My daughter and I are on 75 South, on our way to another Moth StorySlam. And like always, I-75 is all good… until it’s not.
All of a sudden, I see blue flashing lights and hear sirens coming up behind us. The officer speeds by on our right and pulls right up behind a car that’s two lanes over, about 100 feet ahead. It’s clear who he wants to pull over—but that car’s not getting the message. They just keep driving.
For at least five minutes, we all just…drive. And I’ve got to give it to the driver—they didn’t seem fazed. No speeding up, no slowing down, no lane change. Just cruising.
So now, all of 75 South is crawling along at 65 because no one can get around this situation. And you know how Atlanta drivers are—patience isn’t a virtue, it’s a myth. And any kind of delay to our commute is taken as an offense.
Tensions are rising. And, one especially ambitious driver tries to slip by, but the officer—no joke—whips over in front of them, like, “Not today!”
At that point, we all figured: we’re going to be here for a minute.
But things shift fast.
Instead of moving back behind the car, the officer starts straddling two lanes, and I realize what’s about to happen. Before I can even tell my daughter to hold on, he performs a textbook PIT maneuver.
Now we’ve got a front-row seat to what I honestly thought might become a shootout. We’re less than 50 feet away. The officer jumps out, gun drawn, shouting commands. But the car doesn’t move. It’s just tinted windows and silence.
I quickly throw my car in reverse and back up as far as I can.
Finally, the door opens—and out steps this petite Asian woman, maybe 5 feet tall, clearly terrified and confused.
And my daughter? She’s furious. She pulls out her phone, starts recording, and says, “Dad, how is this okay? How is this officer justified in endangering all these people? What is happening right now?”
Then she asks, “Do you think she even speaks English? Do you think she even knows why this is happening?”
And in that moment, I realize—I don’t have an answer.
Because I don’t know what it’s like to be in that woman’s situation.
I’ve never lived in a country where I don’t speak the language.
I don’t know what it feels like to be an immigrant, or a minority.
That moment hit hard. Not just because I couldn’t answer my daughters questions, but because it made me look inward. At how little I’ve had to question my place in the world. How many things were decided for me before I ever made a choice.
I didn’t choose my parents. I didn’t choose to be white, or male, or born in the U.S. I didn’t choose to be the father of three daughters. But that is my story, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of about my story. And the most important choice I can make is how I use my story—to listen, to question, and to support others with empathy and action.
I can choose to be better than my racist ancestors.
I can choose to speak up when it’s easier to stay quiet.
I can choose to use whatever privilege or power I might have for the good of those with less.
And since that night, I’ve realized—my first step toward answering my daughters’ questions in moments like that is not pretending to understand what I haven’t lived…but being brave enough to stay with the questions.
To witness. To ask. To learn. And to keep having these conversations with my wife and our girls as we live life together.
Honestly, I have more to learn from the women in my life, the immigrants and minorities in my life—anyone whose path has been more difficult than mine—I have way more to learn from them than they do from me.
We went looking for stories that night—and Atlanta delivered, in the most Atlanta way possible. It dropped us right into a story of our own and gave us the opportunity to witness, to ask, and to learn.
Now it’s up to me—and to all of us—to do the hard part: listen more than we speak, and love louder than we judge.
*Photo credit goes to Joey Kyber