In three weeks I will be staying a couple of miles from where Mr. Eric Garner was murdered on tape on tape where I grew up on Staten Island. I hated living on Staten Island due to the pervasive racism and move away when I was 21. My two Black friends and I were pulled over with no legal basis even asserted by the police 8 times in a row on Hylan Blvd. In direct violation of the 1968 Terry v Ohio Supreme Court case. I and my two friends were harassed and followed by these police. None of us ever had got in trouble with the law. Unlike these police we were in college and all received graduate degrees from excellent, highly rated schools. Unlike these cops we spoke English properly. Unlike the cops we had good grades in school so we never would have considered being a cop even if there were Black cops on Staten Island in the 60s and 70s. We only knew of one named DeQhilla.. For me, Staten Island. Holds at of painful memories of racial violence, racism in practice and students in school who engaged in racial violence and taunts. As Gill Scott Heron wrote "Home is where the hatred is". My left was shut for three weeks after a racial attack by Gary Felini and Sal. De Falco at Richmond Town Prep on Staten Island where the school administrators did nothing about it, they gave me a towel and I had to wait for the old 113 Bus, which ran every half hour to take me or the HIP HMO on Targee Street in October of 1969. Staten Island has always been the most racist part of NYC and still is.
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