I was in the elevator the other day, and held the door for a few people who were straggling behind me. I heard the buzzing of the security door open, and I figured I’d wait a few seconds. I was setting myself up, and I didn’t even know it.

Three girls and a guy walk on, and the guy says ‘Thanks Bob! This is Bob!’ It’s rather obvious my name is not Bob. I don’t even look like a Bob. Before I could correct him, he said ‘OK, I don’t really know him. I don’t think he’s Bob.’ Being idiotically smug, of course, I responded with ‘You’re way off with Bob.’ The guy quickly answered back with ‘Oh, what do you have one of those weird names like Abdul or Habeeb or Hallalalala?’ I replied with ‘Quintin,’ with a little anger in my voice.

This isn’t the first time this has happened either. A few months ago, I was picking my cousin up from Green Airport in Providence, when there was a page for ‘Abdul.’ I got a lot of stares, like, ‘Hey, aren’t you going to answer your page?’ I just waited, that is until someone decided to come up into my face and say, ‘Hey! Hey, Abdul? Hey Abdul!’ That’s not to mention the time I was getting a haircut, and the barber asked, ‘So, where in the Middle East are you from?’ I also can’t forget that someone thought it would be funny to nickname me Apu in high school.

It’s not that I have a problem with Middle Eastern people, because that is pretty far from the truth. It’s just that I’m, you know, not Middle Eastern. In fact, my mother is pretty damn white (mostly Portuguese and English) and my father is pretty much black (he’s mostly Cape Verdean). I’m tired of getting profiled because of the way I supposedly look. I mean, if you’re going to profile me, why don’t you start doing it correctly?

Since I’m half-black, you’d probably assume I’m pretty good at basketball. While this profile is still terribly inaccurate, at least it is a start in the right direction. The truth of the matter is while I have the upper body of a black man, I have the lower half of a white man. Get your mind out of the gutter! There, now besides that, we’ve learned from popular culture that white men can’t jump. My Caucasian legs are no exception! I can dunk like no other, but since I cannot propel myself up to the basket, I have to way to prove my ‘skillz,’ and most definitely I am not paying any ‘billz.’ I can’t dance either. But be-yatch, you should see me move my arms like those other rapping mofos. Check it. But moving to the rhythm from the waist down? Forget it, it’s not happening.

You see, I defy your petty classifications! So why then do people stare at me like I’m some freak of nature that must be destroyed? How many times do I have to be asked, ‘What are you? Eh? Eh? It defies logic! You know that?’ When will the ‘Yeah, I know she’s your mom, but is she your birth mom?’ comments end? The answer is never. But hey, that’s really fine by me.

Hell, let’s further categorize me! C’mon, it’ll be fun! I had very long hair for a while, and slept very poorly. With this long, unkempt hair and dark circles under my eyes, I must be some kind of drug abuser! My appearance doesn’t lie. Don’t forget my glasses, for their thick, black rims betray me as some sort of video game-playing, comedian-quoting, movie-loving dork. Wait, that pretty much is the case with that last one. Sorry.

But seriously, I would love for you to keep judging me for my appearance. But when you do so, please do it with care and caution. Improper profiling can lead to hurt feelings, emotional scarring and in worst-case scenarios, imprisonment or death. If I’m going through a security check at the airport, please make sure the cavity search is because you believe I’m drug smuggling, not because you think I’ve stuffed a tiny explosive device up in the far reaches of my colon. Please feel free to verbally abuse me about working at a local convenience store, but do so because I’m clearly white trash from a small cow town in the southeastern part of the state. And baby, remember, I don’t know what your man’s got to do with me. I’m not trying to hear that, see?

Quintin Marcelino, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. His email is [email protected]