FWIW I ran into my black neighbor after work last night when I got home. We met at the fence, all suburban-cliche-style, and shot the **** for a half hour. He told me, in no uncertain terms, to stay home and keep out of it all, for my protection. His opinion is that none of this will do any good anywhere in any way. And he has some pretty crazy cop stories of his own, that are just mind-boggling.
To bring up another, I have told the story here before of going to lunch with my boss, the Sr. VP, who is a black man. He tends to take casual Fridays to an extreme, and this one Friday he was wearing a worn t-shirt and pants with holes in them. I was in my normal khakis and polo shirt with the company logo on it. We drove to restaurant in his Lexus SUV, parked on the street, and walked past a few cops standing around a cop car. They nodded at me, as I was ahead of him because he forgot his phone or something, and I thought nothing of it. I got to the restaurant and turned around to see him with his wallet out and with 2 cops standing in front of him. He then put his wallet away and caught up to me. I asked about it and he more or less said "par for the course".
I spoke to him yesterday as well about the riots and he shared largely the same opinion, that when this all blows over he will still get stopped for "walking down the street while black" just like it has always been.
Not a lot of hope here.
