Sorry for any of you that are my friends on Facebook, but you get a repeat post.

I came to a realization recently that I do a really terrible job of talking about the racism/discrimination/every day interactions that I have personally faced in my past and face occasionally even now. Mostly because it really doesn’t have any effect on me at this point and I’m not sure it ever really did. But then I realized that maybe by not talking about it, I am doing a disservice to two different groups of people:

1) to people that aren’t as fortunate as I am to have grown up with a lot of privilege (this is terribly phrasing, but hopefully you all know me well enough to know what I mean).
2) to my friends that I interact with often, that might not know that someone they know pretty well still face these things.

Today’s example (well, technically yesterday if we want to be nit-picky): I was waiting at a crosswalk by myself. Two gentlemen walk up, talking about the NBA play-offs. Abruptly, their conversation changes to the heightened security about large backpacks after the Boston Bombing (coincidentally, I have a ginormous backpack), the need to watch Muslims more closely (which I’m not, but nor do they need to be watched), how we should be arming teachers to prevent more school shootings, and that next the government would be regulating pressure cookers. The crosswalk changed, I walked across, and went on my merry way.

It could be coincidence. Or maybe it wasn’t. Food for thought.