Re: Trayvon Martin

[Kalidurga]

16. I am glad all the incidents I have seen have been relatively mild,

except for what happened when I was a child. I was about 5 years old and this tainted the relationship I had with my mother for a lifetime. I had no friends because being the from the poorest family in the school I was teased without mercy. I shouldn't say no friends, there were a couple of kids I could talk to once in a while. Anyway, a black family moved into the neighborhood. And their child attended my school, we became playground friends until my mother heard about it. She forbade me to talk to her. I don't know how she found out, but she did and I had never until that point seen her so angry. I respected her wishes, but that was the beginning of me losing respect for her. I had lost my only real friend up to that point in my life.

Since becoming and adult and moving a couple states away from my family, I met a Hispanic man, we became a couple. My mother wasn't outraged, but her snide comments about me not finding a white man were not appreciated. Nor, her comment on one of my children liking pepper on her food being because she is part Hispanic, btw she is the only one of my children who are also equally Hispanic that likes hot food.

Once this same man was stopped for driving while Hispanic in a suburban area of Madison Wisc. He violated no law other than not having a licence(cop didn't know that he just got lucky), so he had to pay a 100 dollar fine and got that money back upon getting his license within 30 days.

I can't recount every instance of police brutality and racial profiling I have personally witnessed, but the first one was about 26 years ago. Downtown Minneapolis on a routine traffic stop I saw a cop haul out the black driver of the vehicle, for no apparent reason, slam him to the ground and put his foot on his face while he read him his rights. I don't know the outcome of that incident. I do know it was a hot day and I didn't want my toddlers at the time to see this kind of thing.

It is a common thing for the police to patrol bars that have predominately black patrons and ignore white bars.

I see black children approached by the police quite frequently mostly males. It is so common a thing that all the black men I go to school with know they have to always have their ID. They bring that up when talking about voter ID laws, they are resigned to having to always have it on them anyway, some see it as an issue of fairness, like now maybe they should make sure all the white folks have to carry theirs as well.

When you are white it is not uncommon for other white people to tell racist jokes. I can't recall every instance of this, but those jokes get shot down by me and unfortunately I get branded as being someone without a sense of humor.

Then the most recent thing that boiled my blood was when I was working as a cashier and my boss was quite adamant about wanting me to do racial profiling. He was the one who told another manager the "joke" about calling the police if Indians were in the store because they were only there to shoplift. I am angry about this even though that was one of the main factors about me getting resolved to go back to school and I am back. But, still I really resent having been pushed in such a way.