Very powerful piece. Thank you for bringing this very difficult subject into the full light of day.

As a 15 year old you never should have been confronted by a grown man in that way. Just another example of white people robbing black children of their innocence.

This is yet another hard truth that I will find myself explaining to my (biracial) children. I'm a white girl from a multi-racial, multi-cultural family. The worse my husband has to deal with from my family is my 90 year old grandfather occasionally saying uncomfortable things in front of everyone else (microaggressions for sure, but coming from an old man with dementia). We are all very close and everyone plays an active role in raising my sons.

I worry that this is going to make things harder for them once they reach the dating age. I struggle finding the words to explain that not all white people are as accepting as their white family.