There was a huge stir in our neighborhood about thievery from ‘youths’ that would hang out in the park and wilderness area. These ‘youths’ might have stolen a bike from someone, and may have been responsible for burglarizing a neighbor’s house in the recent past, but there was no proof whatsoever of any of these suspicions. At the time, I walked through this park area on my way to and from work on a regular basis. I finally managed to meet these some kids there, all young teenage boys of color. They were very polite, and seemed to just be enjoying socializing together. A few of them had skateboards. It seemed obvious to me at the time that these kids were an easy scapegoat for our neighbors fears and suspicions, and outside of actual witnessing of them committing a crime, the assumption that they were responsible was complete nonsense fueled by pure racism.
