You Should Be Profiling Me!

By Justine Barron

Hello Officer! Have a great day!

It was a casual crime: bringing food into a movie theater. My husband was nervous. He swore that people got arrested for this. Oh jeez, I was sure nobody would bother me. Nobody ever bothers me! If they ask me about it, I was sure I could talk my way out of it. I always talk my way out of things!

I’m short, Jewish, wear glasses, and for some reason people tend to trust me on sight. They relax when I enter a job interview, almost always forgive my moving violations. I don’t fit the “profile.” I’m not that innocent.

My husband is mixed-race. He can pass for many nationalities (Asian, Middle Eastern, Latino, etc.). He also inspires trust in people, as he goes out of his way to be kind and virtuous. He is genuinely that way, but he explains to me that he has to be. My skin is actually darker, but he fits the profile more closely.

Nobody bothered us at the movies that night. Still, he couldn’t relax about it. He doesn’t have that privilege.

Two years ago, I experienced the other side of police targeting. Just after boarding a bus in Venice Beach, California, a policeman accused me of stealing. I fit the profile in Venice. Everyone does.

Since moving to Venice, my phone had been ripped from my hands while I was walking, twice. My clothes were stolen from the laundry room by my homeless neighbors. A lady on the bus cursed at me for an hour. She had a yoga mat. I’d lived in a few major urban areas but nowhere so hostile to me. The pot dealers on the boardwalk would yell at me to relax. I liked seeing the police around Venice. I smiled at them.

On the day in question, the bus wouldn’t register my change. The driver pointed to a slot below. I reached down and was surprised to find a huge pile of change, many dollars’ worth.

Suddenly, she was accusing me, loudly: “That doesn’t belong to you. You better put that back!”

“What?”

“I saw you. You were putting that in your pocket!”

“I swear,” I yelled. “I’m trying to pay for my ride. You’re crazy, lady!”

“I’m crazy? You’re the lying crazy thief. I’m doing my job.”

A police officer approached. I swore my innocence, but, in his eyes, I was already a disobedient hippie Venice loon. He offered to remove me. I put up a fight. Thankfully, the driver was impatient. They let me ride.

I sat down, my face burning with rage at the injustice. As I heard her still muttering about me, it snuck up on me, a growing awareness, until it hit me so hard I couldn’t avoid the truth:

She was right, maybe. I think I tried to pocket that change. It happened so fast, I wasn’t aware of it. That’s because I’m a huge thief. Or, I was.

It started when I was seven. I saw a painfully cute Hello Kitty sewing kit at the mall that was clearly necessary to my life, so I pocketed it. My brother outed me, and my mother made me bring it back, in tears. That same day, she let us raid her office supply closet at work.

Object of immediate need

Getting caught was no deterrent. Weeks later, my parents sent me to the drug store with a few bucks. I came back with make-up, pens, and other gifts for them. I didn’t have to return them. To be fair, they had to pick their battles with me. I stole from them too. I also told lies all day and forged my report card clumsily. What was wrong with me? A lot, but the short version is that I couldn’t draw within the lines back then, literally.

By high school, I’d transformed entirely. I found a new racket: I got straight As and told the truth, although my parents never really trusted me. (My childhood dream job: “con artist.”)

But the stealing didn’t stop until my early twenties. There was rarely a trip to the mall that didn’t earn a bonus item. I often found a partner-in-crime, usually someone more risk-baiting than me. A friend of mine in graduate school, another high-achiever, showed me how to steal a lawn mower from Sears. Hint: walk out with it.

I hit bottom when I almost took a girl’s wallet in a locker room. I stopped myself. Thereafter, I only took from large corporations. I stole from the rich and kept it. Hello Kitty was the first and last time I was caught, before the bus. There were many tricks I can’t publicly promote. It helps if you did a lot of school plays.

I stopped cold turkey when I moved to New York City and witnessed the high level of security. I didn’t see how I could win at that game. I also got mentally healthier and found better outlets.

I keep my crimes casual now, like sneaking food into movies and jay walking. By Venice, it had been so many years since I compulsively shoplifted that I forgot I had it in me.

I still hold onto my thieving glory, perversely. I have not done many things so well. Still, there’s only so much talent that goes into putting shirts into purses and wearing unbought sunglasses on one’s head (okay, one trick). Ultimately, it was my genetic luck that kept me from being profiled, arrested, or worse.

It weighs on me that so many teens, without twisted authority complexes, deserve the privileges I was handed, including the freedom to browse without attracting suspicion. My ancestors probably didn’t have them. I wouldn’t have them everywhere in the world, and I don’t assume I’ll have them forever. I assume that the same misbehavior might’ve destroyed my future and perhaps my life if I didn’t look like me.

I wish I could personally apologize to the bus driver for being a “lying crazy thief,” as well as some of the store employees, but my family does need to get over it. I haven’t been that person in long awhile, please look within, etc.

To make amends, I am going to pay more attention around the police. I’m so busy playing the “good girl” around authority figures, worried that they will finally see through me, I might be missing things. For instance, I didn’t like being harassed by homeless individuals in Venice, but I know they face much worse harassment from the cops. So I downloaded this app, Cop Block, that records video and directly uploads it to the Internet, in case the police take away your phone. I hope I never have to use it… No, that’s a lie. It’s so boring, being good all the time.