Here's a true story.

My 30ish old daughter owns a Volkswagan Jhetta. When she takes her car for service, she goes about 20 miles outside the city of Pittsburgh for that service. This past Monday, while she was waiting for the repairman to finish working on her car, she decided to walk back down the road a bit to an ice cream shop that she had seen. She told me that the only people in the shop when she entered was the female salesperson and a man who "kept staring at her". My daughter said that the salesperson was very curt and abrupt with her, and the man kept staring at her. My daughter bought her ice cream and left. When my she got back to the car dealership, my daughter went to pay her bill. While she was doing that my daughter-who is a very gregarious person-told that female salesperson about her experience in the ice-cream store. The salesperson said "We don't get many people like you around here. That's probably why that man was staring at you and that woman was like that with you." My daughter told me that it took her a minute before she understood that the woman meant "Black people" when she said "people like you". In response to that woman's comments, my daughter said something like "Oh". She then paid her bill, and left. When she told me this story, my daughter said that she hadn't even thought about race while she was in that area because the people at the car dealership had always been super nice to her.

I share this story to say that there was a time when Black people taught their children to be alert and aware {beware} of prejudiced people and racists when they go to an unfamiliar setting. I admit that I haven't schooled my daughter in this regard as much as I probably should have. Unfortunately, because there are still people who are prejudiced and there are still people who are racist, if people are raised to not consider their racial identity, they may be putting themselves at risk.

Imo, this is an example of when race shouldn't matter, but unfortunately does. Of course, the same situation could have happened in reverse {meaning a White person in a non-White setting}.

All this to say that it seems to me that we have a lot more work to do before we reach the point where differences never make any difference.