She never expected to be met with hostility and suspicion. Like me, my sister is a Black mixed-race woman. My son is, at a glance, white-presenting, with blond hair and blue eyes. As they travelled together on the London underground, a woman looked at my son, looked at my sister and asked coldly: Are you child-minding? It was humiliating and invalidating.
This summer a video went viral on social media when an attorney in Colorado was arguing his case on behalf of the state. In a painfully awkward moment, he called the woman judge "Honey." The appropriate term should have been "Your Honor." The cringe-worthy remark startled the courtroom. When the attorney said, "But, but honey," he instantly realized his mistake.