This is the first installment in an occasional series called "The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly," in which we highlight your stories — be they good, bad, or ugly — about being black in America. We all have different experiences, but you can bet there is always someone out there who can relate to your stories. Reader MS kindly sent in his very bad account of a classic DWB encounter, something many blacks, particularly black men, can relate to. Have a similar tale? Would you like to share and/or vent about a moment when you've been proud, delighted, ashamed, or discriminated against based on your race? Send it to lauren@stereohyped.com with the subject "Good Bad Ugly." And I welcome the good stories!

I’ve always prided myself on the fact that I am a black man that hasn’t had a ticket of any kind for 10 years. And I’ve only been pulled over twice by the police for a DWB, and that was 8 years ago. So as I’ve grown from a young black man to a black man, I haven’t had to deal with the horror stories that I hear from black men all the time of harassment by the police. Now that I’ve become an attorney, I sometimes feel an almost “untouchable” status.

When my friend asked me to help him move out of his apartment one day, I didn’t hesitate to help out. We left for DC on a Thursday afternoon so we could move early the next morning. When we got in the car, my friend asked how would I react if we were pulled over on some bullshit. Since it hadn’t happened to me in very long time, I didn’t have an answer. Little did I know that I would have the answer before the end of my trip. I used to be a speed demon, but since I acquired my bar license, I’ve slowed down because I worked hard for it and I’m not going to allow them to take it away from me on a technicality. There was an unusual amount of traffic that day, so I was taking it easy even if I didn’t want to. We rode past a state trooper, but since I was doing 65 mph, I didn’t trip.

I saw the cop come out in my rearview mirror, but I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong and kept driving. Eventually I noticed that he was in my blind spot, sort of like he was waiting for me to do something wrong to give him a reason to pull me over. Not happening, I thought. After another mile or so, I guess he got impatient and threw the blue lights on.

I was cool. I hadn’t done anything wrong, so my attitude was nonchalant. My friend on the other hand, also an attorney, wasn’t having it. He immediately lit into the trooper, calling it on what it was — two black men riding in a luxury car on the highway heading to DC. Of course the trooper took exception, saying that it wasn’t race and that I had been following the tractor trailer in front of me too close. We both advised him that we were attorneys and that there was no way in hell that he was going to search the car. He also told us that since my friend was so upset that it seemed like we were hiding something. That’s when I got hot and told him that we were tired of young black men getting treated like this. For the record, I was not following the tractor trailer too close. In fact, I wasn’t even the first car behind the truck.

He did the regular things, trying to separate us, asking was anything in the car, the usual. I told him that I had a clean driving record and that if he gave me the ticket, I would promptly get it dismissed. He told me that because of my friend’s behavior, he wanted to give me the ticket. I told him that I was the driver, therefore the ticket was going to me and should be based on my behavior and that I had cooperated throughout.

After about 20 minutes of detainment and the arrival of 4 additional state trooper cars, he returned to the car and told me that he didn’t like to give attorneys tickets, so he wasn’t going to give me the ticket. I then proceeded to give him my business card and told him to give it to the next young black man that he pulled over on some bullshit and told him to have a nice day.

The moral of the story is this: if you’re a black man and not an attorney, you’re fucked. But this story is certainly to be continued the next time I get pulled over illegally…