Hi Alan. Sorry I missed this most recent comment from you. Thank you for this perspective. Yes, I called my friend yesterday (whose kids are Black) to talk and she definitely reinforced your points, especially:

"If you are stopped by the police every month of your life for just walking down the street or watched by clerks in stores assuming that you are going to steal something, or told in school that you can’t attain something that white students can (by teachers), or rejected for a job because your name sounds African, or given harsher sentences for drug possession, or have the police called on you even if you are a Harvard professor trying to get into your home, or a dozen other things, maybe you’d be suspicious of white folks."

Alan, I will, as you say, keep trying to understand and even in the last two weeks since I wrote the story, my understanding has advanced significantly.

I still hear the point (which I also wrote about in the story, the exact point that my book group discussed) that as a White person, I will never fully understand how it feels to be Black. I will pause and try. Thanks again for writing.

Sincerely, Alice