I am a white male. When I was in 5th or 6th grade, I attended a catholic school in a predominantly white town in Pennsylvania. I had just moved from the West Coast and was not acclimated to the homogeneous white dominance of my new school.

Anyway, I remember being a sheltered kid. I was extremely ignorant of racism and the degree to which it truly exists in the present, as I thought it was a thing of the past only explained in our history text books. I remember my peers using words that were derogatory and made fun of me for not knowing what they meant. One day, they told me that the word “n*****” meant black person. So one day, as we were leaving church, I remember seeing a much younger black student walking into church with his class. He was one of a handful out of the entire school, so he stuck out like a sore thumb. Not knowing the ugliness of the word, I remember giving him a high-five while stating “what’s up, n*****?” as he reciprocated the high-five back to me. I remember some of my peers were shocked that I did that, though none of the teachers were in earshot to hear it.

Looking back on it now, I am ashamed of what I did. Based on how our interaction went, I don’t think the kid knew of the word’s ugliness either, but I know now that he has undoubtedly heard that word many times over, understanding its true ugliness through no fault of his own. I am sure his parents were heartbroken if he ever told them about it, having to explain that the world is unfair to him simply because of the color of his skin and how we live in a system where people are wrongfully targeted and isolated because they are black. I am ashamed to think that I was the first person to call him that.

To the kid I called that horrible word: If you are reading this, I am so unbelievably sorry for what I did. I don’t have any of my yearbooks from that time, so I don’t even remember your name. If I could take back what I said to you, I would go back right now and beat the living hell out of my younger self before ever approaching you with that thought in my head.