What's the deal with motor vehicle violations?

I'm sure some blacks' experiences with the police have led them to enough suspiciousness to account for reactions like Sandra Bland's, but I always understood that when a cop tells you to do something you do it, without backtalk or resistance, because he's the authority in the situation --but also because cooperation puts him at ease and you don't want to deal with a cop who's scared you might be about to shoot him. I would think that would be the best policy for anybody, blacks too, or maybe especially.

I read the article and appreciate some of her points about how merely being black attracts police suspiciousness. But Sandra Bland is not a good example for making her point. The writer starts out saying there was no reason for her to be pulled over. Well, but there was. She failed to signal, and that raises a red flag for the police. That may seem trivial in a way, but it's not "no reason" to stop her. (I've been stopped many times for such seemingly trivial reasons. Such as for having a taillight or headlight or signal light out. Once for running a stop sign in a sleeping residential neighborhood with no cars on the road at one in the morning for instance. The cop acted like I might be a desperate criminal the way he sort of crouched as he approached.)The writer also says nothing about Sandra Bland's resistance to doing what the officer asked her to do. I'd expect a cop to treat anybody who acted that way with less than respect for their vulnerable personhood. She treated the cop with contempt, she refused to obey the lawful order to get out of the car. You can't claim police harassment for being black when she acted that way.This case is just not a good case for the generalizations the writer wants to make about blackness itself as the cause of police mistreatment or overreaction.