Thank you so much for this. I've come back to it several times. I'm currently surrounded by white conservatives (long story) and hear some version of "what are they complaining about? They get everything we have now PLUS affirmative action."

This is what people need to see: A patient, well-written explanation of lived daily experiences.

My nephew is black (he's adopted) and I desparately want to understand his experience and do whatever I can to make life easier for him. I fail more often than I succeed. My only hope is to read more, educate myself more.

I was a minority living in a small town in Asia (the only white person to live there full time) and I think what people don't understand about racism and microaggressions is that it's not the little incidents themselves - it's the SHEER VOLUME of them that wears you down. You can describe "well this happened, well, that happened" and people go, "that's not a big deal!" but they have no idea how it feels when it happens EVERY DAY. And the shit I experienced was what would be considered benevolent racism - people treated me NICE because I was white. It was the constant attention that got me down. I know it's very, very different from being black in America, where the attention is negative and often dangerous.

Anyway, again, thank you for this. I've bookmarked it and will share it in the hopes that your great writing will help people "get it."