It's a little easier for us to make some allowances for people that are expressing trauma from COVID-19 because we are all experiencing the effects of it ... It's much easier for us to make certain allowances for a plethora of people's behaviors when we have a shared experience with them. With racism and discrimination, the reality is that it simply isn't a shared experience for everyone. It's harder for many people to find something they can understand about it. It's harder to make allowances for behaviors that result from it if you've never experienced it. It's harder to identify the intention of someone, if you don't know what it's like to live a life in which these are realities and are things that shape the way you see the world. Why is it that someone can call their Governor a tyrant for placing restrictions to help keep Americans safe and people more readily support that, but when someone calls a law enforcement officer a racist as a result of their blatant display of racism, they are considered anti-American?
-- Andrea Krystal, Can Black People Grow Hair?, p. 110-111
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