I've traveled and lived all over the world and it's sickening to know that Black Americans often get treated better outside of the U.S. No matter where I've lived in any country, I can say with absolute certainty that my family and I never had major problems living among predominately White neighbors.

But dammit, here in Los Angeles, I've been walking, minding my own Black business to my supermarket in my neighborhood, and as I was on my way home, I've been stopped by Karens and Kens, telling me that they've seen me walking in the neighborhood and wait for it..."do you live in this neighborhood and where." That didn't go well for them at all. I come from places where we walk and take the subway, Tube or Metro. I didn't know that I needed anyone's permission to walk in my own damn neighborhood. And YES, this is a predominately White neighborhood, it was close to my job.

But the kicker is that they thought I was a Latina, and started speaking horrible Spanish to me (I played along for a bit because I speak Spanish). When I had enough, they then realized I was Black. It was like a skit right out of Saturday Night Live. Even in the 21st century, White individuals want the neighborhoods where they live to be free of "undesirables", and us Black folks, to them, are the most undesirable of them all. Though, unless Latinos cosign with White Supremacy, they don't want them either.

So yes, a 1000 times YES, we still live in a segregated country with segregated neighborhoods and communities. Even when they try to gentrify places like Harlem in New York and areas in Los Angeles where Black celebrities and affluent Black professionals lived and still live, they want to change everything about these communities to fit their "Whiteness." Their ultimate goal is for any neighborhood they deem desirable, to be gentrified and turned into another White Utopia.

Where I live we get our trees trimmed, potholes fixed, sidewalks repaired...no problem. Just a few short miles from here in predominately Black and Brown communities, it's urban decay. There was a story on our local news about a couple who were fed-up with the City not fixing their potholes there in Compton, so they're fixing one pothole at a time themselves. Sit with that for a second. It's come to this. Link: https://www.nbclosangeles.com/local-2/compton-couple-helps-fix-the-citys-pothole-problem/3358604/

But wealthy Black people segregate themselves too in predominately White neighborhoods. The late Kobe Bryant moved to Orange County (the slang for where he lived is Only Caucasian County) and never ventured too far out of his White Utopia. The same thing with Shaq, Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, billionaire Robert Smith, Rihanna, et al. But let them be reminded that they're still Black, then they'll come running back to the Black community for support.