ONE winter evening many years ago, I was driving home from work on a highway outside Camden, New Jersey. The darkened hulk of this small city, one of the most dangerous in America, appeared before me on the road when a car about 100 feet ahead of me, traveling at about 60 miles per hour, suddenly spun out of control on a patch of ice.

I saw it revolve in place like a tiny toy top and then career to the side of the road near a bank of snow. It was a terrifying sight and the very instant I saw it, I pulled over to the shoulder and then parked right behind the car.

The stunned driver spilled out of the driver’s seat. A black man of about 30 years old, he stumbled up the steep, snowy embankment and sat down with his head in his hands.

I ran up the hill and called to him, “Are you okay? Are you okay?”

He sat there shaking his head. He then looked up and said with anger, “Why did you do that? Why did you do that?”

In his confusion, he thought I had caused him to lose control.

It was an understandable mistake and it didn’t matter. The important thing was whether he was injured. I helped him up out of the snow and he walked back to his car, still shaken but not hurt. He said nothing more to me and drove away.

Imagine if you can, dear reader, that you are the descendent of people who came to this country not all that long ago from a society that was so primitive it lacked the ability to invent the wheel. Imagine that you live in a city filled with lights and tall buildings and blaring sirens and other mysterious technological wonders.

Imagine that you and your relatively simple people are expected to compete in this highly “advanced” society and achieve material equality. Imagine your car for some unknown reason spins out of control.

Now put yourself in that position and tell me, if a person who represented in your mind all these strange wonders and disturbing expectations stopped to help you on an icy road, would you be grateful? Or would you simply get up if you could and drive away?

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