In 2006, I’d been living in Baltimore’s Western District for two years, working as an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University. One night, driving a borrowed vehicle with a broken tail light after an accident totaled my car, I was pulled over by a Baltimore City police officer.

I didn’t have my driver’s license — I’d left it at a friend’s house. I didn’t have a photo ID — I’d left my campus ID in my office. In fact, although I knew one of my (now former) wife’s friends loaned me the car, I couldn’t remember anything about her. Not her name. Nothing.

So when the police officer pulled me over, he ended up encountering not just a black driver with a broken headlight, but a driver without a driver’s license, without any photo ID, and without any idea who’s car he was driving.