Thank God, I Dont Fit The Profile

I have been told of all the horror stories of officers on the highway patrol. I have seen some of the terror, too, on trutv and many other clips posted on youtube of the victims of overzealous law enforcement agents. I have been told that the worst treatment is usually reserved for young black men—racial profiling.

I have been pulled over twice so far, once for speeding in Norman, Oklahoma and, two weeks ago, by an officer looking for drunk drivers just outside Oklahoma City. I am from Africa where police officers carry undiminished authority so my demeanor probably told. Maybe it was my English. But on both occasions, the officers were exceedingly friendly and on the last occasion we ended up chatting about Africa and safaris and how I liked Oklahoma and what I was studying and when I graduate and what I will do.

Friends have said that I am lucky I do not fit the stereo-type of the African-American male so I can escape with a little misdemeanor on the road. The implication is that African-Americans don’t have that luxury.

The flip side of that argument is that whites in America do not have to worry too much because they are not racially profiled because they are products of a system of privilege.

Anti- racist activist Tim Wise speaks on a subject matter that would make many people uncomfortable but he makes no apologies for it. Actually people make excuses for him: that he is white so he can make fun of his own race in the same manner that blacks can say the n-word and the rest of the people cannot.

Wise has published four books, as of 2009. Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White (2005), White Like Me: Reflections on Race From a Privileged Son, Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist Reflections From an Angry White Male (2008) and Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama (2009), which explores how Barack Obama's emergence as a political force is taking the race debate to new levels.

Wise argues that tragedies that Columbine and the attacks of September 11 shocked white Americans more than they did blacks. His argument is that black people have a love-hate relationship with the nation.

He claims blacks have seen worse from American society and that the suffering of black people in New Orleans after being hit by Katrina is one example.

Two years ago, I watched an American comedian when he visited Africa.

“To a black man”, Chris Rock has told his audience, “America is like a generous uncle that paid your way through college…and then molested you. I bet you that there is no white man in America who would change places with me. None of them, and I am rich. That is how good it is to be white in America. When you are white, the sky is the limit. When you are black, it limits the sky.”

Ok, Rock might have exaggerated this for purposes of providing comic relief but for me, when I am stopped by officers of the highway patrol, I play my little card of privilege—that I am an international student from Africa!