Profiling

A young Chinese-American journalist, in writing about the Professor Henry Louis Gates incident, commented in today's paper on a similar situation that recently happened to him.

Thomas Lee arrived a little before noon at a large company to do an interview with the president. He told the receptionist at the front desk that he was looking for the president's executive assistant.

"Oh, are you delivering food?" she asked.

OK, her response was totally inappropriate. But my guess is that it wasn't so much racist as it was because he was (and looked) young. I bet that if he'd been older, wearing a suit and carrying a brief case rather than an open shirt and backpack, she wouldn't have said something so dumb.

A few years ago one of my sons (who's always looked young) was asked, as an expert consultant, to fly to Boca Raton to meet with some heavy hitters whom he'd never met.

He didn't know they'd be meeting him at the plane so he arrived in jeans and t-shirt. There they were waving a card with his name on it. But when he walked over to shake hands they refused to believe it was him.

Some day this Chinese-American journalist will be happy that he looks younger than his years - and maybe even laugh when somebody thinks he's delivering take-out.

You can trust me on that!


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