“The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly,” is a series in which we highlight your stories — be they good, bad, or ugly — about being black in America. We all have different experiences, but you can bet there is always someone out there who can relate to your stories. A reader sent in an account of a parking lot encounter. Have a similar tale? Would you like to share and/or vent about a moment when you’ve been proud, delighted, ashamed, or discriminated against based on your race? Send it to lauren AT stereohyped.com with the subject “Good Bad Ugly.” And I welcome the good stories! [Note: Still waiting for some of those positive stories, readers!] There’s already so much ugly in the world.

My boyfriend and I were verbally lambasted in the East Meadow, Long Island parking lot of Walmart last month. Why? Because a White man was honking his horn at me, yelling angrily for me to move a shopping cart out of his way so that he could get into the parking space it was in.

Mind you, I did NOT put the shopping cart in the parking space in the first place (we had only just gotten there and parked, ourselves), and the man (who arrived mere moments after us) had ALREADY parked in another space. But, the fact that I, with my Black self, refused to move the cart when he ordered, and had the audacity to give him attitude, angered him to no end! My boyfriend had to tell him off, because he was clearly trying to disrespect me, saying I was no better than the "jerk" who left the cart there in the first place! He carried on about wanting the parking spot; and, when my boyfriend told him he should've gotten out and moved the cart himself, the man screamed that he was handicapped and needed the space (which was no closer to the store than the space he was already in). Um, then why not park in one of the many handicap spaces that were available? "Because my car is a rental," he screamed. What a nutcase!

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This is the first installment in an occasional series called "The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly," in which we highlight your stories — be they good, bad, or ugly — about being black in America. We all have different experiences, but you can bet there is always someone out there who can relate to your stories. Reader MS kindly sent in his very bad account of a classic DWB encounter, something many blacks, particularly black men, can relate to. Have a similar tale? Would you like to share and/or vent about a moment when you've been proud, delighted, ashamed, or discriminated against based on your race? Send it to lauren@stereohyped.com with the subject "Good Bad Ugly." And I welcome the good stories!

I’ve always prided myself on the fact that I am a black man that hasn’t had a ticket of any kind for 10 years. And I’ve only been pulled over twice by the police for a DWB, and that was 8 years ago. So as I’ve grown from a young black man to a black man, I haven’t had to deal with the horror stories that I hear from black men all the time of harassment by the police. Now that I’ve become an attorney, I sometimes feel an almost “untouchable” status.

When my friend asked me to help him move out of his apartment one day, I didn’t hesitate to help out. We left for DC on a Thursday afternoon so we could move early the next morning. When we got in the car, my friend asked how would I react if we were pulled over on some bullshit. Since it hadn’t happened to me in very long time, I didn’t have an answer. Little did I know that I would have the answer before the end of my trip. I used to be a speed demon, but since I acquired my bar license, I’ve slowed down because I worked hard for it and I’m not going to allow them to take it away from me on a technicality. There was an unusual amount of traffic that day, so I was taking it easy even if I didn’t want to. We rode past a state trooper, but since I was doing 65 mph, I didn’t trip.

I saw the cop come out in my rearview mirror, but I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong and kept driving. Eventually I noticed that he was in my blind spot, sort of like he was waiting for me to do something wrong to give him a reason to pull me over. Not happening, I thought. After another mile or so, I guess he got impatient and threw the blue lights on.

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