Val Nicholas - NBC Vice President is on Tweety

[malaise]

He faced the barrel of police guns twice as a teenager.

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/07/18/i-could-have-been-trayvon-martin/
I could have been Trayvon Martin

<snip>
The first time, I was merely waiting for a bus to go to my job. Suddenly two California Highway Patrol vehicles jumped over the concrete middle island and they came screaming to a halt on either side of me kicking up a huge cloud of dust.

My first instinct was to run away but before I could figure out how to handle this, an officer from each car jumped out with handguns pointed at me, screaming for me to put my hands up and get down on the ground.

I started to ask what was going on, but they were having none of it and forcibly pushed me down into the dirt making my work clothes a filthy mess. They then asked me if I was the name of someone they were looking for. I told them no and they demanded ID. I did not have a driver’s license yet but fortunately I did have a picture ID from work. If I had not had that ID, I would have surely ended up in jail. After they realized they had the wrong guy, they got back in their cars and drove off. No apology, no checking if I was OK, no nothing.

It was the first time I came to realize that being black was not just a magnet for racist speech and actions directed at me but also could also cost me my life had I responded to a normal human being’s natural fight or flight instinct.

[HipChick]

1. If you have a black relative that is male..

this is a common experience..

[malaise]

2. My brother was stopped several times

but he's as sharp as a tack and sued them with regularity and won.
He loves nice cars and that's begging to be stopped in the land of the not so free.

[HipChick]

3. I am glad that he sued and won..

[Cha]

4. Mahalo for this, malaise.. chilling account from Val Nichols..

it happened to AG Holder, too. Running while Black..

Just watching United States Attorney General Eric Holder during his press conference on Tuesday remembering what it was like for him as a young black man in America whose father had to give him ‘the talk’ about how he should behave if ever he was stopped by the police was, I’m quite sure, a revelation to a large segment of the nation. And not the darker segment, because we already know. And as I watched him describe how he felt certain that his father didn’t think his son’s generation would likely have to give that same wise but fearful advice, and then how he wove that into the tragic verdict excusing George Zimmerman for murdering an unarmed black teenager, I couldn’t help but think about the fact that only a black man could offer that perspective on the verdict. No matter how sympathetic many of our white fellow citizens may be, only a black man can talk with authority about what this really means for young black men.

But more importantly, this wasn’t coming from some anonymous black man interviewed on the street. This opinion was coming from the nation’s top lawyer, the man who is in charge of the United States Justice Department. And this man talked about one night not all that long ago when he was stopped by the police in Georgetown as he was running to get to a movie – simply because he was running while black at night in Georgetown. He was a federal prosecutor at the time.

http://www.politicususa.com/2013/07/18/hear-that-george-zimmerman-justice-catching.html

[malaise]

5. Watch the Tweety repeat

Really interesting - frightening indeed.

I posted Holder's interview and transcript but it sank like a stone

[Cha]

6. Of course it did! can you give me a

link, malaise?

Again, thank you for this from Val Nichols.. I will try and watch it online. no tv.

[malaise]

7. It will show up here later

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3036697/

[Cha]

8. Mahalo!

[Mojorabbit]

13. Thanks for the link! nt

[HipChick]

10. It happened to Obama..

It happens all the time...this is what black America has been living with..

[Cha]

12. I didn't remember that.. mahalo

HipChick.

[sheshe2]

9. Thanks for the nbc link malaise..will watch for it.

It was the first time I came to realize that being black was not just a magnet for racist speech and actions directed at me but also could also cost me my life had I responded to a normal human being’s natural fight or flight instinct.

[malaise]

11. All our men know that story

I used to read a lot as a child and as a teenager. My maternal grandfather had a wonderful library and one of dad's sisters would bring or send me wonderful books by African American authors or West Indian authors in England. They wrote their experiences first hand. Then I got a copy of John Griffin's Black Like Me and I discovered that we had allies of all races. Anyone who couldn't see racism for what it was changed their mind after reading that book. I got my copy in 1962.