What Goes Through My Mind When White People Call Each Other Racist
Was my neighbor down for the cause — or just smug?
I’ve never been a particularly good neighbor. Until several days ago, I never had a particularly good example of one.
It’s not that I’ve ever had a significant problem with any of them — except my childhood next-door neighbor in Kissimmee, Florida. She once accused my brother of climbing through her bedroom window and trying to rape her. We later found out she was covering for her boyfriend, whom her parents had seen jump out the same window.
Every other neighbor I’ve had, though, has been basically harmless. In Sydney, Australia, after one of my Saturday morning Rihanna jam sessions, a neighbor slid a note under my front door that began, “Dear noisy neighbor.” About a decade earlier in New York City, my super’s wife stopped me in the hallway to do a little dance and tell me how much she loved my morning music.
But a month after my husband and I moved from Manhattan to Kingston, New York, a blizzard led us to meet several neighbors. That’s when one described another as a “racist piece of shit” and warned my husband not to “let the niceties fool you.” In a town where Black Lives Matter signs sprouted everywhere, it wasn’t the icebreaker we expected.
