Jakarta Damage Report: Why ya gotta be like that?

At times, humanity seems to be begging for some higher being to do us all a favor and vaporize the whole planet with a mighty deathray hidden behind the moon. At other times, we work pretty damn hard to do the job ourselves.
A tall white boy in Jakarta, Indonesia, I am priveledged to be surrounded by some of the most amazing and kind people that I have ever met. However, it's impossible to have a personal discussion with every person on the street of this insane metropolis, and, as many books and undergraduate Global Studies theses have illustrated, confronted by a threat from some outside force, there seems to be a natural tendancy for humans to suspect the unknown and rally together with a group you identify with. In this case, I am sometimes an unknown, and this basic need for survival can drive people to suspect me and my intentions, simply because they identify me as a part of the huge, unknown threat. I cannot say how much I resent this.