A conversation on Facebook veered a little off track when a Friend who is white presented evidence to prove that women and girls all over the world have been treated worse than black people in the U.S.A. We didn't let it slip into a game of "Oppression vs. Oppression." We talked through it, and I shared this with her, to give her a sense of the gender/race experience from my POV.
All my life, when I've moved about town, the county, the state, the nation, and the world -- whether walking into a room, an office, a restaurant, a gallery, a theater, or a bookstore, whether alone or with others -- any feelings of anxiety, self-doubt, fear, and consternation I have felt, no matter how small, have been foremost stoked NOT by the thought that the people there might treat me coldly because I am woman, BUT by the awareness that they were highly likely to treat me coldly because I am black.
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