Why Are Black People Always Angry?
I have heard this rhetorical question many times in my life. Today, I will try to give an answer from my own perspective by telling a story. This writing is mostly for myself. I have decided to clear my mind through writing because I think it will help to keep me from insanity.
I have been a black man now for over 55 years and married to a white woman for 30 of those years. She is a very lovely person. Both of us have been through lots of adventures. She is from a large family and as you can imagine I have lots of white in-laws.
Let me tell you about the story at when my brother-in-law encounter the police. One bright day, a brother-in-law of mine whom we shall call John bought a new car and decided to take it for a spin. He was stopped by the police on the highway driving 20 kilometres per/hour above the legal speed limit. The police apparently had checked the licence of the car before approaching him. The police approached him and admired the car and said
“Nice car. I can see you just bought it and doing a test run. how does it drive?” What a nice police man.
The police advised him to take it slowly and be mindful of the speed limit. He then went back to his car and drove away. The situation was very pleasant and ended peacefully without any one shouting at the other.
To my brother-in-law, the police was his friend, and therefore he couldn’t understand why black people complain about the police. Because from his perspective if you treat the police with respect they will treat you back with respect. Right.
Now lets talk about me. A year later I decided to give this environmental responsibility of a thing a try. From now on I was going to be taking public transport and skipping the car. At the beginning I liked it. I could relax in the train after my work and enjoy my ride.
One day, I went to the Netherlands for a trip. For the clarity, my wife is from the Netherlands and I have the Dutch citizenship, but I don’t feel Dutch ( that is another story)
The Netherlands is a highly organized country. Sometimes, I think it is a bit too organized, There you need a travel card to travel in any public transport. You need to swipe this card on entry and exit a bus or a train.
When you get into a train or bus station you will need to swipe your card against a payment device attached to a mental pole which will make a blipping sound and flash green. The same routine is done when you get out of the bus and train.
In some train stations you can only get in or out with this card. You need to top up this card regularly to ensure it can be charged by the system otherwise, you might not be able to get into the bus or train. But with the tram it could be different. You have to swipe at the entrance of the tram stop, but there is nothing preventing you from getting into the tram even if you don’t have a card, or if you don’t swipe, because the tram is long with many doors, and you can come in and out using all the doors. Now, you can imagine how the system could be abused.
However, very often enforcement agents would patrol the stations, and city centers and storm the tram to check to see if everyone had been playing fair and being good citizens by swiping their card against the payment machines. They can check this by taking your card and swiping it against their little device the size of a smartphone.
One day I was dressed up as usual in a suit and a tie for another business meeting. I had just flown in a day earler and stayed in a hotel. Because I knew was going to be taking lots of rides that day I topped up my card with 100 euros.
I found out quickly that during rush hour when everyone is in a hurry you cannot always tell if your card has been fully registered because there are so many blipping sounds coming at you from everywhere and when the sun reflects on the surface of the device you cannot see the flashing light either. To make things a bit more interesting, some devices are very low, so you cannot read what is written on the small screen.
After a long day running around I took the last tram ride to the station to get the train to my final destination. To my surprise, as the tram arrived at the station there were about 20 law enforcement officers there spread out on the station blocking all the exits of the tram as it stopped. They came in aggressively demandingeveryone provides proof of payment for the ride.
To do this you need to hand over your travel card to one of them and in turn they will swipe it against their machine which will tell them if you have swiped your card against the little device on the pole before you boarded.
Apparently, the enforcement in this part of town is very serious and frequent because there are lots of people with colours living there. Rumour has it that these coloured people do not obey the laws and most often do not pay for a tram ride. So, the enforcement officers will often go there with a massive presence and show of force. Today, they were at least 20 of them as you can see in the image above. some were in the other parked tram when this image was taken. Such aggresive presence is meant to intimidate these top criminals who don’t pay for using the tram.
The tram I was in arrived at the station on time. I was in hurry trying to catch the onward train to my hotel, but I knew I had to go through these people first. They demanded to see my card which I gave to one of the officers.
Unfortunately, when he checked my card there was no payment of the trip recorded. The sum of the journey was €1.70. As soon as this was discovered, two police men approached me and demanded my identity card because they needed to issue me a fine. The fine was €40. I was devastated because I felt I had done everything right all day and every day. I explained to them that I swiped my card before getting into the tram that something must have gone wrong.
Ofcourse I couldn’t prove this but I tried to reason with the officers that from the daily record on the travel card they could see all the trips I took that day were paid for and the last leg of the trip which, included a two-hour train ride was already paid for, and that was €30. So why would I pay for every single trip that day including, the next trip but decided to cheat for just €1.70?
It was like puring water on a large stone, it doesn’t penetrate. But I am a black man so, why should he believe me. It is believed that black people would cheat for just €1.70. So it was either I comply or I go to jail.
While they police were still warming up, trouble number two arrived. Officially, I was not resident in the Netherlands, but I do have a Dutch passport and I do fly in for business often and get out of the country again.
When I handed them my passport they check their system, and they couldn’t find me because I left the Netherlands 18 years back, and I am no longer registered in the system. My passport was issued by the Dutch embassy in another country. This was highly suspicious because this is what a drug kingpin could be doing. flyging under the raider riding a train everywhere. Maybe, they need to check this out some more. I know I was not going to make the train so I am getting a bit irritated now, but I tried to stay calm because I don’t want to be the angry black man.
By now, the police must have thought it was time to escalate the situation. One of the police said I was going to be fined another €90 becuase I didn’t identity myself properly. This didn’t make any sense because by now they had my passport with them.
I protested to them, but that was when one called in more help and shouted that I was resisting arrest. They demanded that I put my hands backward to be hancuffed and be arrested.
The aggresive police man who was the instigator turned me around to face him after they handcuffed me and asked rhetorically “why are black people always angry?” Did you see that coming?
I was taken to the police van in handcuff in the presence of tens of people watching the drama. It must have seemed to them that a mega crime boss was arrested because my suit was looking good as well. I could have been a big crime boss.
Then the third problem came. I was told I will not be allowed to pay the €40 fine instantly because the rule is the fine be properly recorded and sent to me through the post so I can protest against it in writing if I wanted to.
Hell no. I am tired of protesting. I just want to pay the fine an go. But NO, things are not that easy here. Remember, The Netherlands is a very organised country. You just cannot pay your fine like that without passing through the bureaucracy. How dare you? It must be officially prepared, recorded and sent to you.
But there was only one major problem. My address is not in the system and the police don’t believe me when I verbally tell them my address. The system cannot handle that. Ironically, I could pay the €90 fine instantly for allegedly not producing my ID on time because that was issued by the police. The other one is from the bus company.
I explained to the police that since I am not in their system that I have no way to receive the bill and I didn’t want more trouble. But, they told me they would figure it out. Till today, I am still waiting for that bill.
The problem is not over. due to the coronavirus I do not travel anymore. I am sure one day after the corona crises I will fly into the Netherlands and I will be stopped and confronted at the airport because the system will flag me for not paying the €40 fine.
The only thing is the fine would have increased to as high as €300- €500. Then I will try in vain to explain to the police that I didn’t get the bill because I was not residing in the Netherlands. The police would look at me with disbelieve and ask rhetorically “why are black people always angry?
So, to my brother-in-law the police are very nice people, and they are there to protect him, and they are his friends because they always give him the benefit of the doubt.
To me, the police is not my friend, they will never believe what I tell them even when everything I am saying is the factual truth. I will never get the benefit of the doubt. If that irritiates me then they will say, here he goes again. Black people are always angry.
I was still lucky that day. I was not killed, because in the Netherlands you have little chance of being killed by the police. But it could have been worse. You see I am also an Ethical hacker. I test network security for a living. I had my computer with me that day, and they took the computer from me temporary. There could have been more evidence of crime inside they thought. So, I was praying that they shouldn’t plug that computer into their network because there were enough virus and trojans in on my computers to mess up there computers really good. Then I would have appeared in the 8 am news under a very different heading.
After I got released, my head was boiling so, I called my wife to try to calm down. Then she got very upset at the police even more than I was. Then she called some family members (all whites) and then someone emotionally broke down. They wanted to go to the police to make a report of police brutality. Go to the press, write the mayor, etc.
For me, I had gone through such a thing before. But for them this was new. My wife and I have not confronted them with such stories before. It was me who was now calming them down.
Then George Floyd was killed. Now they very agreed about racism. The situation has turned them into “angry white people”.
Finally, they understood. Sometimes, I jokingly ask them rhetorically “Why are white people always angry?”
