My friend (white cishet college woman) wanted to post this on tumblr but didn’t want her name/identity associated so I am posting it for her:

It was a dark and capricious type of night outside Student Annex A. The street lights glimmered with the rogue anticipation of enjoyment, merriment and colleagueal fun. I had just gone to a gender studies lecture about Photoshop and the patriarchal implications of beauty; the colonization of desire. Filled with the undeniable exuberance of academia, I walked from the annex to my bike, skipping in a nearly childlike fashion as my mind dwelled in thoughts of rebellion, revolution and hope.

That was when I saw him– a beautiful, majestic man with skin like the outer shell of a Hawaiian macadamia nut. He was lovely, perfect just the way he was–and so graceful as he swooped through the night. He approached me and demanded my wallet. I recognized him as a fellow student–he had no ID and I had not seen him before, but his eyes were wide and bright and full of knowledge; full of pain that only he could understand. Without thinking, I handed him my wallet, placed my hand on his and told him how much I believed in him.

Much to my surprise, he sneered at me, called me a “white stupid bitch” and ran off into the night. I felt a pit in my stomach, knowing that this beautiful young man’s urge to take my belongings (I won’t say “steal”) come from the deep involvement of the white patriarchy in his life…the fact that he felt unwanted, unloved and he needed to find his power, even if it came in the form of hostility toward a white woman. I deserved that hostility. My entire life has been one of bigotry and racism; I was never consciously aware of it until recently, but you don’t need to do racism to be racist, and as a white person I will always be racist, and I will always be deeply, deeply flawed and imperfect.

I spoke to my roommate who encouraged me to call campus security. According to her, she “didn’t want him to get away with it” and wanted to make sure the alleged “criminal” was punished accordingly. Sounded to me like a flawed idea of justice–how is it “justice” to imprison or punish a Black man for doing something that the white supremacist patriarchy influenced him to do? He had no choice in his so-called “crime”. It may not have been obvious but he had a gun to his head the entire time- the gun of greed, of whiteness, of rape culture. And that is why I could not blame him.

Although the experience was very traumatic for me (I am now seeing the campus therapist for PTSD) it was not traumatic because I felt threatened, but rather because I became so deeply aware of my own privilege and the severe lack of justice in this country. I think of that man daily, and there isn’t a time when I don’t wish I had spoken to him for longer.