Resisted

I have resisted the urge to write about this story for a long time. Actually, it's been months, however, I think it's incredibly important for me to talk about it.

Let me set the stage for this event. Its interim (January term) of my senior year of college. My friends and I decided to have a girl's night out. It was a night to just hang out and enjoy time with the ladies. We all had a plan to meet at Grand Rapid's most famous club (lol) which happens to be in a building called the BOB. This is a big building downtown that houses a handful of bars and restaurants, plus a club called Eve.
Now for all of my God-fearing, protective family and friends who are cringing assuming that this was a night of binge drinking and crazy partying...relax...it was not. I can assure you that I was 21 and sober.
Back to the story, my girls and I rolled up to the BOB only to find out that Eve was opening an hour late because of a private party. We decided that we would go chill at one of the bars while we waited. A handful of us found a table and sat down. I was standing at the end of our table talking to my friends while trying to figure out what drink to order. After a few minutes of standing there, minding my own business I began to hear incredibly crude and vulgar statements coming from the white guy at the bar behind me. Let's call him Guy A. At first, I decided to ignore his comments, but it got to the point where I just couldn't anymore. He was speaking super loud and was saying disgusting things about me so I turned around, looked him in the eye and said "shut up" in a very firm voice. His response was to scoff and shrug. I was pissed at this point. There's no reason to say sexually explicit things about anyone, let alone me. A couple of minutes passed before Guy A's friend came up to our table and arrogantly said "so ladies, what are we doing tonight?"
Bad choice on his part. I was mad and wasn't about to deal with a group of annoying guys. I'm also a very sassy individual which many of you know. So I turned to the friend and said "Um, nothing with you" to which Guy A scoffed, looked at me and said: "go back to Africa"

GO...BACK... TO...AFRICA...did he actually just tell me to "go back to Africa"?

That man, the man who made sexually explicit comments, about me, told me to "go back to Africa" 
I'm sorry friends, but if that doesn't bother you then you best be checking where your prejudices lie. There's something wrong with that.

I'm a lover not a fighter, but in that moment I had to resist every urge to punch him in the face. Honestly, I wanted to punch him. I have never been that angry. At the same time, I was utterly taken aback. I expected to be called a bitch or something like that, but I never saw a pointed racial comment coming.
I get a lot racial ignorance in my life. That's what I get for being racially ambiguous. Normally its a hand in the hair here or a "what are you?" there. But that statement was so blatantly racist it caught me completely off guard.
I whipped around, locked eyes with Guy A and asked "do you want to rephrase that?" He began making excuses and I was 110% done listening. I turned back around only to see all of my friends wide eyed with their jaws dropped. Not only had they never seen me react so aggressively, but they also couldn't believe what they had just heard. All I said was "he's not worth my time or attention." I walked away and went about my night.
As I danced the night away with my best friends, that comment lingered in the back of my mind. I couldn't shake it or the feeling it spurred in me. I was up for hours that night trying to justify his comment. I didn't want it to be a racial slur, I didn't want to think that he told me to "go back to Africa" because of the way I looked. At the end of the night, I couldn't. I could not justify him telling me to "go back to Africa."
As I fell asleep, I thought:
1. I would love to go back to Africa because I freaking loved it. I would live there in a heart beat.
2. That was single-handedly the most racist thing that has ever been said to me and yet I sat in my bed trying as hard as I could to JUSTIFY it
3. If that's the most racist thing that's been said to me then I'm sitting pretty. I have friends who experience SO much worse. Like light years beyond what I've ever experienced and that truly upsets me. I won't sit here and tell you that I have it rough because I don't by any means. But if Guy A thinks it's okay to say things like that to me then imagine what he would say to someone else?

This whole topic of "race" can seem so big and vague and distant. It's especially hard to understand if you're white. It's complicated I'll give you that. It's impersonal because you don't live it, experience it or witness it. This is my way of bringing the topic home. If someone who looks like me (pretty much the most racially ambiguous person on the planet) experiences racism, then imagine what a whole community of people experiences every day?