My earliest experience with police was in a classroom setting. “Officer D.A.R.E” lectured a classroom filled with my 8-year old peers and I on stranger danger, just saying no, and the danger of alcohol and drugs. I grew up in middle-to-upper class suburb of Pennsylvania best characterized by white picket fences and the children of white flight. I consistently saw this same police officer growing up and it was a bit of a shock seeing anyone else in blue in my town, which I don’t remember happening until high school (a younger officer walking around on Halloween).

When traveling, my interactions with police have always tended nearly comically towards benefit of the doubt, sometimes in dark contrast with those around me. I am female, visibly white, petite, articulate, wear glasses, walk with confidence, and tend to dress in collared shirts and vests. It would be a genuine challenge to appeal to societal biases and the police officers urge to protect a perceived vulnerable target more than I already do. I have never received a glare or warning at a protest, even when those around me have for identical actions. I have never been approached for loitering when waiting with backpacking gear even when my equally disheveled friends have. It is hard to list all the similar fringe examples, simply because I never noticed at the time. I have never been warned off for eating or yelling in a hotel, even when friends complain about the uptightness of security in a hotel. Airport security over the years I have been waved through with a kind warning for accidentally (sometimes accidentally) bringing in my carry-on: food, flint-and-tinder, a decomposing ram’s horn, a bottle of wine, wire cutters, a Swiss army knife, and water.

My experiences with security officers and police are more defined by what hasn’t happened than what has.