a person doesn't have to say something explicitly racist for the outcome to be the same as it's always been - white people keeping people of color out of spaces that they control.

if i was entering a space and had a person from the space be so rude and aggressive to me for no apparent reason, i wouldn't come back either. and given that people of color experience that kind of hostility *on the regular*, i don't blame scott for the conclusion that he came to about robb.

all kinds of people who would 'normally' be polite or neutral to a stranger can become extremely suspicious and behave accordingly toward people of color. and because we live in a racist society where white people being extremely rude, aggro, and suspicious toward non-white people is totally normal (and encouraged - "better safe than sorry"), it's important to question one's own immediate judgments of a person as 'suspicious' or 'questionable' AND go out of one's way to be aware and conscious to treat the person as you would like to be treated: to be welcomed, be given the benefit of the doubt (maybe the person is ringing the doorbell a lot because no one answered it? maybe their key card isn't working when they thought it should? etc.), and treated with respect.

in conclusion, just because you read this and see an encounter between a jerk and a random other person, that doesn't mean that there was no racial element at play in the way things went down. and there was definitely a racist outcome: a white insider, through his actions, caused a black person to stop coming to the space entirely.

- marina