Late in the evening Dec. 27 I was pulled over by the police. I reacted the same way most Americans would'with fear and resentment. As I pulled over to the side and turned off my car radio, I kept thinking to myself, \I wasn't speeding. There is no way I could have been speeding.""
Of course, I was speeding. I was probably going about 5 or 6 m.p.h. over the speed limit. Yet, to any person vaguely familiar with driving in the United States, 5 or 6 m.p.h. over the speed limit is hardly speeding. So I grumbled to myself about what a jerk this police officer must be and how anyone with a heart would have let me go. It was two days after Christmas.
As I was wallowing in my anger and resentment, waiting the arrival of the police officer, I noticed that two more squad cars had pulled up behind the first police car. The officers were obviously discussing what they were going to do, and I began to get afraid. I was generating way too much attention for a simple traffic stop.
Foolish thoughts crossed my head like, ""Did I run over someone and not notice?"" In fact, I seriously considered calling my parents on the cell phone to ask whether they thought someone had stolen the car. Maybe I could let my parents plead with the police to let me go.
In the back of my mind was also a sense of humiliation. Three squad cars, with their lights flashing, were stopped behind me. What must the passing traffic think? What if somebody I know passes me and recognizes the car? It would be humiliating for my family and me if friends and relatives assumed I had done something wrong.
Finally a police officer trudged up to the car with a flashlight. He gave the universal signal to roll down the window'which I did'and explained to me that he was sorry for pulling me over. Apparently he had looked at the car and assumed I was someone else who had recently robbed a convenience store. He apologized and said I could leave. I gave a hurried reply along the lines of ""That's OK,"" and started my car and left.
As I pulled away from the curb and drove home I was relieved that I did not have a ticket, that the police did not assume I had done something wrong and that the whole thing had been straightened out so quickly. But the stigma of fear and humiliation remained in my memory for some time after the event. I had been singled out, for a brief period of time, as someone dangerous.
I will probably never know what assumptions the passing motorists made when they saw my stopped car and the three squad cars parked menacingly behind me. I know I would probably assume the worst if I had passed a similar situation. To feel the embarrassment of being signaled out and ostracized is a powerful emotion, and it took me quite some time to be able to drive my car at night without thinking about it.
Today, there are Muslim and Arab Americans, as well as blacks, experiencing this same feeling throughout the United States'most likely for crimes they didn't commit. Racial profiling, or any type of profiling, leaves a person feeling vulnerable and humiliated in front of a world all too ready to assume the worst. This experience, though certainly not as difficult as being accused of terrorism, brought home to my insular world of privilege the feeling of fear and alienation.
The police may have been justified in pulling me over, but even that small mistake sends a powerful message. In the current ""war on terrorism,"" the U.S. Justice Department is sending a similar, but slightly more powerful, message to all Muslims and Arab Americans'your skin color and your religion may make you the subject of fear and humiliation. The racial profiling that is occurring throughout the United States is not justice, it is a mistake'a mistake that should be corrected before more people suffer unnecessary fear and humiliation.
