It’s amazing how you can get along quite well with someone until you realize they proudly blurt out their views that make you want to instantly kick them where it hurts.
I’m known generally as the nicest person in the world. I hate conflict, and when I’m in a conversation with someone, I feel an incredibly strong obligation to smile and listen. Last week I had an extremely gigantic exception.
I was racing onto campus from work to go to the Michael Brown discussion in the Women’s Center when I encountered one of my classmates from History. We both laughed about how last minute we are when it comes to writing papers, and all was fine and good, until he said:
“Did you see the protestors up there for Ferguson?” I had no idea he meant it in a bad way.
I immediately got excited that there were protestors and asked where they were, and that’s when he snapped and exclaimed:
“What are you excited for?! My brother is a cop, and he has to deal with this stuff all of the time! I’m tired of people calling racism. It’s annoying. It’s not like black people are slaves anymore. They have their freedom, they just need to move on.”
In the midst of his “argument,” I immediately snapped, and yelled “You don’t know what the f*** you’re talking about! You have no f******* idea!”And proceeding to race to the Women’s Center with tears drowning from my face.
Did he assume I’d agree with him because I was white? Did he really believe I’d go along with his absurd comments? It made me lose a lot of hope for my generation until I made it to the Women’s Center and found people as outraged as I was, and had sophisticated arguments as well as insightful thoughts. I didn’t feel so hopeless and alone after that, but it did make me realize more than ever that there is still a fight to be won. We are still in a society that holds particular standards for race, beauty, wealth, and power. We need people to get angry and aware if we want to be and see changes in our country. Until then, I hope that guy in my history class knows why I went from nice to outraged in .00006 seconds right in his face.
Unruly Bodies 
I’m very sorry you had such an emotional interaction with someone. I’m glad you were heading to a place you felt accepted and supported to where you can unload. Dealing with hate, ignorance, and racism is hard especially surrounding such a difficult topic and movement and your feelings were very justified I feel like.
I’m glad you decided to say something to him ! I don’t exactly know who you are but I can say like you I don’t like conflict either and I just let people state their opinions even when I don’t agree but in an instant like yours, thoughts like the guy you encountered are poison. I think he really needs to look up what the issue is before he spoke. It makes me wonder if he saw the friendly interaction the protestors had with the campus police, did he know that the policeman was actually okay with it and even encouraged it, did he know that the march for Ferguson a few days later involved a policeman who created a safe space and open access to buildings or did he know that the police were THANKED at the end of the protests? Probably not. He needs to learn its not about ALL policeman being bad and that the protestors don’t like the police. Police brutality on an unarmed teen is the issue.
Either way,
Thank You,
Signed a protestor
The stress and worry about his brother being a cop is totally understandable, but the whole black people should get over it, slavery is over is nasty. I am glad there is a community you can be part of who share your values and your frustrations. I’m glad you had the last word and left the conversation. Conflicting opinions is easy when the conversation is polite and civil, but sometimes its definitely better to just leave.
I’m sorry you had to deal with that ignorant person and it really does show that racism won’t just end when the older generation is gone it’s still very deeply entrenched in our society. But looking at the protests of (mostly) young people it seems like the large majority of our generation can see the problems in our society and want positive change. Dealing with people like that definitely is like talking to a brick wall, but maybe (hopefully) your argument might start him thinking about the protests in a different way.
I live in such a bubble of people who try really hard to unlearn racism that I always forget how awful most people are. That shock of being confronted with blatant racism like that is pretty intense and your reaction was totally justified. Every time something like this happens, my first response is “how dare they!” and then the realization sets in that people of color, especially black folks, experience this kind of shit every day. And that is enough to bring anyone to tears.
I totally agree with your reaction. When it comes to the death or killing of a human being. It does not matter what his color, background and ethnicity are. Why we cannot just all think of everybody as a human being first?
Good for you.
I am really sorry that you had to go through that. I wish that people could understand that racism will never be gone. Also, the fact that it angers people that protesters are standing up for what is right is so wrong. Everyone has the right to “pursuit of happiness,” and if that means making the cop’s jobs harder then so be it. If I was in such a situation, I would try to calm myself down before I blew up because sometimes blowing up on ignorant people does nothing but make the situation worse. I would try to educate him on what was so wrong with his statement.