Black Gal Blues

It was during a much needed girl’s trip to Hilton Head. An anticipated time when we reaffirmed ourselves by celebrating our kinky hair, chocolate to chestnut hues, endurance through a constant barrage of micro aggressions, and other things that build beautiful Black women.

Our second day on the island provided a clear Carolina blue sky that competed with the ocean for beauty. It was easy to forget that you were on land where systemic racism was scaffolded and replicated until it poisoned the entire continent.
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As we ventured out later that day, in search of shopping and a unique dining experience, we made a regrettable mistake. None of us noticed the stop sign vaguely peeking between the bushes that surrounded it. The immediate flashing of blue lights behind us alerted us to our mistake.

Our assumption of this being a routine traffic stop was abolished when we noticed his hand resting on his pistol as he approached. His blue eyes roved over our faces as he mentally sized up each one of us. The narrowing of his eyes and slight pursing of his lips displayed his distaste for what he was seeing. 

“I’m sorry, officer…,” my friend that was driving began to say.

His eyes darted to my friend’s face and pierced into her. “Who do you think you are,” he said with disdain.

“I’m sorry, officer…,” she began again. “I didn’t notice the stop sign until I had passed it.”

“You think you can just come down here and totally disregard laws? Stop signs mean the same here as they do in North Carolina,” he said, referencing the license plate. “Or maybe you need thicker glasses so that you can see better,” he continued in an elevated, unwarranted tone.

Silence draped the car as we all sat too stunned to response to his blatant display of animosity.

“License and registration,” he said to my friend.

With visible dismay, her hands fumbled through her purse searching for the wallet that held her driver’s license.

I reached up to open the glove compartment in search of the registration.

“Stop,” he yelled at me while tightening the grip on his holstered pistol.

“I’m just getting the registration out of the glove compartment,” I responded with a placid tone so as not to escalate him into unholstering his gun.

“She can do it like I told her to,” he responded.

After my friend fumbled through the glove compartment searching for the registration, we all waited in stunned silence for his return. And as we waited, I watched this beautiful woman, who has dedicated near every minute of her life to helping others, question everything about herself. I saw her internal interrogation of herself that we all struggle with when we try to make sense of our illogical encounters with racism. 

He approached again with a hand still readied on his weapon and paperwork in his other hand. “If you break another law while you’re here, I’m taking you to jail. And if I find out you didn’t pay this ticket, I will come up to Charlotte and put you in jail myself,” he said, handing her the paperwork. His eyes again roved over our befuddled faces before he walked away. 

It was obvious that he didn’t care about the near miss of a stop sign. He only cared about putting the uppity, black gals in their rightful place. 

As he drove away, I placed my hand on top of her trembling one. “Are you ok,”I asked, though knowing mentally none of us were.

She shook her and proceeded as many of us do after these tramples on our dignity. “Let’s just get something to eat and not let this ruin our trip,” she said as an attempt to stack this incident with the rest in a dark corner of her mind.

“No,” one of our other friends said from the backseat. “We need to report him.”

“That guy was just being an asshole,” our other friend said, who has been bred from generations of law enforcement. “Let’s just move on.”

Again, I watched my friend in the driver’s seat have an internal conversation with herself during the disagreement behind us. She nodded her head as she concluded her inner debate. “I think we do need to say something about this,” she said, changing her mind.

I nodded in concurrence.

After we made our way to the small police station on the property, we were met by an officer at the front desk. “Can I help you,” he asked, though it was obvious that he didn’t feel like dealing with whatever issue we had.

“We would like to file a complaint about one of your officers,” my friend said, who had been driving said.

His eyes rolled a bit as he stood up from the desk. “Wait here,” he said before walking to an office behind him.

About a minute later, he buzzed us through the entryway and pointed towards the office he had just left. “The duty sergeant is in there.”

The duty sergeant greeted us with a forced, customary smile and asked, “How may I help you?”

“We would like to file a complaint about one of your officers,” my friend said again.

His hallowed smile decreased some. “Please tell me what happened.”

“I unintentionally rolled through a stop sign. The officer that pulled us over was verbally aggressive and demeaning and at one point we thought he was going to pull his gun.”

The sergeant’s smile was replaced with irritation. “Did he have a short haircut, a mustache and blue eyes,” the sergeant asked, filling in the picture of this known bad apple.

“Yes,” my friend confirmed while handing the sergeant the ticket.

The irritation deepened on his face as he read the ticket. “Please fill out this form,” he said, handing over a clipboard. 

As my friend filled out the form, the rest of us watched as the sergeant went to speak with the officer at the front desk. After their exchange, he returned to the office with the hallowed smile. 

While reviewing the form my friend had filled out, and in an attempt of some sort of reassurance and depraved comfort, the sergeant said, “We have him scheduled for sensitivity training next month.”

We exchanged awkward glances among ourselves due to his peculiar declaration.

“Do you need any additional information,” my friend asked, trying to move beyond his display of ineptitude.
            
“No, I think this is enough,” he replied, replacing the hallowed smile.
            
As we filed out of the office we were met with the same cold eyes that cased our faces in the car. Again his eyes narrowed and his pursed lips showed his distaste for seeing us.
            
After we walked through his frigid stare, we heard him say to the duty officer, “They don’t belong here.”
            
Upon leaving the police station, we continued on our original journey of finding a place to eat to restore a sense of normalcy to our trip.
            
As we were eating, my friend who was driving said, “Let‘s just leave now.”
            
My friend, who was still assigning the incident to the law enforcement one bad apple category, responded with, “Hell no. We have every right to be here like everyone else, despite what that one asshole thinks.”
            
“I’m quite sure it’s more than just him that feels that way here,” I replied. “Plus, he knows where we are staying while we’re here. Never underestimate a hateful person, especially one that feels justified in their hate.”
            
So, following that conversation, we packed our things, took one last look at the lapping ocean waves, and concluded our annual girl’s trips to Hilton Head, SC.
About a week after this incident, a group of Christians welcomed a peculiar stranger into their Bible study not far from where this incident occurred. They joined hands with him and invited him into prayer. As a repayment for their benevolent hospitality, he announced that he was there to “kill niggers”, and he then proceeded to brazenly slaughter nine of them. 

I am ashamed that my first feeling when hearing of this horrific tragedy was relief. I was relieved that we had only been demeaned and made fearful. In further reflection, I’m realizing that sense of relief is a common byproduct of living on soil that is drenched in the blood of our ancestors who were never meant to be humanized and folded into society. It is a byproduct that not only provides us all with a warped sense of comfort when we escape overt racist encounters, and a multitude of micro aggressions, it also warps our sense of progress. Black backs no longer carry the welted scars of whips due to not working fast or efficiently enough, so things are better. Swollen, decaying black bodies with mutilated genitalia are not swinging from trees daily, so we are better off now. American citizens begging for only humane and equal treatment under the law are no longer pelted with blistering fire hoses and met by hungry dogs, so why are there still protests?
            
About a month after this incident, Sandra Bland was pulled over in a seemingly routine traffic stop. And again, my shameful relief returned as the reality of what could have been became crystallized. It was obvious that her changing lanes without signaling was not the law that she had truly broken, just as my friend’s near miss of a stop sign wasn’t. The law that Sandra Bland, and we also, broke was having pride in our kinky hair, and our chocolate to chestnut hues, and our endurance through countless encounters of belittlement. 
            
​Our crime in this country, since the first Africans arrived here on that same coast where we saw the sky compete with the ocean for beauty, has always been trying to find anyone to understand the black gal’s blues.