What Did I Ever Do To You, June?

So last night, I experienced one of the most disheartening sequence of events that I can remember. Now I'm not saying this was the worst act of human display I've ever heard of, but as far as witnessing, this might take the cake.

So after a long, tired day of work and some bad luck timing with the rain, I pulled into my parking spot under the EL, next to my building. I grabbed the ten or so plastic jewel bags of groceries out of my trunk, along with 2 pairs of shoes and my computer bag that were in my backseat. A mildly suspicious group of about 8 or 10 black high school guys were walking south down the alley, approaching my direction from the other side of Newport. Unfortunately, given the nature of the situation, I fell into a brief sate of worry, but then calmly put my car cover on and started loading up my arms to carry everything in as the kids seemed to disperse.

Well by the time I got to my stoop, every one of the kids was sitting on my front steps, completely blocking the entrance. They said hi to me, I said hi back, motioned to them I need to get in the door, and they kindly and enthusiastically got out of the way and apologized. As I was struggling to open the door and get in with everything on my arms, I heard the kids behind me make some noises. When I turned back, I saw one of the kids standing in the middle of the street, on his cell phone, starting to walk behind an older white man that was diagonally crossing the street. Once the older (maybe 45?) got to the sidewalk, I watched the kid punch the man in the back of the head, push him into the fence, knocking him to the ground. He laughs, grabs his hat, and starts walking back to his friends, who were laughing.

An older woman that also saw it started yelling at the kid, and they all ran off towards Clark. And I walked inside.

This happened at 5:30 in the evening, broad daylight. About 200 feet from a large 3-way intersection. On the 'classy' tree-lined street, nice enough looking for a movie to film there. So I guess it doesn't matter where you live. And I couldn't open my mouth. My arms were completely incapacitated. They knew where I lived. They knew where my car was parked. I was defenseless. But ignored.

And the whole situation didn't leave me scared, just sad.

Sad because I watched a young black kid punch an older white man for no reason, and he just laughed about it.
Sad because my initial 'fears' of seeing a group of black kids walking my way was more or less confirmed, and what that might say about me.
Sad because the state of our society is still this bad, even if some people want to call it 'kids being kids'
Sad because it doesn't matter where you live, what street you live on, how light it is outside, or what safety precautions you take, it can still just come down to wrong place, wrong time.
And sad because there was next to nothing that I could have done about it, as it happened.

I didn't think I needed a reminder of all those reasons to be sad, but I got one. June decided to welcome me with a giant slap in the face. Hope this isn't an indicator on how the rest of summer will go.