do, so I was a little mouthy back to him.  How dare he talk to me like that when he was clearly not doing his job well?  I was annoyed.

Meanwhile, my biracaial date was gluing his head to the back of the seat, remember the office is talking to me through my date's window.  Devon is "Yes, Sir" and "No, Sir" and "Sorry, Sir"-ing his head off while I'm telling the officer how to do his job.  That annoyed me too--geeze Devon, get a grip, we didn't do anything wrong.  The officer moved; I turned right; we parked and went to the game.  I don't remember who won or who they were playing.

The whole polic officer exchange probably took 30 seconds and aside from being annoyed, I didn't think anything of it.

Until Black Lives Matter.  And the whole incident changed.  I realized my white, middle-class, girl status.  I realized the fear I caused my date.  I realized all that stuff was true--that that police officer treated me differently than he would have had I been a black male.

I don't know how I feel about it.  Grateful that I'm white and can get away with being rude and disrespectful to just about any authority figure?  Sorry that I put my date in danger for being rude and disrespectful?  Guilty that I get away with so much?  Angry that I do when other people don't?

I don't have any conclusions to draw from this story, but it, the story, wanted to be public and made known.  So here it is.  Out.