It’s true. I look a little different from everyone else. I walk the same, talk the same, maybe even think in the same way. But every morning, I get up and wrap a scarf around my head before going out. I thread pins through cloth and hair to hold my faith in place, before rushing out the door into the unknown, backpack in tow.
So yes. I do look different, and we live in a world where looks come first, and rationalities later. And truth be told, racial and ethnic stereotypes hold quite some influence in how people view and react to one another. (Ideally, this would not hold true, but who ever said our world was ideal, right? In fact, far from it.) So interestingly enough, although I have never had a serious, legitimate encounter or even any sort of extended interaction with a member of New York City’s police force, of the single minute interaction I can pull up from the recesses of mine own mind, I can say this: knowing what I know about how things often pan out, I have always been wary of what can happen, outside of what is warranted.
I spun around again, pivoting about my left ankle as I scanned the entirety of the 14th Street station corridor. “I swear, it was around here somewhere. I mean, I’ve definitely been here before…This is how I returned last time!”
My friend looked over at me, laughing a bit, “Ahhh Sayema, are we lost?”
“How can we get lost in a subway station? This doesn’t make any sense,” I walked forward a bit and then back again the other way, trying to gather my bearings. “There’s no way there’s only a downtown F. I’ve gone home from here before. WHY IS THIS STATION SO CONFUSING?!?”
“Maybe we can ask someone,” my friend suggested, indicating the subway token seller who looked out from his booth, seemingly bored.
“Yeah, but I don’t wanna hafta swipe in again. Don’t have an unlimited.” I walked towards the stairs that we had just come up, the ones that led down to the downtown F train. I was sure the uptown train was supposed to be down there too, but something hadn’t clicked and we had been getting the run-around.
And then, there was something else I had failed to notice; I had taken absolutely no notice of the two officers standing near an adjacent stairwell, watching me as I stared around me and paced back and forth. “Can we help you with something?” they asked.
It was honestly a simple, innocent question. And yet, it all surfaced. All the news headlines and facebook trends, all the seemingly racist stop-and-frisks and ‘conveniently-convicted’ criminals. Why had they approached me? Why would they assume I need something? Am I acting suspiciously? Is it just because I seem to be looking for something the eye cannot see whilst looking the way I do?
They looked at me expectantly. I looked back.
“We’re just looking for the uptown F train?” And I heard my voice shake just a bit.
So why am I telling this story, especially when it barely even qualifies as a significant exchange with our officers of the law? Awareness. If I’ve discerned anything from my fleeting sightings of cops or from my lack of significant encounters thereof, its that I seem to always possess a certain awareness in the back of my mind; a slight jab in the temple that serves to remind me to remember who I am and how other people may see me.
If I see cops on the street, I can feel myself consciously looking down to avoid eye-contact, avoid any possible indication of challenging their authority. I can feel myself consciously trying to make myself look as normal as possible (although ironically, one is most normal when he or she is not actively thinking about it), and for no reason at all except a, possibly, irrational sort of wariness that they will take any excuse apprehend me. That’s not to say I walk around the streets of New York in fear, I mean, don’t get me wrong, I do believe strongly that I have nothing to fear when I am not doing anything wrong. But the things one sees and the stories one hears in the dealings of justice (or sometimes lack thereof), the possibility that one person or small collective can ruin a perception of an entire group of people by his or her or its actions, always remains at the back of my mind.
