If You Ain't Rich, You Ain't Crap by An Old Codger at All poetry

Pull over son, yeah right over here
Out of the car you punk, I can smell beer
Oh you have gauges and tattoos all over
Sit down on the curb while I call for rover

Your car’s a piece of crap, your parents ain’t rich
I bet your dad’s a drunk and your mom’s just a bitch
Oh did that make you mad, you want to take a swing?
Go ahead you little shit, I’ll teach you the chicken wing

Hand me your license, backup’s on the way
I bet you’re a druggy, we’ll find it today
Insurance card boy, while I hold my gun
I’ll shoot your punk ass if you do something dumb

Here comes the dog, he’ll sniff out the stuff
You’ll like it in jail, you think you’re so tough
Dressed all in black, baggy pants and long chains
I bet you’re a pussy, you don’t have a good brain

Three more cars just got here, you’re in for it now
We’ll teach you a lesson and I’ll tell you how
Up against the car, spread your legs far apart
No doubt that you’re holding, I feel it in my heart

We’ve been here an hour, turned your car inside out
No drugs and no weapons, I suppose you’re a boy scout
I can’t find a thing to bust you right now
I’ll find it next time, you can bet on it pal

You don’t get a ticket, just a warning from me
I’ll give you advice, this time it’s for free
If you change lanes again, in a way I don’t like
I’ll run your ass in, you punks are all alike

Author notes

A n O l d C o d g e r

This is the way the police work where we live. A lot of very wealthy people live here. If a teenager drives a new car, the police leave them alone. Mommy and daddy have the money to cause problems for the police. Kids in old cars get stopped for actually breaking the law all the way down to looking guilty of something. Both of my sons have been stopped many times, cars searched, drug dogs called in, detained for over an hour, frisked and then let go with a verbal warning. My oldest had the balls to ask an officer why he had been stopped and he was told it was because he drove a piece of junk so he must be doing or selling drugs. My youngest has tattoos and wears all black. He's been stopped several times for the way he looks and because his car is old. The officers don't mind telling him he looks like a drug using punk and they try to make him made enough to take a swing at them. No tickets or written warnings issued.

Contest Prompt: "There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance--that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
By Herbert Spencer

A contest entry

Prompt "Contempt Prior to Investigation" by liquidmindforever. 700 points, ended August 29, 11 entries
Silver trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest

Any suggestions and comments are welcome

Comments

1 - 30 of 30

By me, right now

Adding your comment:
Desire
August 30

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Yay~~
Congratulations on Your shiny!
-throws confetti-
Woot~

Thank You for sharing Your Voice
Best wishes in all You do
with love & light~ Desire~*~
- An Old Codger
  August 30
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  Thank you dear heart. Your comments are always appreciated.
liquidmindforever
August 29

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Excellent
Dear Poet,

Thank you for entering my contest "contempt prior to investigation" by
Herbert Spencer with your submission "If you ain't rich, you ain't crap."

How emtionally charged throughout your poem is. I could feel your hurt, anger
frustration and inability to turn this unfortunate situation around; man's inhumaity to his felllow.

i can feel your great love shining through all the angst which is a great
testimony and shows great skill with the spoken word.

i've read this several times and each time there is something else that so tugs at my heart.

this words spoke the loudest to me:

Your car’s a piece of crap, your parents ain’t rich
I bet your dad’s a drunk and your mom’s just a bitch
Oh did that make you mad, you want to take a swing?
Go ahead you little shit, I’ll teach you the chicken wing

oh what we teach our youth. you capture that all in this stanza as well
as the prompt itself.

thank you poet for enterting my contest "contempt prior to investigation"
quote by Herbert Spencer.

i'm honored you shared your voice and talent with me.

wishing you the best always, in all ways
welcome to the finalsists
till then
stay
liquid
- An Old Codger
  August 29
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  Thank you, not only for hosting and for the silver, but also for a venue where one could vent some pent up frustrations.
  
  I appreciated your comment very much as well.
Ann45
August 19

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OMG
Yeah I guess it happens all over the world. As a child growing up in South Africa the Police were not too scared about pulling kids over and slapping them around a bit. Or taking them to the cells to place potato sacks on their heads and drip water onto them. Awful, but what we don't like we avoid or we stand strong.
Well done with this
Desire
August 18
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Oh My Word~
Wow~ Profiling is profiling whether it is by race-gender or status
I am sorry this happened to a Loved one
My brother would get pulled over all the time
Geesh~ his car was souped up and so the assumption was...
Gang Banger- he must be carrying weapons-drugs
Hopefully there are cameras on the police cars my Brother would
mention-
It is so sad to read and envision of such things happening
My Dad was telling me of the days when Civil Rights leaders and
anyone affiliated were pulled over for being Black on a Friday night
Driving a new car- assumption it was stolen~
Crazy stuff...
I will say Bless Your Sons for not changing who they are for the sake of
fitting a profile- My Brother was not going to bleach his skin just to
drive his car It is Good they stay in control when the out of control cop
tries to infuriate
Your Sons are the better persons-
I can imagine how frustrating it would be-
Just painful to imagine someone treating Your Precious Gems like that
I give for them NOT feeding the cops thirst for blood
Tight rhyme~ and Message You have conveyed my Friend~
Thank You for sharing Your Voice
Best wishes in the contest
with love & light~ Desire~*~
- An Old Codger
  August 18
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  Thanks so much for reading and commenting. You are so right about the profiling. Town to town and area to area, color of skin, dress, economic status, it never seems to change except for the thinly veiled reasons. One of my friends from work has family in Mississippi. He has to take a much longer route to keep from driving through the places he knows to stay away from. A crying shame that it still happens.
Beautiful-N-Broken
August 17

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Now that is honestly the way it is. This goes with the prompt so well. You did wonderful with this! Good luck in the contest hun! I loved reading this because of the truth it tells.
Gypsy Via Orleans
August 16

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This I believe is one of my favorite writes by you. I can feel this from both sides of the fence. You wrote this so well and with such feeling. Even with your hint of humor. It is crazy the f..ed up rule and laws some towns have. Makes you wonder why our tax dollars can't be spent on more serious things. Here in the town I live in, in certain areas you have to get permission to paint your house. Then it has to be a color that the garden club approves of. When I was first told of this I couldn't believe it. My fondest wish is to be well off enough to by a house in the middle of town and paint it florescent orange, pink and purple that glows in the dark. Give the old biddies heart failure while they are taking me to court to have it repainted eggshell with. LOL! Seriously I love how you wrote this and understand the frustration your sons feel. Good luck in the contest.
- An Old Codger
  August 16
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  Thanks for the compliment my friend. It seems that discrimination and profiling shifts a little according to location. Sometimes those locations can be only a few miles apart.
  As for getting approval to paint your house, we have housing additions here that require you to submit pictures and samples when you want to plant flowers, trees and shrubs or if you replace your roof. I'll live in a box first. If I pay for it and live in it, I'll do whatever I damn well want with it. Maybe that's another reason I'm not wealthy. I don't play the games well at all.
SummerlandRayne
August 16

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Well now I guess things are the same all over...I could tell you what the state patrol did to a family member of mine...and so far have gotten away with it...but I would get off on a rant that would have no end. Suffice it to say, because they had a "suspicion" that the long haired punk was under the influence...the hosp. allowed the big strong troopers to interrogate him for hours while his brain was swelling filling his skull and causing him to stop breathing. He was finally sent to a trauma unit away from our town where he spent 8 days on life support and was found to have no drugs in his system. He was combative because of the massive swelling of his brain. He was tortured and interrogated for over 4 hours with no medical treatment whatsoever. Just another wonderful day brought to you by the powers that be...

I enjoyed your write of utter sad and graphic reality.

May you and yours be blessed and safe...

Az
- An Old Codger
  August 16
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  Thanks for reading and commenting on this. It appears to be the same everywhere so I'm not surprised that so may can relate to this.
Hetha
August 16

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Good Lord! That sounds a lot like where I live! Either way, that's just messed up!

It also sounds like something I heard from a friend of mine. She told me there's a town in Texas(she didn't say which one) that you can't legally live there if you own or drive an old pickup(more than five years old). The cops there will actually issue tickets to people with old trucks. I begged her to tell me which town, just so I could avoid it at all costs. She still hasn't told me, so I'm not going to worry or fret over it. I don't live there, so I ain't worried. Still, your story and this one sound familiar to me, and I don't like the situation. It's an uphill battle, and it stinks of corruption.
Whatever happened to respecting people and leaving people alone, that abide by the laws?

~Hetha
- An Old Codger
  August 16
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  Thanks for reading and for your comment.
  
  We have another town very close by that is loaded with old money. They have a city ordinance that says you cannot have a pickup, jeep or SUV parked within sight of any city street between the hours of 5 P.M. and 7 A.M. They will tow them to the police impound yard at your expense. Ya gotta love it.
- - Hetha
    August 16
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    I would agree with you, that's insane. Where the heck are you supposed to park then? Ft. Worth is loaded with tow away zones, so it's not surprising. I see signs tacked up everywhere at local businesses with the same message of "No Parking between 5 P.M. and 7 A.M" Sadly, the young folks (between 18 and 21) don't really have a place built to go to hang out and have fun with others their age, safely, and without getting themselves in trouble. I don't blame them for being bored. At least in this area. I'm not in Ft. Worth anymore.
Rheea
August 15

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So much prejudice against young people who do not fit the cookie mold. Happened when we were young too. What goes around comes around makes you wonder what these men are afraid of ? Not just cops a lot of people are this way towards young people who are dressing different and driving what they can fix up and pay for. just like young people do. I had a run in with a woman at the park about my friend's son.. so ignorant and unnecessary. You told it well brother.
- An Old Codger
  August 15
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  Thanks sis, it's a hard fact of life but a shame it has to happen.
Seasinger
August 15

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What a great quote for a contest prompt, and how well you have nailed it!
An excellently organised set of stanzas, enhanced with your accustomed skills at unstrained rhyming. You deserve a bonus point for the rhyme by enjambment at the end of line 3 of stanza 6.
You portray the scene and catch the vernacular perfectly. I like the subtle way you have satirised the cop's ignorance by "you're" [twice] in line 5, as a reverse variation on the your/you're confusion displayed by the grammar-challenged.
As for the subject of prejudice, a large book could be written on it. We are all prejudiced to some degree in our thinking, insofar as we believe much of what we are told by people we assume knowledgeable, because we lack the time or resources or inclination to investigate for ourselves. A sceptical attitude to apparent authority may be a healthy counterbalance. For instance, assume that journalists hardly ever report 100% accurately.
The sharp end of prejudice is most distressing when manifested by people wielding power, like the cops in your poem. Some of it can be attributed to psychopathology, but some no doubt is from having to deal daily with genuine extremes of criminality. Programs at grass roots level to achieve better relations between police and community may be a remedy, though I'm reminded of the story of the civic-minded teacher who overheard little Johnny in grade 2 saying to his classmates "coppers are bastards". She organised for some nice members of the police force to talk to the class about life in the force, putting a human face on it all. The next day she overheard little Johnny saying "coppers are crafty bastards".
- An Old Codger
  August 15
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  Poetic device aside, thanks for your comment. To the content of this piece, not only has this happened to my sons and their friends, I've had the rare opportunity to overhear officers talking in a local convenience store. Some of what I put into this piece came from their conversations. Listening to them laugh about harassing the local kids makes it hard to keep my mouth shut.
guardianhost
August 15

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Wish we could have justice in this day and age,
Unfortunate outcome for many and it should be stopped!!! A infuriating write!
ThaNK YOU FOR SPEAKING OUT !!!!
Cyber Hugs,
Cheryl
- An Old Codger
  August 15
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  Unfortunately, it happens all the time and I don't just mean here.
  
  Thanks for reading and commenting.
Swangrnv
August 15

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Damn..
I could of sworn thru out this write you were talking about me and my family from back in the days growing up in upstate N.Y. then I realized that WE never had a car, or money for drugs, or tatatoos, or baggy pants...oh wait a minute THE COPS HAD PERFECTLY GOOD REASONS to mess with us, and threaten our lives after all we were 10- 12 yr. old kids trying to enjoy our summer vacations playing outside in the parks, on the sidewalks and it was just a COINCIDENCE THAT WE WERE POOR AND 'DARK'.. yeah..thanks for helping me to understand that the cops really are very FAIR PEOPLE..this is excellent my friend, and way to go calling their asses out!!
- An Old Codger
  August 15
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  Thanks for reading my friend and sorry for bringing back bad memories.
  The "wealthy little bedroom community" we live in is just nuts. God help you if you're black, latino, asian, etc...and you also happen to be a teenager in an old car. Adults are treated differently. My oldest got a ticket for speeding in a school zone and he should have, no problem from me for that. BUT, a friend of mine, who happens to be black, was driving through the same school zone two weeks later, speeding and had his granddaughter with him, no child seat and no seat belt. The same motorcycle cop stopped him and told him to slow down and get a child seat. It seems the kids get the worst of it here. Just more of the same but aimed at a different group.
  
  Sorry for the rant. This crap cranks me up.
glenn shannon
August 15

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oh yes i remeber your son .. kidding but here the young ones in any car get pulled over so i drive behind them with all the drugs in my car lol i thort u was the copper or was in your day i was but not road traffic transit i loved it coz i was actually saving life and making the system a safe and comfy place but i really enjoyed this write emmensely nailed it to a tee
- glenn shannon
  August 16
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  they got me once i was driving without hubcaps on my car they pull me over charge me with indecent exposure i said hows that .. cop said youre showing your nuts . so yeah he was bad cop
- An Old Codger
  August 15
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  I've always tried to have respect for police officers. They have a hard job and I don't want it. I tried it a few years back and decided it wasn't for me. Like any profession, there are good and bad cops. I just have a problem with profiling and it seems to be getting worse.
Susan E. Pennycuff
August 15

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When I started reading this I somehow knew that there was going to be author notes because although it had a tint of humor it just was not up to the Old Codger style of humor and to me that said that there must be something more behind the write. I hated to find out that I was correct when I got down to the author notes. It is a shame that a town can be so judgemental against society based on economics. What is worse is that the real crimminals are probably going to be those with the money now because the officials are sending a message loud and clear in that town. The message is... do what you please, we won't mess with you, we are far too busy harrassing the poverty stricten. Eventually they will have to deal with the rich and in ways they won't want to, it will be a hard lesson for the officials to learn, but a lesson that is going to be inevitably taught and one they themselves have bartered.

You have delivered your message well dear and I wish you the best of luck in the contest.

Suzi
- An Old Codger
  August 15
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  Thanks for reading all the way through.
  You are correct. The biggest drug problem we have in this community is with the kids who's parents hand them wads of money so they'll go do something and leave their parents alone. I've heard too many stories from my son's friends. I also know my kids aren't angels and they've done their fair share of stupid stuff like we did. They just don't have the money for drugs unless someone is giving it away for free.
John BoSox
August 15

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This is great.I enjoyed it so muchYou put a great deal of time into this..I appreciate your effort.This is very informative,,well worth the read..Thank you

John
- An Old Codger
  August 15
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  Thanks my friend.