Our uphill march toward racial tolerance in America

By Soumanou Salifou

According to news reports based on interviews and recent statistics, anti-black sentiments have risen over the past four years despite the election of the first black president in our nation’s history. It is one thing to read those reports, and quite another to experience racial profiling as I did on May first of this year.

I was returning from my usual thrice-weekly 90-minute power walk around 7:15 pm in broad-day light. I came to an intersection and saw a police car coming from the opposite direction race across the intersection, then parked abruptly on the driveway on my right, just as I was turning onto that same street. I thought “oh oh, domestic violence.” The officer rushed out of the car, walked briskly toward me and said: “Sir, someone said they saw you urinating on the roadside. Did you urinate?” “No,” I said adamantly, and then added: “Why would I do that?” The young officer then said, vaguely: “Some people think that they see some things.” “Why would they say something like that?” I asked the young police officer. “Maybe because you are wandering around vandalizing things. Maybe because you are wanted,” he answered. I smiled and said that “I am a responsible man; I have children in college and I am a law-abiding citizen. I was working out.”

The visibly uncomfortable young man asked where I lived, which I indicated pointing in the direction of my house more than a mile away. He then asked for my social security which I gave him. He wrote it in the palm of his hand, then pressed something hanging on his shoulder, and a voice came on, and he said the number. The voice came back within 10 seconds at most and said my name and gave my address. Then added one word or a small phrase that I did not catch, and went away. My officer asked me: “Is that you?” I said “yes,” and then he said: “You are good to go,” gratifying me with a “Keep on working out” accompanied by what seems like a genuine smile.

I did urinate five minutes earlier,at least 15 meters from the roadside, facing a thick wood, in a dead area where the only close house, hidden in its own heavily-wooded entrance, was at least 150 meters away. The house was so far from the road that nobody could see me from there. I was in a half-circle area and the wood fenced off everything. There was no house behind me as far as eyes could see. So it was not a case of indecent exposure. But several cars flew by when I was urinating. Clearly, this is a typical case of racial-profiling. A black man urinating on the roadside is a possible wanted man on the run, hiding from the authorities. So a passing motorist, who would rather I did not exist, called the police.

This wasn’t my first incident of this kind. But in every case, the authorities have quickly acted in ways that demonstrated their despise of such racist behaviors. Twenty-four years ago, after a baby-sitter in Springfield, VA refused to baby-sit our son, saying: “No black kids,” I reported the incident to the officials in charge of such matters in my locality who apologized profusely and gave me the contacts of “registered” caretakers.

Soumanou Salifou is the founder and puiblisher of The African magazine.