So this is what I get for leaving the apartment-
I walk to get lunch at the corner, and on the way back, a young (coincidentally black) man was coming up the street towards me. I smiled, and he asked "Can I join you?" I laughed (and clutched my keys a little tighter, out of habit) and said "not this time, I got stuff to do!". Even as I said that though, instinct kicked in and I wasn't as scared as I (maybe) should have been. His energy was calm, and kind. He stopped and said, "Well, maybe another time?", to which I replied "You never know!" and smiled again. He stepped a little closer to me, and said, "You are a beautiful and very kind person. Have a great day".
I wondered even as I was wishing him the same, if he said that because a little white girl didn't run from a very fit black man.
His last words are going to stick with me for quite a long time.
Makes me think about "other people", if I was so strikingly "kind" in a single moment of conversation with him. And why in that same moment, I let my little-white-girl guard down and "let him in".
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