Walking through the backyard to get to the basketball courts, to work out by myself at 6:00am, like I do everyday. It was kind of misty outside and the grass was wet and the benches and ground were slippery. I had on basketball shorts, Orlando sweatshirt, and my ball kicks dribbling the rock through the backyard on the wet floor. As I came closer to the other side to exit the backyard, I heard running footsteps and I turned back to see what was going. As I did I saw about six white guys running towards me wearing sweatshirts, jeans and sneakers, holding their hands on their guns but the guns were still in the holsters.

When I realized that they were cops, I moved to the side so they can run past me because I thought they were chasing someone else. The cops were all big and they all looked alike; same low haircut, all their jeans were tight, and they were all big. It was like they were all related or something. When they were running in my direction it looked like they were racing and I was the finish line. When they got close to me, one guy pulled his gun from his holster and yelled,

“Freeze!” At first I looked confused, not knowing what to do, then I just dropped to my knees and put my hands straight up in the air. The cops tried to search me but I didn’t have any pockets, because I had on ball shorts. He told me that a robbery had just been reported and that I fit the description. I asked him, “Did the person that reported the robbery tell you that the robber had on basketball shorts with a basketball or did they just say a black male?” As we were talking, I was still on the ground on my knees, now some of the people were coming out to go to work and saw what was going on. They began to say, “Let that kid go, he ain’t do nothing, he be out here at the same time every morning just going to play ball. Ya’ll just bothering him because he black!” The cop told me to get up and go on but he only did that because people were starting to come out. So I got up and turned around and went home, I didn’t even go to the basketball courts that morning.

I got home and went back to sleep hoping that I was going to wake up and not remember that bad dream. I didn’t forget it I just couldn’t understand why would they think to stop me? Maybe I did fit the description, maybe they were thinking like I was; I thought all of them looked alike so they could have thought all of us looked alike. (Blacks) **

This essay was written as a part of a Mapsites.net workshop.