There is a suspicion in the air that would Barack Obama make it to white House or is America ready for a black president, a favorite pastime for many Pakistani these days and the impression received a backing as soon as I landed at the Dulles airport, just outside the Washington DC—the capitol of America.
Unusually the immigration staff was not hostile, maybe because I ended up with a black officer but when my luggage was found missing, a lady staffer of the airline, who pretentiously white and did not want to heed to my requests or my narration of missing baggage, just wrote me off like nothing and started dealing with the next in line and upon my protests mischievously called the airport security or maybe her chief officer over her wireless device complaining to them that the passenger is being rude to her and interfering with her work. After 36 hours of continuous transit, I just took my ticket as she refused to even register a complaint and give me some sort of reference and walked out of the airport. The Cabbies I saw were predominantly from one or the other racial minority and as I slid into one of the Washington flyer cab, my journalistic curiosity urged me to ask him about the elections and candidates.
The driver, a Bengali in his early 30s and displayed as Sayed, was quite spontaneous knowing that I am a Muslim and from Pakistan and poured out his heart saying that yes it seems that Obama seems to be a likely winner provided he does not meet the fate of Martin Luther King. This was something which had never even passed through my mind, but as the driver kept on telling me his experiences with a variety of passengers he carries every day from and to Dulles airport, he was sure that white majority of Americans are humming within their communities about an afro-American. He further stunned me when he told me that the other day a sober looking lady while going to Dulles airport admonished Obama and claimed that whatever the polls may claim, true Americans are not going to vote for Obama.
Then the driver advised me not to say these words in the open because everybody is sensing this in the air but nobody is saying it and if such things or suspicions are raised or brought out by people of color, it might not be good for racial minorities, especially for Muslims. The driver dropped me at the hotel and I kept thinking throughout the night that being from Pakistan and having just recently covered the bloodiest and scariest of all elections in February 2008, I know that every candidate has a level of risk attached to his/her candidacy, but is it so scary out here in America as well. I will try to find out more about this in the coming days.
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