I harbor prejudices about people like me: Black and living in the inner city. However, I wasn’t fully aware of it until one night I hobbled on to the number one subway train on Manhattan’s Upper West Side using my cane.

The car was packed with people scurrying home after a full day of work, just as I was doing. I held on to the pole as we came to a screeching stop. I nearly lost my footing. Just then, I felt a tap on my left arm; it came from a young black man, dressed like someone I was conditioned to fear. He was wearing the now notorious hoodie, his pants were hanging low, and he had an oversized t-shirt on and headphones in his ear. Had he have touched me on the street looking that way, I might have even snapped at him or immediately changed my posture to an aggressive stance to make him thinking twice about targeting me as a victim

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nika-c-beamon/confronting-my-prejudices-about-people-like-me_b_8308854.html