odinsblog:

One night when I was around 12yrs old, two police cars rushed up on me and stopped me while I was riding my bicycle home from a part time job. The police said they stopped me because, in their words, as “a young black male,” I fit the description of a burglar who had broken into a house earlier that night.

It was late, but there were literally dozens of other kids riding their bikes through the neighborhood, but I was the only black kid. The cops roughed me up a little and held me until the homeowner arrived in the back of another cruiser. A white woman. I could hear her yelling at the police, “No, I said he was A WHITE MAN.” Turned out that the only description I matched was we were both wearing blue jeans. Other than that, I don’t see how I possibly could have matched the description of someone who I later learned was a much older, short, blonde-haired, blue eyed white man. I was his exact opposite in every possible way. Obviously, there was no way I met his description. The police used “police work” and deduced that the only black kid riding through a white neighborhood must have been guilty of something.

That was the night I finally realized that everything my parents told me about the police—every warning from their repeated black-parent-talks—was all true.

Even when the police are called on white people, black people still aren’t safe.

Looking back,

I’m lucky to be alive. I got home trembling, angry and sad all at the same time, but I never told my mom about that night until a few years ago. It happened almost 20yrs ago, but when I told my mom she started crying as if it happened to me yesterday. That’s the first “While Black” experience that popped into my memory, but there are more.

Anyway, please look through the #WhileBlack hashtag on Twitter. I think it’s important to share our stories.