Must Read -Facing my fear: when I moved back to America, I felt like a foreigner

[malaise]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/02/facing-my-fear-moving-to-america-inequality-experience
<snip>
I was at a red light in east Baltimore when I noticed a cop in my rearview mirror. I thought nothing of it and pulled away when the light changed. Then I saw him start to follow me, flashing the lights on his patrol car.

What did I do, I thought? It was 1985, and I’d just moved from Montreal to start medical school at Johns Hopkins. Puzzled, I pulled my cherry-red BMW to the curb and waited.
Tell us about a time you faced your fear

I watched him approach, his hand on his holster.

“I got you, boy!”

I was stunned. “You got me? I said. “What are you talking about?”

“License and registration,” he chuckled.

I handed him my license and registration, which were from Quebec. He looked at them suspiciously. He went back to his car and got on the radio.

After what seemed like an eternity, he returned. He threw my license and registration back at me. “Go on your way,” he snarled.

This story is familiar for many African American men. But it was the exact opposite of what I’d come to expect from police growing up in Montreal where, as a seven-year-old boy, two cops came to my rescue and retrieved my stolen bicycle. That made a big impression on me as a kid.

But I still had an American dream. Although I lived in Canada, I actually was an American, born in East Baltimore not far from where the cop stopped me. My family moved when I was two years old.

So when I had the chance to attend medical school in America, I took it. I’d always had a strong affinity for the black experience in the United States, almost like a homing signal calling me back to Baltimore.

But as a medical student working in the ER at the height of both the crack and Aids epidemics, I discovered a very different America from the one in my dreams. And despite my efforts and my imaginings, my worst fear came true: I did not feel American.

These were my people, but no amount of pills or surgery could cure what plagued the community

I felt no connection to the city of my birth – no familiarity with its norms. I had been plunged into a harsh dystopian American reality that was deeply segregated, fractured, polarized and unwelcoming. I did not sense a role for me. I felt like a “brother from another planet”.

Growing up in Canada as the son of West Indian immigrants, I had a very different perspective on issues like race and class than my African American classmates at John Hopkins. I never felt like I didn’t belong where I lived.

[RKP5637]

1. Many cops in America are absolute assholes. I've run across them several times. There is absolutely

no excuse for their assholishness. And, I think the problem is often their superiors are cut from the same piece of cloth.

[xfundy]

2. No one should be treated like this

Everybody's gotta be somewhere. So damn tired of assholes.

[malaise]

3. A black man in a cherry red BMW

a thug cop's dream - give thanks for that Canadian license or he would have been dead and forgotten

[ErikJ]

4. Yup, or a Benz is worse.

especially with smoked glass all the way around. Cop magnet.

[question everything]

5. I wanted to know how it ended

thus:

Today, my work at the California Endowment is about building healthy communities city by city. It’s largely based on my research about why a person’s zip code is more important than their genetic code in determining how long they will live. This is because deeply entrenched social inequities can still cut short a person’s lifespan by as much as 15 years in some neighborhoods.

As an outsider returning to a country I loved, that status quo was terrifying. Then it became unacceptable. I’ve turned that fear into a commitment to understand and eradicate the barriers to good health based on someone’s race or neighborhood – and it’s that engagement that, finally, made me feel truly American.

===

At least a happy end. Sort of..

[malaise]

6. For real -he genuinely loves his country

It’s largely based on my research about why a person’s zip code is more important than their genetic code in determining how long they will live.

That's serious work.

[napkinz]

7. And conservatives want everyone to stop talking about race. Well ...

[malaise]

8. So true

Just let it be.

[napkinz]

9. conservatives want African-Americans to stop talking about race, but remember ...

"White Lives Matter!"

[malaise]

10. The missing word at the beginning of that is

Only

[napkinz]

11. good one!

[napkinz]

12. I have to add these ...

[malaise]

13. Most excellent

[napkinz]

14. thanks malaise

[AgadorSparticus]

15. This needs to be on billboards. I have a few places in mind, too.

Thanks for posting this. Explains it so well!