Law's Long Arm

So it finally happened last week: I was biking down a residential street, minding my own business, when I got pulled over by the police. Sure, they were riding bicycles just like me and didn't command me to move over, but I understood. In their eyes, I probably had little business cycling around there on what looked like a pilfered machine.

I'd heard stories about foreigners getting sidelined out of what appeared to be ethnic profiling reasons, but here I was not 50 meters from my destination (a local orphanage where I've been volunteering) and the talk had become reality. One of the two coppers asked for my ID; the other one remained silent throughout and was thus probably a subordinate. Thankfully, I had my well-stocked wallet on me and was able to provide the card he asked to see; otherwise my day would have quickly become a lot longer.

They seemed impressed when I mentioned that I was a foreign exchange student and pointed out the corresponding International House decals on my bike. The dominant officer still radioed my machine's specs in, but I was then let off the hook and free to complete my trip on a vehicle that on second thought looks crappy enough to have been swiped out of desperation. It wasn't a big deal in the long-term scheme of things and I'm thankful for greater contact with the reality of power and old cultural mindsets here...yet I am not quite as carefree as I once was when errands take me off-campus. Perhaps this is part of the reason why minority groups in the States, particularly within inner cities, often seem weary: they are tired of fending off other's unverbalized but blatant suspicion.