After I was passing by
Fred Meyer’s; I stopped by the backside of wicked sex toy shop “Lovers” –
(yuck!). I was homeless…
I stopped to sit down
on a concrete ledge and relax and eat some small yellow pears I picked from a
local public park.
I overheard a (white)
woman talking on a cellphone (which I think was a cell phone she was borrowing)
to call the police about a stolen cellphone of hers worth $300-or-something
dollars.
It turns out a “black
man” had stole her phone or so they (the police) or her (the [white] woman)
said.
Because I was the ONLY
black man in the area with a backpack on and sitting down to eat my fruit (with
some honey I had…); they drove over my way to me as though I was a suspect and
briefly talked with me about the “situation”.
I felt deeply
embarrassed, humiliated and emasculated
as a man and but more so as a BLACK MAN.
But most of all I felt stupid because it was my fault I put myself in that
vulnerable situation.
It was late at night
and I being a black man AND HOMELESS hanging around some
unsavory place like a sex shop just spells out a BAD SITUATION. I set myself up.
I shouldn’t have
stopped there at all even though I was weary and tired from walking all day.
The white men police
officers talked decent to me; they weren’t meaning harm; it’s just that initial
“black thing” of theirs that irritated me; because I was the ONLY black man
around the area it must have been me, right? Right? Like all black people “look
alike”.
No way José because it
turns out it was anothah brothah somewhere way off in a city down south and
here I am up north.
The white policemen
were just doing their jobs in trying every “possible suspect” but it irritated
me personally that I was called out for another man’s evil deeds. But I know
God doesn’t want me to hold onto any bitterness or resentment I felt (and still
feel) over the whole ordeal. Bygones be bygones. So I just shook my head and
answered the officers’ questions honestly.
I was caught off-guard
from everything as I was tired.
My Christian black
brothahs, I learned that we need to be smarter and more conscious about our
actions.
Homeless black brothahs
on the streets need to (always) be somewhere out of sight in the night and
avoid ALL places that can bring
trouble.
