9908210145
DETROIT FREE PRESS
990822
Sunday, August 22, 1999
METRO FINAL
1E
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1999, Detroit Free Press
A CAB RIDE OPENS EYES TO PREJUDICE
My plane had been canceled. I jumped in a cab. Said I needed to get to
Detroit, which was four hours away.
The driver was a thin, black man with a thick foreign accent that I did not
recognize. I glanced at the name on his ID badge. "Mursal Dhudhi.''
A half hour later, I heard him say, "Oh, no ..."
In the rearview mirror, flashing lights.
The Ohio state trooper sauntered up to the passenger-side window. He had dark
sunglasses, a belly that sank over his belt and an expression that suggested
he'd seen one too many cop movies. He was white.
"Come with me," he drawled to the driver.
In the front seat of the squad car, they sat for more than 20 minutes. Through
the taxi's rear window, I watched them talk, the driver waving his hands,
looking scared and frustrated.
When he returned, with a speeding ticket, he could barely speak.
"What happened?" I asked.
It took a minute before he could answer.
"He ask me ...if I steal this car," he finally said, his heart pumping
adrenaline into his voice. "He ask me ...do I have drugs in car. He ask me why
I go to Detroit, who I meeting there, is it drugs? I tell him you are
customer, and I take you to Detroit. He say I only going to Detroit because
car is stolen, or drugs, I should admit this."
He shook his head wildly.
"Why?" he said. "He see a black man, he have to say that? Why?"
Life as a refugee
The highway rolled outside the window. Hot summer air blew in through the car
vents. Eventually I asked where he was from.
"Somalia," he said.
Somalia. I said I knew of his country only because of America's involvement a
few years back.
"Yes," he said. "Civil war. Very bad place then. I come home one day, blood in
house. Two brothers killed. Rest of family gone."
I was stunned. "How long ago was that?"
"Nine years."
"And have you seen them since?"
"Not see them since."
As the car bumped along, the rest of his story unfolded. He was only 15 the
day of the murders. A rival clan killed his brothers. His mother and sister
were raped. His father, a professor, was missing with the rest of them.
"I do not eat for seven days," Mursal said. "I cry all day. I am feeling
alone. Then I run away to Kenya."
So much for childhood.
The trip to America
In the years that followed, Mursal lived by his wits. In Nairobi, he found
work washing dishes in a hotel restaurant. He tried to save money, but corrupt
police took most of his paycheck.
In Uganda, he sold sugared milk on street corners. In Syria and Lebanon, he
washed dishes again. He wrote the Red Cross, hoping for word from his family.
None came.
For eight years, he was a nomad, moving from country to country, bunking with
Somalians, sleeping on floors. He eventually joined a group of refugees that
pooled its money and drew names from a hat. The winner used the savings to
escape to a safer place.
"When my name finally come, they say, 'Where will you go, Mursal?' I say, 'I
want to go to America.' "
And eventually, with a fake passport, he got here. He sought asylum, waited
six months in a Philadelphia jail and finally was admitted. That night, he
celebrated his freedom at a Burger King.
Mursal Dhudhi is 25 now. He is studying at an Ohio college. Last year, he
received a letter through the Red Cross. His mother wrote. She, her husband
and several brothers and sisters are in refugee camps today, somewhere between
Somalia and Kenya. Mursal drives a cab in hopes of saving enough money to
bring them out.
He shook his head. "That cop does not know I only do this for survival."
I looked out the window. I thought about the swaggering trooper. What did he
see when he looked at this man? Did he have any idea that this black-skinned
face and accented tongue had endured more horror and hardships to get here
than the next 10 people in line?
We hear a lot about racial profiling. And despite denials, we all know it
exists. It might help, then, if the next cop thinks about Mursal Dhudhi and
remembers that behind every assumption is a human who can prove it wrong.
MITCH ALBOM can be reached at 313-223-4581 or albom@freepress.com. Hear
"Albom in the Afternoon" 3-6 weekdays on WJR-AM (760).
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