When the cops started using the N-word, we quickly got the picture

This story takes place my junior year and is a reason why to this day I will never ever ever ever decide to live in Salisbury (AKA Smallsbury). Suffice it to say that this was a small town, where everyone knew your business. People here were crazy & racist & there might as well have been segregation all over again because there were still places where African Americans did not go, although it was no more than an unwritten code at best.

It was my 21st birthday and my brother and I lived in an apartment with his best friend Allen in a place called Seagull Village (these were cheap and crappy college student apartments, which is okay because all we do is study and party anyway, but I digress). My cousins whom I'll call Tasha, Edna (who shared my birthday), Charles, and Shawn had all come to visit me.

For Charles, my brother, Allen and me this meant one thing ... drinks, drinks, and more drinks -- despite the protests of my female cousins. So that evening, Tasha who loves to cook makes me and Edna a wonderful dinner of spaghetti, corn and kraft mac & cheese (this is fine dining to a poor college student).

Things are very peaceful and pleasant so far until the following events begin to unfold.

1. Allen, Charles, and I are sooooooooooo drunk now, we decide to go to Club Visage (the local club in Smallsbury uh . . . I mean Salisbury). We go accompanied by the girls and we have fun until chaos ensues.
2. Edna is walking across the street with Tasha when a Caucasian man comes speeding in the parking lot. He tells her "Move dumb nigger!" Edna throws her shoe at his car and he gets out to slap her in the face. Did I mention we were drunk?
3. Before I can get to him in my drunken state, Allen runs over there and grabs the man off of her and throws him to the ground, while yelling at him "Who the f*** are you calling nigger?"
4. The man doesn't like this, so his posse comes over (three more rednecks who are all obviously drunk and begin yelling more racial slurs.)
5. They surround Allen. Me being drunk, I run over and bash one in the head with my fist.
6. My brother seeing what is going on comes over and he fights too.
7. I look up and he is on his cellphone making calls. Then he too jumps in the fight.
8. Next thing I know while Allen and I are fighting (taking a beating but still holding our own in this 3 on 4 fight, while the girls are crying and yelling stop), seven of my borhter's friends who played basketball with him hop out of a car and start throwing the guys against the bar and the dumpster. Me being freed, I went over to the one who got the best of me and kicked him in his face one good time.
9. We leave after winning the fight, the cops come. WAIT!!! They look like they are kind of prejudiced too and I even hear one of the guys we had just fought yell "Uncle Jerry! Those niggers messed with us, we did nothing to them."
"Damn niggers, let's gettem!" replies "officer" Jerry looking around but not seeing us behind the huge oak tree behind the bar.
10. "Quick, in the car!" orders quick thinking Allen.
11. With his lights turned off, he drives out the back exit slowly but steadily. After hiding out in a parking lot in a hot car on a hot summer night, we leave slowly when the coast is clear.
12. When we head back home finally, we get a surprise, the cops are still canvassing the area! What's more, these punks are in the car with the cops and they are not in cuffs, they are in the front seat talking to them.
13. Again, Allen thinking quickly drives along back roads staying off the main highway. We make it to my fraternity brother Joseph's neighborhood, when we realize that cops are everywhere.
14. I call Joseph and fortunately he is at home. What is more, he is sympathetic and lets us crash there for the night.
15. Fortunately, the cops did not know what kind of car we were driving, nor did they see our faces, or we would not have been so lucky.

This just served as a sickening reminder that race relations are still not where they should be everywhere. After that weekend, I left Salisbury never to return there. I completed my last class at University of Maryland College Park & emerged a proud graduate in the Psychology Department. After that, I went and got my Master's and Doctorate from Bowie State University.

21 was 10 years ago for me and besides an education, I learned street smarts that day. I also learned never to ever take for granted that race relations are far from perfect.

If you are reading this, understand that prejudice is not the answer, only love can conquer the ugliest of hatred.