Well, I have to say that lately I don’t think I have been all that inspiring and I apologize if I have come up short of what you are use to. I have expressed my feelings, but I may have missed the opportunity to make some more profound or — at the very least — more poetic statements about these times we have entered.

But in this column, I need to take this opportunity to also apologize to a cab driver out there named Mohammed Farouq.  I know his name because on Sept. 11 — after 12 hours of talking over and over about the attacks — I stepped out onto 10th Avenue to hail a cab.  The smell of the psychotic demolition downtown was 40 blocks north and it seemed all over me.  Mr. Farouq was about the 100th cab that night moving uptown, but the first with his cab number lit up.  He pulled over and I jumped in.  I told him where I was going and he took off.  I looked over and saw his name. 

I am ashamed of the feelings that overcame me for the duration of the trip. He tried to speak to me about what happened, and I didn’t say one word to him. I think after his third or forth inquiry he realized there was no conversation to be found on this trip. Eventually he pulled over. I looked up at the meter, but I never looked his way. I left him a decent tip, but it was certainly a short change, given what I had done to him. I was guilty of racial profiling. 

After riding in yellow cabs all my life and having lively political discussions on a variety of subjects, I assumed this guy might somehow be sympathetic to the 19 men who tore down millions of hearts in addition to killing thousands of people.

Yes, it was only a feeling… I didn’t say anything, I didn’t write anything in his cab. I just ignored him and shut him out because of his sir name. It was passive, but as we know, these are building blocks of hate.

In those moments, I was no different than the people who have followed me around in stores, cops who have taken an extra long glance, or cabbies who have passed me by on that corner many times before.

This week, I’ve heard dozens of stories in which people have been harassed, beaten and killed in the backlash of the terror attacks on New York.  Mosques in our town are now under Police guard, and some have been desecrated with graffiti. Arabic-Americans and Muslims are enduring everything from the kind of isolation I inflicted to threats against their lives to actual bodily harm. I’m sure that most of the aggressors involved in these illegal actions are just stupid people looking for a reason to mistreat another human being, but others in their circle of friends are just harboring the thoughts and stand by idly while the most radical among them either talk about what they want to do or act on those feelings.

These scenes are familiar to our culture, of course. 

They were played out in fields, off bridges, and trees. They were enforced in schools, restaurants and even at water fountains and pools. For us, they were the extreme physical, political and social manifestations of those deep dark evil thoughts that some disagreed with in their own souls but said nothing about when others chose to take action.

We have an opportunity now to say, “No. This is wrong.” We have a chance to overcome negative impulses and thoughts and to grow as human beings in the hour in which previous societies have failed.  We have a chance to do for others in mass what was done for us, but on a much smaller scale.

Even if George W. and Rudy G. may have a different agenda in protecting the liberties of our Arab/Muslim neighbors, ours should be clear. We should not allow the slow rolling stone of civil rights to be pushed back, not even an inch, even under the guise of safety and security. 

In the movie “The Seige,” Arab-Americans and Muslims are rounded up and put into camps. Life can imitate art, as we were shown last week. Instead of thinking so much about what our government will do to get pay back, we should act to look out for our neighbors and protect our own investment in liberty and justice for all.

— Gary Anthony Ramsay is a weekend anchor
and journalist on the all-news
cable station NY1 and along-time resident of Queens.