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Essay: "Racial Profiling"

My skin color is Chocolate-Brown ... But all my life I have been called black ... Negro, Nigga or Nigger ... Keeping mind that all of this was way before 9/11. Picture a 11 or 12 year old kid being followed around a store by security, cause I don't go straight to an item then to check out. So as a non-white kid I am not allowed the joy of being out and about taking in the sights and sounds. Not many kids travel direct when alone. That's the way its been all my life, especially when I enter a place of business. It doesn't matter what I am about or where I come from or even how good a job I may have, I am always suspect on sight because of the color of my skin. I am on a car lot to buy a car, a Cadillac. The actual car I'm looking at is based priced at $24,700. The first words out of the salesman's mouth is SON can you really afford this car? I was 23 years old and he couldn't have been more than four or five years older than me. Why can't a young black man afford a NEW CAR??? After I finally got the car, I was stopped while driving back. In 1984, in Houston, Texas, there are some parts of the town that a young colored man in a nice car is automatically stopped and questioned. I am sure that a record review will show that in three years I was stopped at least once a month, mostly for seatbelt check or insurance. It's never been explained to me why these stops always required me and my car ALWAYS being searched. Myself, I honestly believe that we as people are all different. I am different from my mother even as I am from my own brother. What crime is there in this country that's not committed by every race? What is it that white people do or don't do that non-white people don't do or do???