Kentuckian Hunter S. Thompson characterized the South as "closed and ignorant" in his article "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved." He went on to say this, "In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught." I've spent the last five years away from the Deep South, whether it be in Berkeley or in the relatively progressive Birmingham, but this past week I got a resounding welcome home from the Tupelo Police Department on my way back from filing paperwork for my new job with the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi. The encounter reminded me of my 'perp' encounter with the brilliant Auburn Police Department about eleven years ago.
What one must always understand when dealing with police officers is that to the police brain, everybody's guilty. They are merely looking for evidence as to what constitutes guilt. For the Auburn Police Department, my guilt was predicated on my clothes - some baggy raver pants the most notable signal of my perp hood. The description of the actual perp was quite exact - about six feet tall and wearing "dark clothes." After public humiliation in front of my Camp War Eagle colleagues and counselors (of whom I was older by a good two years), the genius APD let me go, but not before making it clearly known that I was on the outside of their closed society. I never wore those raver pants again.
Flash forward 11 years, I've graduated from Auburn, and received my PhD (which stands for piled up higher and deeper) from the University of California, Berkeley. I've also been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I take lithium carbonate and risperidone to manage my moods, of which I have done well since my diagnosis. But, the lithium makes my hands shake; in fact, it is the first side effect on WebMD. Apparently, it is also a sign of being a perp, or as the Tupelo Police Officer noted "the last time I had someone's hand shake like that, he was on meth. Are you on meth?" First, sign that I'm a perp. (Full disclosure: I was pulled over for flicking a cigarette out the window, which I fully admit that I did.) Second sign, I stated rather forcefully that no, in fact, I take medication that makes my hand shake and I'm not particularly fond of confessing that to perfect strangers, particularly cops. I even showed them my medications. Not showing enough deference to the high office of police officer is another sign that you're a perp. What is misunderstood here is that there is no "book" that determines who is and isn't a perp. It is based on years and years of hard won experience protecting innocents from evil-doers like myself. So, here's this guy with a California driver's license, an out-of-state tag, has shaking hands, and doesn't show enough deference. Gotta be a perp. He's just not normal. The third cop car arrives and that officer gives me a field sobriety test in the KFC parking lot, which I of course pass. By this time, I'm shaking with rage. I'm being accused of a crime because I have bipolar disorder.
As a parting shot, the arresting officer asked if anyone had "smoked weed" in my car in the past couple of weeks.
I would like to genuinely thank the three officers involved in this incident. One was a white woman, one was a black man, and one was a white man, no doubt owing to the TPD's robust affirmative action program. (Note: I am not against affirmative action. I am absolutely for it. But without work on institutions and culture, it is quite piecemeal as evidenced by this experience.) I would like to thank them for reminding me that I'm not normal, that I take six pills a day just to function in everyday society. I would like to thank all police officers for being the enforcers of Thompson's closed society. And I would like to thank them for welcoming me back to the Deep South; it's great to know my place.
For those of us that love the South, why do we stand for stuff like this? Why don't we write letters, march in the streets, scream at the top of our lungs, and refuse to participate? Why do we allow blacks, Latinos, women, feminists, communists, the mentally ill, LGBTQ people, and a million other non-mainstream people to be treated as second class citizens? Why do we stand by and watch? Trust me, it doesn't have to be this way.
