Racism doesn't care about my thinky-thoughts

Originally published in 2025 here.

I recently touched a bug. And someone else’s car. Both were unexpected and unusual.

The insect was a leaf-looking grasshopper that was drowning in one of the tree-watering troughs I was filling. I scooped it out and dropped it down. Our skin-to-skin contact was limited but it was still big progress for me. Usually I am too heebie-jeebied.

The other was an SUV that I found myself behind in town. As I pulled up behind it on my way to the grocery store, I saw that someone had, in large bubble letters, written the n-word in the dirt on the back window.

My mouth fell open. Like actually dropped.

I decided to follow the car and soon saw it was headed to the same store as me. I parked a couple of spots away and watched to see who would get out. It was two young White people. They did not go around the backside of their car so I don’t know if they saw what was written.

I got out of my own car and, as I walked by theirs, I quickly ran my hand over the dust.

I was shaky.

First, I don’t usually mess with other people's property and there were a lot of people around who could have seen me do it.
Second, I couldn’t understand why that word would be on that car. Was someone calling the White people who drove it the n-word? Or had the drivers put it there as a message to people who saw it?
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And thirdly, what the hell?

I know, obviously, that racism is endemic in the United States. It is the core value on which our nation was founded (see Manifest Destiny, the Indian Wars, and chattel slavery). And I know that MAGA has given back the permission to be overtly racist, which the previous decades had made slightly less acceptable.

And I knew that I couldn’t let that word just drive around town.

Listen (I say to myself), this climate collapse and murderous rise consuming our days needs me to touch a whole lot of things I never would have before. While I look for the professional, official, and most familiarly effective ways to do that, bugs and racists present me with others.
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May I never be afraid to get my hands dirty.