Somewhat recently, Rashid Johnson walked out of a fancy hotel that he was staying in. He just wanted to smoke a cigarette, but even a small action like that can be fraught when yZzou're a six-foot-three Black man in America.
"I wasn't dressed well," he recalls. He knew that made him more vulnerable. "And as I walked out of this hotel, the doorman changed, right? A new guy showed up and he hadn't seen me leave the building." Seeing himself through the eyes of the new doorman, Johnson suddenly felt himself in peril. "I'm just kind of this underdressed Black character in slippers or something, smoking a cigarette. And then I'm going to be re-entering this very nice hotel."
