White Kid in Blackface Racially Profiled on Way to Halloween Frat Party
AUSTIN, TEXAS — 19-year-old University of Texas sophomore Drew Parker thought he was in for a night of debauchery and underage drinking when he dressed up in blackface as his favorite rapper this past Saturday night. Instead, he received alienation, harassment, and disrespect. Parker was reportedly pulled over three times by local police during his 8-mile drive to an off-campus frat party.
It all started a few weeks ago when Parker — ignoring all virtues of respect and common decency — decided to put on blackface for Halloween. “I really wanted a bad ass costume. Some people make a big deal about stuff like this, but they’re typically minorities and women, and they make a big deal about everything, so I was just like ‘whatever,’” said Parker as his rich straight white male privilege oozed from the corners of his mouth. “But now, apparently the cops are in on it too. They kept pulling me over as if they had a problem with a white kid in blackface. You can’t discriminate against people based on what costumes they choose to wear!”
Parker said his encounters were brutal. During the stops, the college student was forced to hide a marijuana blunt out of view of the officers, turn down his music, quickly put on his seat belt, and eat some Listerine strips to cover the smell of alcohol on his breath from an earlier pregame party. Once Parker showed the officers his identification, the interactions reportedly became much more cordial, some of the officers even offered to escort Parker to the party to make sure he was safe. But according to Parker, the damage had already been done. “It was incredibly inconvenient. I showed up late to the party and missed the keg stand. Some of the paint smeared off because I was sweating and crying so the costume wasn’t nearly as funny,” said a noticeably still high but regretful Parker.
Parker’s mother expressed anger at the police department. “This is an outrage. My child should be treated with respect no matter who he dresses up like. Dressing up as a black man does not mean you should be treated like one! If a police officer can’t tell the difference between a real black man and a white college kid having fun, then maybe they shouldn’t wear that badge!”
The local police department quickly apologized. “We made a mistake. We took racial profiling too far this time, and because of it an innocent white kid could have been harmed, and for that, we’re truly sorry,” said a visibly distraught local police chief, Michael Stone, as he held back tears.
Parker, along with other students, is pushing for efforts to make sure cops are extra careful on Halloween weekends when it comes to racial profiling. Some have even gone so far as to ban racial profiling altogether every Halloween weekend to make sure white students can culturally appropriate minorities safely. These efforts have gotten some push-back from conservative groups on campus. “Let’s not get crazy. There’s still a lot of black-on-black crime, and cops still need to do their job. They just need proper sensitivity training so that they don’t confuse actual minorities with kids just dressing up like them,” said Stephen Ross, student president of the university’s “Make America Great Again” society.
Upon hearing about the incident and the resulting controversy the university’s black student union released a short statement: “We collectively just can’t.”
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