I once walked up to my husband’s grey Chevy to see feet sticking out the driver’s door as a man rifled the glove box looking for his wallet. I kept the door between us and said, “excuse me?” He looked up and I said he was in my car. He said, no, it was his. So I pointed out that it was a two door sedan (few were sold as two doors) and he realized he was in the wrong car. As he got out, I realized he was an African American man just out of church (I had noted the shined dress shoes and dress pants before I had called out to him, so I had already thought it was a mistake and not a thief). He got out, holding up his hands and apologizing, pointing to a nearly identical car not far away, saying he had gone into the store that I had just left and realized he had left his wallet in the glove box, so came back out to get it. This was before remote locks and I rarely locked my doors. Where I had grown up, a locked door meant the thief trying to get your radio would break your window, so just leaving it unlocked saved you damage.

I told the man that I understood his mistake, no harm done. He was older than me by a decade or two, and took on a fatherly concern, asking why I approached my car with a man inside it, I put myself in danger. I explained that I had assessed his shoes and trousers and figured he was coming from church on a Sunday around noon, was not likely a thug stealing from cars, and besides that, I had kept the car door between us and stood feet away. He said I should have been more careful. I thanked him for his concern.

Suddenly, he staggered back a bit and started shaking. He stammered about how he had been so stupid. I reassured him that everything was okay. He, a Black man in Louisiana, pointed out that from my accent I was from the North, and being white, did not realize what his error could have meant for him. He was almost sobbing as he told me that I could have shot him for being in the wrong car, or called the cops - who could have also shot him. I again reassured him, then drove away. A few blocks down the road, I had to pull over. It suddenly dawned on me that what I had witnessed was his terror and rush of emotions at such a close call. As a Black man, his experience was that any simple mistake like this could easily have ended his life. Suddenly, his exaggerated reaction made sense to me and I started sobbing as I felt the terror I had seen in his face. His fine Sunday clothes and middle age demographic would not have given him any leeway. In his lived experience, he knew that he could not afford any such simple mistake.

I started locking my car doors. The car was not worth protecting, but the people around me were. That’s when I started to understand what racism does to those who are oppressed.