Explaining Metropolitan Diary, Part Two

Sometimes the Monday “news and notes from weird readers from all over” column in the New York Times baffles. (See: previously.) Today offers a fascinating example that may baffle you if you are not deeply immersed in the culture and its assumptions.

It goes like this.

Dear Diary:

Two years ago on Valentine’s Day, my mother, who had recently celebrated her 70th birthday, swiped her reduced-fare MetroCard at the Kings Highway station in Brooklyn on her way to work.

A young police officer had taken note. Mom turned around on the platform in response to his tap on her shoulder.

You see, in America, the police come up and touch you when they have questions about your behavior. Fortunately, she did not mace him.

“Excuse me,” the officer said. “May I see some identification?” As she rummaged through her big tote bag for her wallet, Mom felt the office [SIC] scrutinizing her.

“Why do you need my ID?” Mom asked. The officer replied that he had seen her use a discounted MetroCard. “So?” Mom asked, as she handed the officer her driver’s license.

His eyes widened in surprise when he calculated Mom’s age from the birth date on the license. “Keep up the good work, lady!” he said, as he handed it back to her. Mom said it was the best Valentine’s Day present she could have gotten.

Confused? Don’t be!

This incident of being detained by a police officer, accompanied by a demand to produce identification, was just a charming and light-hearted way for a man to tell a woman that she sure looked good for her age! Make sense now?

It’s mostly like a good thing she chose to produce the ID. Of the 600,000 or so stopped by New York City Police (50% of whom are black and 10% of whom are white), about 10% are arrested. (N.B. Those two 10%’s don’t actually overlap that much!)

For more information on being stopped and touched by the police, followed by a demand for your ID, you can read more about your rights thanks to the ACLU.

For more information about being charmed by being thought of as much younger than you are, go read, I dunno, Cathy Guisewite or something.