En undskyldning for racisme i barndommen

Many years have passed, but I still remember you clearly. I don’t know if you remember me, but unfortunately you might do. I think about you almost every day. I was raised in a family of racists. I grew up with racism, and learned that is was the right thing. I was a stupid little girl, who didn’t know what right and wrong was. I was bored in that summer, and the only friend I had was Allison. I looked up to Allison. I thought it was exciting to be friends with someone who was older than me.

I remembered it all so clearly: You asked if we could play, and Allison responded back “I don’t play with niggers”. I remembered you rolled your bike across the street, and dump it on the lawn of your house. How your mother pulled the curtains, I could feel her hot eyes. I did not know better and the only thing I said was “Niggers are stupid”. I kept thinking of the hand parting the curtains. I kept expecting your mother to emerge from the house and demand that we apologize to you. But it didn’t happen. I now know what we did was wrong, but at the time it felt like it was the only thing to do.