I have written a bit about this but want to go into further detail...
Once there was a child and his name was Gerardo, he was mostly happy and loved to play but one day he decided to join his cousin on a short trip to the corner store. This trip was all of 1056 feet round trip and what can happen in such a short distance?? On our way back a Chicago Police car rolls around the corner and stops suddenly. The officer was a tall fat white hair man that was red in the face as if his blood pressure was trying to pop his head off. The officer struggled to put his car in park and almost side swipes a parked car. My cousin froze and was holding on to me, I suspect in a form of guarding me, and the officer pushes my cousin to the side and grabs me.
"You little fucking wet back go back to where you came from...get out of my neighborhood..." I was shocked because I had never heard these words ever in my short life so I didn't know whether to be insulted or direct him to someone that fit the description of what he was calling me. He had a pretty good hold of me and finally my cousin grabbed the officer to pull him away from me and got him to let go and as soon as he did my cousin took his hands off the officer. I cried all the rest of the 197 feet left to my house.
I had to ask what these names meant and why it was directed to me and here is where I found out that I was different than other people. I quickly became ashamed to be called Mexican I refused to speak Spanish anywhere I let bullies pick on the Spanish kids that had just migrated to the US and spoke with a heavy accent. I didn't want to be this "wetback" the officer was calling me because I didn't want to get in trouble. Then one day my teacher stands me and my best friend Chucky up front to teach the class the meaning of greater than and less than. My teacher was the darkest Black woman I had ever seen and found her to be so powerful and I admired that about her but I had never seen her as a Black woman before until then. I was taller than Chucky so my teacher says "class, Gerardo is Greater than Chucky in height and Chucky is Less than Gerardo in height" "Ooooohhhhhhh" the kids were getting it so why take it further. "Class, Chucky is Greater than Gerardo because Gerardo is part of the minority group and Chucky is part of the majority group" Uuuummmm What the fuck she just say?!?!?!? At least that's what I imagine my facial expression to be because others in the class had the same look. So we all look to her and someone asked "What does that mean?" She had a short fuse so she blew up and started saying that we just needed to accept what she just told us! "Greater THAN and Less THAN get that through your heads!" We both sat down but after having my first violent racist event in my life I knew what this woman was talking about and I didn't like it.
This all took place 30 years ago and that summer I had my first defiant act against the police, I was selling "illegal" fireworks. I had a nice little operation going on and had the best stuff because my supplier lived next door and was one of the nicest hillbilly's I have ever meet. I was sitting on the front porch and was just about to sell some M-80's when I notice a squad car rolling my way and I tell the kid I'm selling to not to give me the money just yet but this other 10 year old panics and runs! Rookie! So I already had my left hand over the side and tossed everything into the bushes. The squad slowed down and we made eye contact, the days cops didn't wear sunglasses because they wanted to make eye contact, it was a sunny day and the sun was behind me so he didn't get a good look so he rolled on. The kid comes back later and I charge him more for running!
I liked the feeling of looking down at a cop at the age of 10 and knowing that I was doing something that could possibly get me in trouble but knew I could out run him if I wanted to so I was going to keep doing what I was doing.
I meet a guy by the nickname "white boy" and this kid was the poster child of your typical "gang member" circa 1985. The way I meet him was by a scared classmate of mine that was warning me that, lets call him daniel, was going to come over and take my fireworks from me because I was taking away his customers. I laughed and said "tell him that if he got a problem then he can come to ME!" See where this went wrong was that I thought this kid was talking about his older Brother daniel not the thug from the corner that I was soon to meet. So just like any other little kid he goes running to White Boy and tells him what I said and here he comes and if I could put a theme song to this walk this dude was doing as he approached my house it would be "You talk too much" by RUN-DMC. It was obvious that he had never really been down to my side of the block but everyone that was out knew who he was and he could tell people knew him because people started to scatter a bit.
"Yo! you Gerardo?" he said, "Yea why?" in my toughest and deepest 10 year voice "I hear you selling fireworks can I see what you got?" I knew that if I showed him there was the potential of him taking off with it. Now, this whole time he's on the side walk and I'm up on the front porch so I asked him if he had money and he did so I tell him that if he wants to buy then he needs to come up to me and the look on his face changed. Back in those days even thugs understood that if you were caught on someone else's front porch without permission its been one for you! But he smirked and came up slowly and once he's up there I ask him what he wants to buy and he wanted M-80's I sold him a few and he left. A few minutes later I could hear them go off and back he came. How I knew how to deal with him and the nerve I had to treat a "thug" like him like that escapes me because I did not have that environment at home and my older sisters didn't act that way nor did they have people around them that acted that way.
Soon RADAR would emerge and change my life forever...
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