I know. I’m a thirty-something white-privileged woman who grew up in the rural Midwest culture of hunting and fishing, drinking, and football. The most common threats I face are wild animals, snowstorms, and drunk drivers.

I’m not here to tell you I get it – the complex layers of race issues in America, the history and the causes and all of the intense hurt surrounding injustice.

But please don’t think, because of my status, that I’m unaffected. Few people are unaffected these days by such sad times in our country.

Yes, racism exists. I knew it long before the formation of Black Lives Matter. I knew it before it was on the news every single day — before we knew the names Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown and Eric Garner.

I knew it when I was twenty and I exited the interstate in downtown Chicago rush hour traffic in desperation for a public bathroom. I found a fast food restaurant and walked in, quickly noticing that I was the only white person there…

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