Monday, April 19, 2010

What Can Brown Do For You?

Ignorance is piss. Some incidents really teach you that. This post is not meant to be a complaint or a rant, however, I do believe that sharing this little blurb could be beneficial to at least one person.

So couple days ago I decided to visit my friends Jennifer and Jesse in Plymouth, Indiana. It's about 40 minutes away from lovely Chesterton and who doesn't want to leave town once in a while. So I get on the road and was peacefully driving on Route 30 going East. Half way to Plymouth, about 20 miles out of Valparaiso, the ride was starting to unwind smoothly. I see a police car in the opposite direction about half a mile up and I stayed in my lane and left my cruise on.
About half a mile after following me, the cop puts his lights on. As every good citizen should, I immediately pulled over to the shoulder lane and stopped. He walks out of the car, asks for my license and registration. I had it all on me (thank god). I passed the documents over to him, he looked at it and asked me "Where are you from?"
"Chesterton," I replied.
"No, I mean originally," he continued.
"Oh, yeah, originally I suppose I am from India, as in my roots," I answered.
Mr. Officer seemed confused. He goes, "oh, okay. So do you comfortably speak and understand English? I mean, do you know what I'm saying to you right now?"
hmm... If I answer no, wouldn't that still answer his question?

This incident reminded me of something similar that happened a couple years ago. I was at a bank in Michigan and the teller couldn't look up my account number as I had printed it on the withdrawal sheet. She looked at me and said, "I can't find your account in here. I mean, do you even have a social security number?" Lol.

Ah, the joys of being a minority in America.
By the way, the answer to both of the above questions was YES! JIC someone's still wondering...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I absolutely agree with you and at the same time I find it rather amusing. A country with possibly the most news channels and which taught the world to make news a "business" and yet its population so displaced in their reality of where India or Indians , Asia or Asians stands today. They still imagine it to be a place with no electricity, no lights , where people cannot read, write or understand English. does it not surprise you with so much more mediums with which one can educate oneself or forget educate but interface with what is going around the world how little people actually know!!

Unknown said...

That is exactly the way I get treated in the south. As soon as they hear me talk I am an outcast! Outcast I tell you! They tell me to go back where I came from and that I never should have moved down here. They got it all wrong too! They call me the Y-word! can you believe that? They are so ignorant. I mean I have midwest written all over me. I just try to blend in though. I think I have gone overboard with it... I even ask for soda's. I know, I'm a traitor.