How the “Unidentified Black Male” Lie Colored My View of America

Racial stereotypes can be worse than weapons of mass destruction

Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash

Apart from shorter personal and professional trips to America, my true American experience comes from an exchange semester I spent in Cleveland Ohio, at the Case Western Reserve University.

I feel the real experience of a country’s life doesn’t come from the biggest and most famous cities. You probably would have a more real American experience in Cleveland than you would in New York or San Francisco. That was one of the reasons why I chose an American school for exchange, vs. going for a European one and getting the chance for a Euro trip during my student years.

The experiences I had during those three or four months have since helped me understand a lot about the world and its nuances. In the world of social media, while the world has shrunk, the truth can often be lost or intentionally blurred in translation.

The Unidentified Black Male

One unforgettable memory I have of my stay in Cleveland is that of the emails from the campus police department about mugging incidents that occurred.

Each of the seven or eight emails received over the 14 week period had nearly identical subject…