On My Way From Fred Meyer’s I Stopped By “Lovers”…

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.