I read the above article and it has touch me deeply. I am 72 years old and I have experience some of the situations mentioned by Mr. Mudede including being followed in stores but in addition also followed in several museums as well as stopped by police on more than one occasion. I had a letter published in the Journal American some years ago in regards to one stop in Bellevue where I have lived since 1975. When I questioned the officer after he had examined my license and registration and proof of insurance his only explanation for pulling me over was that according to him I was stopped too far into the cross walk which was not true. The very next Weekend at the same intersection I saw a car stopped all the way across the same cross walk and so I observed to see if the police car stopped parallel would pull the driver over. The driver was not pulled over. I also observed a police car stopped in a cross walk forcing people to walk around it. These two incidents prompted me to write the city.

But my main reason for writing is in regards to what my maternal grandfather told me when I was a teenager. He told me though old enough to fight in World War 1 he would not because he wasn't about to fight for the rights of foreigners when his own country was denying him basic human rights. When I went into the service in 1962 I spent just a year after experiencing several humiliating situations while traveling by bus to a base in Alabama from my home in California. As soon as I arrived at the base I asked in a group why should I want to fight Russia and its people in light of the fact they had not taken away rights or humiliated me as much as America had and continues to do.

It is absolutely a disgrace that after more than 200 years since the writing of The Constitution persons of color are still treated as second class citizens even though they have participated and fought in every war this country has been involved with starting with the Revolutionary War.

It hurts to travel to a foreign country and find you are treated with more respect than you are in your own country.

George Whitaker
Bellevue, WA