- Feb 5, 2002
- 166,331
- 56,042
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Catholic
- Marital Status
- Married
- Politics
- US-Others
The son of two professors, his father a minister and himself a professor, Matthew Hawkins was as respectable a man as you could find. He’d finished teaching one nice spring evening and decided to walk to a store a couple miles away.
On the walk back, he wrote, “A police car pulled up, and the officer ordered me to spread eagle across the trunk of his car because, he said, a burglary had just been committed in the area.” The policeman’s aggression so startled him that he froze.
“I can’t do this,” he thought. Some of his students might see him lying there like a suspect. Word would get out, and he wouldn’t be able to stop the rumors that he’d been arrested.
“So, I froze. The officer reached for his gun, because I was not in compliance. Just then, a description of the perpetrator of the burglary came over his radio: ‘White male, 5’7″, wearing a white T-shirt and running away from the crime.’ I am a black male, 6’1″, I was dressed in business casual, and I wasn’t breaking a sweat — at least not from running.”
The cop let him go. Many white men walking down the street fit the description better than he did. The cop didn’t stop them, much less demand they lie spread-eagled across his trunk.
“I could have wound up as another story on the evening news: a black man who was shot dead because he didn’t comply with police orders, or at least I could have been arrested. Try to explain that to the dean.”
Continued below.
A black seminarian shares an experience with racism, and we should listen - Our Sunday Visitor
On the walk back, he wrote, “A police car pulled up, and the officer ordered me to spread eagle across the trunk of his car because, he said, a burglary had just been committed in the area.” The policeman’s aggression so startled him that he froze.
“I can’t do this,” he thought. Some of his students might see him lying there like a suspect. Word would get out, and he wouldn’t be able to stop the rumors that he’d been arrested.
“So, I froze. The officer reached for his gun, because I was not in compliance. Just then, a description of the perpetrator of the burglary came over his radio: ‘White male, 5’7″, wearing a white T-shirt and running away from the crime.’ I am a black male, 6’1″, I was dressed in business casual, and I wasn’t breaking a sweat — at least not from running.”
The cop let him go. Many white men walking down the street fit the description better than he did. The cop didn’t stop them, much less demand they lie spread-eagled across his trunk.
“I could have wound up as another story on the evening news: a black man who was shot dead because he didn’t comply with police orders, or at least I could have been arrested. Try to explain that to the dean.”
Continued below.
A black seminarian shares an experience with racism, and we should listen - Our Sunday Visitor
