98: “I wanted to ask him why he was so offended that I had black friends…”

I was on the train, coming back from school and I was sitting and talking with my friends. When their station came and my friends got off some other boys from my school came up to me and asked if I thought I was a roadman now, if I thought I was hard because I hung out with black people. He made sure to mention that “they’re just n*****s”. I wanted to ask him why he was so offended that I had black friends, I wanted to know why he felt so attacked that he felt the need to confront me about sitting with them. I decided to tell them to piss off and they did. In that moment I felt helpless and angry, I wanted to say so much to them but didn’t feel I had the power to.