The pain of racial profiling.(EDITOR'S NOTE: Reporter News, Letters)

If you drive long enough, you're going to get pulled over by a police officer, a state trooper, a sheriff's deputy or somebody else with a badge. It's as common as riding a roller-coaster. Even if you don't do it often, you'll do it at least once in your lifetime.

For many of us, traffic stops usually come at a cost--anxiety, frustration, a few four-letter words, 10 minutes of our time or a $50 ticket. Soon afterwards, our memories of these scrapes slowly fade away.

But for some of us, a traffic stop can provide a lifelong memory worth forgetting. Yes, I'm talking about those traffic stops; the ones defined less by their circumstances and more by the feelings they leave with you.

It was nearly 14 years ago when I had my "Driving While Black" traffic stop-simply referred to as DWB by many nowadays, because it has become so prevalent. I stood behind the car as I was told. One of the two state police officers stood next to me chit-chatting. His partner stuffed his hands between my seat cushions, lifted the floor mats, rummaged through the glove box and emptied my trunk. He was looking for something and bent on finding it. Drugs. Guns. Not finding anything, he turned to me: "Do you have anything on you that you don't want me to know about?"

Anger boiled within me as the officers walked away empty-handed and continued down Interstate 80. I sat there for what seemed like half an hour, numb, hands and forehead on the steering wheel. I had been drained of my power and dignity. I was abandoned, naked and hollow. There was nothing I could have done to stop those officers. But the thing that bothered me the most was that I couldn't escape their suspicion. As a black man, I would always wear a cloak of suspicion. I could no more easily remove it than I could shed my own skin.

The experience crystallized for me that my appearance, to some, would always attract fear and ridicule. Those officers stole my innocence along the side of Interstate 80 that day--and my belief that we all can rise above race. Today, even in the wake of ...