I knew that before I heard the phrase 'racial profiling'. I learned it when some brother pulled me and my cousin over, ostensibly due to my car not having a front tag on it. In the ten minutes it took him to check my license, we counted 17 cars driving by us without front tags. That's not counting those that drove in the same direction.

When he let me go with a warning, I asked if he stopped all cars missing front tags, knowing the answer. When he lied and said that he was, I was about to cuss him out, jail be damned. My cousin knew something was brewing and talked me down. I've been stopped seven times in 35 years and the only time I felt discriminated against and clearly disrespected was the only time a Black officer did it.