I was in 3rd grade when I first realized I wasn't white. The teachers at my school, and the administration included me in a racial pride parade, and I wasn't that race.......

I didn't understand just yet. I thought it was a gentle easy mistake. But boy would that prove wrong, there were so many more incidents before being visited by the NSA and Sheriff for being on America's Most Wanted.

The second time I remember not being white. I was about 12. I just came back from Sunday school. And I wanted to get some snacks at the local store. I went with a bunch of friends to a penny candy store.

(don't worry we'll get back to America's Most Wanted).

So I'm the darkest of anyone I know, but I still don't understand yet. But the looks and the stares the owner/clerk of the store gave me, as I was followed from isle to isle, was chilling. At 12....

Then came middle school. We were discussing Native American ancestry in one class, and again - I was called on to provide my perspective on Pow WoWs.

i've never been to a pow wow. I'm not native american. I was 14 then.

I'm not even goddamn 14 year old, and I've experienced direct visual racial bias in my life, simply because I was colored in middle USA. I thought I was just like everyone else.

So fast forward a couple years, small incidents here and there, usually the more sun I got by the time I was 16, the more I got associated with being a migrant. I lived in this town my whole life, and unless I was known, would just assume I was part of the migrant population.

SOOOO I couldn't possibly think - that I would ever have one of these awesome run in's with the law right?

Wrong Derek. Wrong.

I was a 16 year old young kid. Working in a restaurant. No criminal record, clean zilch. I really loved this job too, I would put in extra time to really know my co-workers. Two who happened to be large Native Americans.

And when I mean large, I mean big boys.

So, one night after work, me the guys hung and then I went home to my moms house, and I didn't think anything of it.

Loud knocks (thank god they knocked) on my moms door. Louder than normal, and then I heard several voices and a bit of commotion as my mom was yelling expletives.

She called for me to come, because, I probably wasn't going to come. I wasn't sure what was happening, but when I got up stairs, as a 16 year old. I saw Federal Law enforcement waiting for me.

I don't think I can articulate, the trauma you experience as a young kid, walking into Federal Agents with guns visible, looking for an arrest. The things that go through your mind, are harrowing.

Why did they come to my house? Because they were tipped off. That a Hispanic 30 year old Fugitive that someone had SEEN on America's Most Wanted, was working at the restaurant I was working at.

But they weren't asking me if I knew anyone. No. I had to be lined up next mug shots, to verify that I wasn't the Fugitive. Again, in my mom's house, as a visible 16 year old.

They realized I wasn't old enough to be the fugitive. But the more humiliating part about it, the I had been to the Sheriff's house. The Sheriff's child was my age, we were classmates for over 8 years. This could have been investigated and looked up before they even came.

So I'm still shaken. Because now, I'm worried about just being brown. Matching a "description", this was so new to me, and it wasn't going to be the last time.

So I returned to work, and got to see my boys. And as I was telling them what happened to me last night, something ironic happened. We had all been visited by the NSA and the Sheriff. Why? Because we were all brown enough. WE DIDN'T EVEN LOOK ALIKE.

That when I realized, at 16, I wasn't like everyone else I grew up with. That I should avoid the sun, because privilege came with skin color, or that I should move to brown heavy neighborhoods to feel safe. I marked my calendar for the day I would leave my 98.7% white town.

So fast forward a couple years. I'm 19. My best friend is black. I still hadn't grasped fully what systemic racism was. Until this year.

He was arrested... We were 19... He was accused of charges that were later dropped. But he wasn't released from jail. (not prison) jail.. for 3 months.

I couldn't grasp this yet. We were all too poor to afford bail for him. They set his cash bail at $15,000. That means his bond was over $150,000, with dropped charges.

They ran multiple background checks against him, they investigated, and interrogated young adults looking for incrimination during this whole investigation.

In the end, they held him for 3 months, and the final outcome was a providing alcohol to minors. HE WAS A MINOR....

I never suspected, something so routine would yield a massive change to his life. He couldn't pay rent for 3 months, he couldn't pay his car payment for 3 months, things we take for granted.

OK so that's done, what could possibly happen again? How about waking up for class, and walking into drug raid twice.

I can't make this up, and I wish it wasn't real. But damnit, they got the wrong apartment. TWICE.

I'm so thankful No Knocks weren't being used. The swat team knocked both times. They told me to get the fuck out of the apartment. But they knocked.

No one has drugs in our apartment. Not the drugs they were looking for anyway.... It's just three young brown guys in apartment. But I guess we looked more suspect, than the actual meth cooks.

There's more, there's always so much more. But I think I've exhausted this thread with my attention at least. I need a smoke.