GooberMcNutly wrote:

Can you ever really separate the racism from the plain 'ol police brutality?

Hard at times to parse. 

First run in with the cops when I was 13 a cop pushed my face down on the hot hood of his patrol car and stuck a pistol to the back of my head. This wasn't for any crime except being a kid and screwing around on the streets after dark on a hot August night. Sobering.

I have never quite felt like they were my friend I have to say. 3 years later one shot at me as I was trying to escape a drug bust of a house that I had just stopped into say hello (no I wasn't involved in the drug deals at the place, I had no idea). Later that year, a close friend was executed by a cop for trying to run away when they were illegally searching/detaining him.  Shot him once in the back, and as he laid there on the ground stepped up and emptied out his revolver into the back of my friends head.  No charges.  Of course, my friend was a Mexican Indian. So, was that racism?  Roberto was finishing up his Masters. Spoke English, German, his native Mayan dialect and Spanish.  Brilliant person. 

Now that I am old and white haired, they treat me kindly. Weird.