“She fucks Black dudes? She probably has something.”
Those were words said to me in high school — by a friend.
I spun on my heels and told him how those words were racist, and my friend, who was nice and would give someone the shirt off his back, listed every reason why he couldn’t possibly be racist. He wasn’t a card-carrying Klan member, like the racists I’d seen on TV; his words were racist, I didn’t know whether or not that made him racist. I knew I was angry, though. But he didn’t understand it. I walked away to preserve the remainder of my time and sanity.