As a black man, you run from the cops. It's different now, but back when I was coming up, you run.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
It's always extremities when you are a young black male dealing with law enforcement.
Merely by describing yourself as black you have started on a road towards emancipation, you have committed yourself to fight against all forces that seek to use your blackness as a stamp that marks you out as a subservient being.
When they kept you out it was because you were black; when they let you in, it is because you are black. That's progress?
I am not an African. I am an American.
There's no question that I'm African-American. OK? I'm a black man. We're not going to escape that.
I'm black because that's the way the world sees me.
Race is something that's always haunted American policing.
Those of us in law enforcement must redouble our efforts to resist bias and prejudice. We must better understand the people we serve and protect - by trying to know, deep in our gut, what it feels like to be a law-abiding young black man walking on the street and encountering law enforcement. We must understand how that young man may see us.
Running is a simple, primitive act, and therein lays its power. For it is one of the few commonalities left between us as a human race.
Black man, you are on your own.