'Police issue is power, not race'

. . . . Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s run-in with the justice system was hardly unique. It is hardly the first time a black man has been hauled unjustly into jail by a white police officer.

Police officers have the power. They are authorized law-enforcement delegates. They don’t always use that power properly. I was once ticketed for doing 46 mph in a 45 mph zone, even though I was driving side by side with two white police officers. Some of our subsequent conversation might have been with me surly, him officious. Two nights later, the ticketing officer called me and told me if I did not pay the fine, he personally would come to my home and “jerk me out of there.” I was much younger then and paid the fine. Not because I was afraid but because I thought he had the law on his side.

A friend of mine once backed up his car in an alley, somehow to the dislike of a policeman. My friend was driving a new, very expensive automobile. He wore a tailor-made suit, monogrammed shirt, gold cufflinks and a silk tie. Unfortunately, he didn’t have his driver’s license with him. He was taken Downtown, strip-searched and jailed. Having done nothing except earn the displeasure of a cop, he subsequently went to the white mayor of Columbus, with whom he was on a first-name basis, and complained. Nothing. The mayor supported the officer.

One of the most famous football players in Ohio State University history was picked up for speeding and drinking while driving. Among other things, he used the big-cheese mantra. For this, the two officers played football with his head until our hero was almost unrecognizable.

Is this just three more cases of white cops using the power play on poor, unprotected blacks? Not really. I am white, my well-suited friend is white and so is the famous football player.

In all three of these cases, the police did what they did because they were empowered to do so. They didn’t have to act the way they did. It didn’t matter to them whether the victims were black or white. As the president said, they were just being stupid.

It’s about time blacks stopped pulling out the race card every time one of these borderline incidents occurs. It isn’t about race; it’s about power. We need to do a better job of teaching police candidates the meaning and the rights of citizenship.