Hello Renee. I read you letter; all the way through, which I can honestly say I do not always do for such. But I think I felt your heart.

I completely agree that I will never know what it’s like to be you, nor will you know what it’s like to be me. Age, color, gender and everything else aside, we are all VERY individual.

As I read your “challenges” I couldn’t help but wonder why you feel the things you ask are not already being done by many “white” folks. I, and everyone I know, would speak up if found in the situations you describe.

I have no uncles (aunts, parents, other family or friends) who make racist jokes. Never did, but that is not something we would have tolerated.

If a friend were to use the “N” word they would not only get talked to they would very likely cease to be a friend.

If a co-worker, or in my case perhaps an employee, were ever to treat any person of any color like criminals as you suggest, they would be terminated. That is simply not tolerated.

I have no friends who would “gaslight” anyone, on social media or otherwise.

Finally, I have many friends of many colors and they are all embraced with the same friendship. No one gets left out…everyone is “in”.

I think there is a tendency for some folks to highlight the things that divide us and not acknowledge the things that unite us. I don’t know of the people that exhibit the this sort of racist behavior you portray in you letter, but I do know they exist. My sense is that though they may have been a more dominant subset of society in the past, they are a diminishing “illness” and that there are far more people who have and do continue to “speak up”. Maybe I live in a different world than you. If so, my wish for you is that your world becomes more like mine.

I started this response by saying we are all VERY individual. That will be forever true. But I think we are making progress toward all of our “individualities” being embraced to an ever increasing degree. In the meantime Renee, I think I hear you.

There is a line from a song by Frank Zappa in his 1966 album “Freak Out!” called “Trouble Every Day”. That line says;

“ Hey you know something people
I’m not black
But there’s a whole lots a times
I wish I could say I’m not white.”