You know, I'm in my sixth decade, now, Tony.
Most of the first four were spent in NY State.
In that time I've gone from "Negro," to "Black" to "Afro-American" to "Black" and to the current "African-American," and, while in my case the perjorative "Halfrican American" literally applies ("Which half?" I continue to ask...:lfao: ) it is how the world sees me, and the first thing that cops-everywhere-assess, unless it's the driving of my car-in which case it's the second thing they assess.
In none of those decades has it been otherwise. I do not-cannot-trust the police, especially in any jurisdiction in upstate NY or Long Island, and very little I've ever seen has shown me otherwise-my father being searched in front of his family, while wearing his lclerical garb[, in 1968-simply because we were the only "black" family in our Westchester neighborhood-the first one, in fact. Or me, being roughly searched in that same neighborhood while walking my dog, simply because I answered, when asked what I was doing, "I'm out for a walk," and a neighbor's house had been burglarized-never mind that I was two doors down from the house I'd grown up in, an entire block away from the house that had been burglarized, and had no criminal record.Or the time I watched two NY State troopers put a thumping on a dying man's wife and her friend in an ER waiting room, in front of small children-one of whom was mine....I have no reason to trust any policeman, and no reason to do anything but mistrust them until they prove otherwise, and the reason I cannot trust them-any of themis because of the color of my skin. It is also, of course, the nature of their very human business, and the way they conduct it, but the police are not to be trusted, especially if you're black.
