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A THREAD: I always thought I was gonna pretty aware of racism when I was a younger man, and I supported the idea of equality, but not with any true conviction. Of course, I understand now that that point of view was a product of my privilege. But I had one of those moments that..
completely changed my entire worldview about 10 years ago. I was working at a restaurant here in South Florida, and there was a guy there I was friends with named Chris. Chris and I shared the same interest in movies and we often went to midnight releases after shifts together
We would usually just drive separately, but my car was actually in the shop this one night so he was driving us to go see a midnight release of The Avengers. It was probably about 11:40 and weâre on a major road and weâre just going along when we see the lights go off
Thereâs a local cop signaling him to pull over, which he did as quickly as he could. When the cop came up to the window, he told Chris heâd pulled him over for a tail light that was out. Chris said he was sure his lights were working, and asked if the officer would show him
It was a fairly new car, maybe 3-4 years old and a standard model Japanese sedan, so it had a dashboard indicator for when a light is out. The cop insists he stay in the car, and says if his ID comes back clean, heâll let us go. We wait a few minutes, he gets his ID and we go.
He was clearly pissed, but I just remember feeling absolutely floored. We got out in the theatre parking lot and sure enough, all his tail lights, blinkers, etc are fully functional. Itâs the first time I ever saw someone be profiled right in my face
He was a young, black male, in a newer car, in a mostly white neighborhood driving late at night. He wasnât speeding, there was no equipment malfunctions, a cop literally made sure he had âthe rightâ to be there in that moment. Itâs why Iâll never stop talking about racial
injustice from this account. Itâs very real, and when you use your privilege as a white person to demean the tragedies of another race you are absolutely contributing to institutional racism. I got to see one night of a glimpse into what my friend had lived his whole life. I can
never understand that level of just constant frustration and pain. When minorities speak out about their pain we need to be LISTENING #BlackLivesMatter 
