"I just don't get the whole race thing..."

I had a conversation w/ a complete stranger the other day at an appointment. I was already uncomfortable from sitting on a too-firm chair, and we started in with the typical small talk about the state of our world, which quickly turned into her saying, “I just don’t get the whole race thing. I mean... We don’t have white pride month.”

I wasn’t quite expecting that, so I sat quiet for a minute studying this human and examining my response to her. Sick to my stomach, I was thinking about how easy it could be to brush it off and move on with my life. That is my privilege. That would’ve been me contributing to the problem, because I can choose to walk away from those moments. Instead, I gathered my thoughts and responded, “Well, that’s pretty much every single day in our world. Don’t you think? I feel that it’s important to have these conversations about why our entire system was built to work against Black people.”

She just stared at me for a second, and, honestly, I wasn’t expecting her tone to change. Instead, she said, “I’ve been hearing about that Black kid who was just walking and got killed.” I said, “Oh, his name was Elijah. And also Breonna Taylor.” She mentioned she hadn’t heard her story, so I told her.

Altogether, it was maybe a 5 minute conversation where I ended by saying that the constitution wasn’t created with POC in mind, or even gay people like me. It was created by and for white men with racist ideology. She thought for a second and exclaimed, “I think gay people should be allowed to marry!” It just so happened to be the 5 year anniversary of marriage equality, which I told her, and I mentioned that just last week the Supreme Court ruled that we can’t be fired from our jobs for being gay. She was floored. She had no idea! … But now she does. I wished her well, and that was it.

Keep having those in-person conversations, even if they seem small. Even if it’s uncomfortable. The small moments can lead to big change.

What is something new you’ve learned this week about yourself?