[Dingfod]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

I've worked a number of manual labor jobs where most of my co-workers were African-American and Hispanic. On the job, we all got along quite well, because we were quite well-aware that we were all in the same boat. But it was simply shocking to talk with these guys about their lives outside the workplace. Almost all of them had spent a good deal of time in jail, for instance. What's shocking is why. They'd quite casually mention that they'd be walking down the street and a police car would stop, and they'd be picked up and taken in for an overnight stay in the slammer -- for no apparent reason other than that they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and were the wrong color.

What I found so astonishing about it was how casual most of them were about this. They were so used to being treated with suspicion wherever they went that they considered it normal to be hauled off to jail at least once or twice in the average year for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some of them were surprised that I found this so shocking -- they thought of it as perfectly normal, and had long ago accepted that this was simply the way things were, and the price they had to pay for being born with dark skin.

That's just sad.