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Briarwood Presbyterian Church wants to appoint its own police officers with policing powers (file photo)

Dear Davis,

In so many ways, I'm like you. I'm young, white, and I grew up in a Tennessee town pretty similar to Mountain Brook. That is why I feel compelled to write this letter.

After I read your epistle to the City of Mountain Brook forgiving them for requiring you and your brother to endure a routine police stop, I too was overtaken by a "warming fury of frustration."

Over the last few years, we've again seen real instances of police misconduct and brutality. Those events break our trust with the men and women charged with keeping us safe. Police misconduct, wherever it occurs, shouldn't be tolerated. That's a point where I suspect we agree.

That said, I take exception with a self-described "young, white, wealthy, cisgender American man" casting a disparaging gaze on a police officer when he's simply doing his job.

You're not a kid anymore walking through the rolling hills of Mountain Brook. If you can't see how two grown men ambling around barefoot near an elementary school might arouse suspicion, you need to come back and connect with reality.

That utopia where you grew up felt that way in part because people were comfortable asking law enforcement to check out things that seemed odd to them. While it's not illegal for grown men to walk through the Tiny Kingdom barefoot, it's understandably a little out of the ordinary. For some folks, it might be the case that they'd rather not ignore it with school children nearby.

Yet you apparently can't seem to figure out why you might have been approached by police. Yep, it was your suspicious good hair. That's it.

The police officer essentially asked you who you were, what you were doing, where you were going, and if you lived in the area. All are questions common to checking out a call of suspicious activity and warranted given the context.

Yes, I understand you grew up in Mountain Brook. Police are still allowed to ask you questions. Crazy, I know.

But that wasn't the most interesting aspect of your letter.

You then proceeded to muse, "What if our skin were a few shades darker? Our heads wrapped in cloth? What if we were anything other than a slight diversion from this privileged norm?"

I'll take each of these in turn. It isn't. They aren't. And you aren't. Your encounter with a police officer was so mild that you literally imagined scenarios where you might have been victimized.

I recognize you have a background in theater, but that takes a lot of creativity. You're implying from a routine police stop that the officer would have treated others abusively with absolutely no evidence other than your own prejudice.

If you want to fight actual injustice, I'm with you. Want to continue a dialogue about how we relate to one another? Great idea. But suggesting that your completely normal encounter with law enforcement rendered you "othered" is like saying you have a better understanding of a veteran's PTSD because your brother shot you with a BB gun.

While I'm glad you've found it in your heart to forgive Mountain Brook for asking police to check out the two white guys with no shoes and good hair who happened to be walking near a school, you're the one who needs to apologize.

You clearly implied that Officer Fischer would have behaved in some racist bigoted way if you were anything other than a card-carrying member of the Mountain Brook elite. If that's an accusation you stand by, then quit hiding behind innuendo. If it's not, then you owe him a real apology for publicly disparaging him.

That said, Davis, I'm glad you care about how we treat each other; we can and should work on that. I suggest starting with Officer Fischer. But please, for the sake of our country and our community, at least come to terms with the difference between actual police misconduct and the routine tasks their job requires.

Love, Cameron

Cameron Smith is a regular columnist for AL.com and state programs director for the R Street Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C.