You had to ask, so I answered

I walk into the gas station to get a bag of ice. One of the 2 cashiers is talking to a Boise cop. The cashier says, "Let's ask him."

The cop, the patrons in the store and the other cashier all stop as the cashier asks me, "Is Idaho a racist state?"

In a few moments I think oh shit, I am going to answer this question honestly and I am going to be screwed. "Idaho is a racist state", I say.

The cop moves quickly to stand beside me and, touching me, puts his arm against my skin and says we are the same color. Obviously not, I think. The cop steps back and the cashier says, "Well from the stories I heard it's worse for your kind in the south."

I reply, "I grew up in the south where I learned to deal with your kind."

She says, "well if you get with any of that stuff you just talk to officer..."

At this point officer puffs his chest up, takes that wide stance cops takes and as he tucks his thumbs into his belt, opens his mouth. I cut him off.

"You expect me to trust you, who is a member of an organization whose roots stem from the Night Watch?" 

Yes indeed, his deflation showed me he knew exactly what I was talking about.

What I saw in the cop made me realize why the whites do not want me learning about their history of racism. Whites already know their history, they just don't want the other races to know what they are up to.