101: “I wanted to do something but didn’t feel like I had the power to.”

I was walking on the street with my friends and a man passed us saying “Yes I’m on the way, just passing a couple of n*****s”. Both me and one of my friends overheard this and we instantly told our other friends. Plenty of them wanted to confront that man and some wanted to fight him. I felt scared and out of control. Although I was ready to support my friends and help them if it came to it, I didn’t want to get involved in a physical altercation, knowing that at the end of the day, if the police come, my friends might just be the ‘angry, aggressive black boys’. My friends and I concluded that we should just leave him. That he wasn’t worth our time. By the time it came to walk home I felt relieved that it hadn’t come to anything violent but I felt useless that I hadn’t said something to the man the moment I heard it. I wanted to do something but didn’t feel like I had the power to.