When Your Friend’s Casual Racism Can No Longer Be Ignored
This story appears in STYLECASTER’s Activism Issue, starring Jurnee Smollett. Click here for more.
I still remember it like it was yesterday. I was riding shotgun in my friend’s car in a town in North Carolina when we approached a stop sign. A group of teenagers crossed the street while I absentmindedly looked out the window. The sun was shining and I’m sure some pop song was blasting through the speakers like always. That’s when I heard my friend scream, “That’s why people shoot you!” I looked up and noticed a Black teenage boy in the group. I sat stunned thinking, “Did she really just say that?” I must have misheard her, although I knew in my gut that I hadn’t. She said one of them spit toward her car, which...