The proverbial ton of bricks

[nwhiker]

This story hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks this morning, I've been leaking tears since I read it.

Basically girls (women) headed back to university on their bus after an away-game were pulled over by police. They were not physically harmed, but they were emotionally abused, and their belongings were pawed through and sniffed at by drug seeking dogs. Nothing was (of course) found. Most -not all, but most- of these women were Black. The bus was pulled over supposedly for a traffic thing (driver was not charged).

It just breaks my heart.

This should never have happened.

I am infuriated at what happened to them, and also, desperately sad.

I mean, Linnea took the same type of bus on Saturday for Opening Day, with her teammates. She's also a student athlete. In all ways that matter, these girls ARE her, and all I can think is OMG, those poor babies. Student athletes work damn hard and sacrifice so much.

The racism at the bottom of this incident is ugly and pervasive. I just don't know how we work to fix it. It used to be, at least, that there was a societal price to pay, but that appears to be no longer the case.

And yes, I know they're women, not girls. But they're all so young and vulnerable to the world adn I HATE that those poor kids had to go through that.