The sad death Trayvon Martin has reminded me of two of my own minor experiences in the United States.
Back in the early 1980's I spent a year living in West Hartford, Connecticut. Unlike most of my neighbours I could often be found walking the streets for the simple purpose, not of walking the dog or having a jog, but to get somewhere else; usually the bar where I got my bike stolen (in a land of big vans it's not enough to leave a bike simply chained to itself) opposite the School of Mixology (that's cocktails) On more than one occasion I found myself joined by young black men who'd otherwise be walking by themselves. We'd have a chat about this and that but it turned out that the real reason for choosing to walk with me was that it made it much less likely that they'd get harassed by the police. What would a young black man be doing in this neighbourhood if he wasn't up to no good?
About ten years later, I was with my then young family on a camping holiday in Washington State. Early one morning, at a site half way up the side of Mount Spokane, I eventually lost my patience with the two hippies in a camper van nearby who were playing loud music, of all things The Beatles, and went over to ask them if they would mind turning it down. This was obviously a novel experience for them but the music went quiet and I did eventually get some sleep. Next day I overheard them talking to a fellow camper about this incident. It turns out that in their version I'd been armed. Perhaps this was the only way that they could imagine I'd had the nerve to do what I'd done. I can only be grateful that either they hadn't been armed themselves or they'd shown a certain amount of restraint in the face of my "provocation".
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