Riding Dirty?

Today for the first time in nearly 10 years I stared down the barrel of a gun. Being from Los Angeles, Ca and growing up in the 1980s and 1990s I have been robbed at gun point and even caught in the middle of shoot outs but this was a completely new experience because today the people with the guns were police officers and I was in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The story is simple enough I was with 2 members of my group in a taxi in route to one of our meetings. There were two black men in the backseat and a "branca" in the front seat with the taxi driver. The cops pulled beside us guns drawn and drove parallel two us for a block and a half with the gun pointed at us. There are at least two interesting points about this story. First, this is not the first time I have been harrassed by the police. But this felt less like police harrassment and more like street gang intimidation. The cops´ actions reminded me more of the local gangs in Los Angeles using the question "Where you from" as a pretense to kill you, than a cop using your race as a pretense to arrest, investigate or even physically abuse or murder you. Second, after relaying this story a few times I realized that to black Brazilians this is normal behavior by the police. I find it ironic and inconsistant that in a country that claims to be racially democratic and generally conflict resistant that it is a normal practice for police officers to point guns at black people for the crime of riding in the backseat of a taxi?