As one of the world’s foremost wypipologists, I have been tasked with addressing the newfound epidemic of Caucasian cop-summoners that just began trending around ... oh, I’m going to say it started in 1619, give or take a few days.
That’s correct. None of this shit is new. White people have always loved calling the police. In fact, in newly unearthed ship logs from the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, researchers have discovered that upon landing in the New World, Christopher Columbus’ first words were: “Hello, 911? I’d like to report some Natives trespassing on the land I just claimed for Spain.”
But instead of dwelling on the past (because someone might mention slavery and make white people upset), I’d like to focus on the future. Because of all the shit they did in the past, wypipo have a great affinity for the future. If you don’t believe me, read the transcript of any Caucasian apology, and I’m willing to bet that it says something about “moving forward.”
According to a 2016 Harvard University study I’m making up at this exact moment, 89.4 percent of all white people’s apologies contain the words “moving forward.” For them, “moving forward” is the equivalent of black people’s “Why you always bringing up old shit?”
Anyway, wypipo, although it is encoded in your DNA to dial a 9, a 1 and just wait for a nigga to do something, I’d like to suggest an alternative. I propose a five-step process that every white person should consider before calling the police on a black person.
Think about how many tax dollars you could save if police didn’t have to drive to the scene every time Amber thought something was suspicious about the Negro walking through her neighborhood. Imagine how much your city could save on overtime if officers didn’t have to spend hours writing up reports because Connor thought a crafty Negro had bought a uniform, stolen a mail truck and was cruising through your neighborhood, casing your subdivision, planning a series of home invasions by putting mail in people’s mailboxes.
Don’t you want lower taxes for Connor and Sarah?
Well, here is a plan you could follow. It shouldn’t be difficult to do because I gave it the easiest acronym to remember. It’s called the WHITE Method.
Step 1: Wait
Now, I know this first step sounds ridiculous because you are very proactive, but I promise it will make sense if you hear me out. Here’s a novel idea:
How about waiting until the person actually commits a crime?
It might seem a little far-fetched, but what if Sarah Braasch had waited until that black woman who fell asleep on her dormitory couch woke up? Sure, Lolade Siyonbola might have been one of those rare Negro sleepwalking murderers, but what if she’d just wanted to take a goddamn nap?
Again, it might seem like a crazy notion. I’m just saying that it’s statistically within the realm of possibility that Siyonbola was sleepy. I’m not ruling out Braasch’s belief that the sleeping black woman had a long con that involved getting good-enough grades in undergrad to be accepted into an Ivy League graduate school, where she planned to play possum on a couch until she was ready to jump-start the race war.
Step 2: Holla
This is the hardest step because it involves having an actual conversation with someone who isn’t white. Hold up! Before you skip this part, allow me to explain. Have you ever considered ... just once ... talking to a black person?
If Holly Hylton had hollered at those two homeboys in Starbucks, she surely wouldn’t have called the cops. (Try saying that fast three times. It’s the black version of, “The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick.”)
Talking to black people might be hard, but if Hylton had simply told the two men that they needed to purchase something in order to sit in Starbucks, perhaps they would rather have paid for a $12 cup of coffee than go to jail and be humiliated in front of an entire coffee shop. She could’ve possibly saved her job, and Starbucks would have made a little money just by her overcoming her apprehension and talking to a black person.
Step 3: Imagine
I know it’s scary to see an actual black person in living color, but you should overcome your fear and replace it with logic. One way to do this is by imagining that the person is an actual human being and not a caricature or a stereotype. I know this might sound impossible, but imagine if the person on whom you called the police was behaving in the exact same way, but they were white.
Would they seem so nefarious then?
Another technique I recommend is to imagine the jolliest, happiest, most harmless Negro you know—like Oprah or that nigga who sings with Hootie & the Blowfish.
Would you call the police on Oprah? I know sympathy isn’t one of your natural inclinations, and you could watch a lynching with a glass of lemonade in one hand and a parasol in the other, but think of the world, Carol Anne. What would we do with Stedman if Oprah were killed? Do you want to live in a world full of Blowfishes but no Hootie?
Hootie ain’t never did nothing to nobody!
Step 4: Think
Instead of using emotion, why not use logic?
Whenever white people want to criminalize black people, they love to point to the FBI’s murder statistics. Yes, it is true that African Americans commit murder at a higher rate than whites, but here’s an interesting fact:
If you looked at all crime, in any given year, white people commit the vast majority of crime. According to the FBI’s 2015 Uniform Crime Report (the latest available), white people committed twice as many rapes, assaults, burglaries and almost every other crime that the FBI tracks. If you are worried about crime, it is far more likely that the perpetrator prefers hollandaise to hot sauce.
But even though the vast majority of crime in the U.S. (69.7 percent) is committed by whites, you still shouldn’t call the cops on people who are susceptible to sunburn (how are you the master race if light can kill you?), for one simple reason: A vaster (I think that’s a word) majority of people haven’t committed a single crime. Use your head and not your hollandaise-heavy heart.
Also, I don’t know what hollandaise is.
Step 5: Envision
The final step is to take a deep breath and envision the two competing endings to the heinous, imaginary crime foiled by your police call.
In the first scenario, think of what would happen if you didn’t call the police: Lolade Siyonbola continues to nap on the couch and nothing happens. Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson take up two seats in the Starbucks until their friend arrives and they all leave. Or stay. The black people continue their cookout. The Hobby Lobby customers return their items and leave. The black women leave the Airbnb.
The end.
On the other hand, envision what would happen if the cops shot Siyonbola like they shot sleeping 7-year-old Aiyana Jones? What if Nelson and Robinson ran out of Starbucks when the cops came and met the same fate as Stephon Clark? Imagine if police showed up to that cookout and fired a few bullets into the crowd like Dante Servin did when he shot Rekia Boyd? Your silly little 911 call could have turned Brian Spurlock into the Hobby Lobby version of Walmart’s John Crawford.
You do know they shoot black people, don’t you? Calling the police on black people when they have done nothing wrong is not just racist and insensitive, it is life-threatening.
Hopefully, we can end all of this by practicing the WHITE Method for not calling the police. And if any of this offends you, think of how offended an innocent black person feels when they are confronted out of the blue by men with guns known to shoot people who look like them.
Moving forward, I hope you can do better.