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Because although you may hear white people claim that people of color make mountains out of molehills and exaggerate racism and look for racism under every rock, the reality is that people of color deny more racism in a year than white people will acknowledge in a lifetime. It’s a coping mechanism.

Once when I was at a hate crime seminar, the presenter asked people in the audience to share if they had ever been the victim of a hate crime or discrimination. I was fuming. It made me think of horrible, dreadful, terrible, scary, awful, vicious things that had happened, both to me and to people I know and love. The thought of sharing this pain with a group of strangers was simply outrageous. Also, it wasn’t as if personal testimony was needed to make a point. All you have to do is open your eyes. Nobody spoke, which probably lead some people in the room would infer that racism wasn’t really that big a deal after all.

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