General Discussion

A lot of it is being more visible when you want to be visible, and less visible when you don't want to be visible. I have no way to change my level of visibility.

I have no way to make police officers pull me over when I speed past them, but I assure you they don't pull me over. Oh wait, I was finally pulled over once in the past few months when I forgot to turn on my lights at night, but the officer didn't even check my license and just told me to turn on my lights and have a nice night.

Also, I have learned to say, "He/she was here first" when I'm at a shop and being helped when someone else is in line. I was naive and assumed the other person must have already been helped and must be waiting for something if they were obviously there before me, but I learned otherwise when a young woman of color got angry at a Starbucks when she was passed by and I was helped. She was in front of me in line and there's no way to not notice who is in front of the line, so it didn't even occur to me that she hadn't been helped yet. I assumed her drink was being made and she was waiting for it to be finished. Now I don't make that assumption and I am very careful to make a point of saying something even if it seems obvious that somone would be able to tell the other person is in front of me. I'm thankful that the young woman said something so I was able to wake up to that. It has suprised me how often I say, "He/she was here first" and that person was indeed passed over if he/she is a person of color. It just happened a couple of days ago at a bakery, by someone who was wearing a t-shirt with a liberal message on it, so not even a Republican, as I would have assumed. He couldn't seem to help noticing me more than the older African American man in front of me, and was embarrassed that he'd passed him by. I hope that helped him to wake up to this so he'll watch for it in the future, just as I learned to watch for it.