Responding to Ross Gay’s “Some Thoughts on Mercy” from Oct. ’23 The Sun (magazine)

Ross Gay’s essay reminded me of a moment I witnessed on a New Orleans bus in the 1980s. A Black boy and a white boy were sitting together, talking and laughing. By their speech, you couldn’t tell which one was white and which was Black. Suddenly an old white man stood up and yelled at the white kid to “Stop acting like a [N-word]!” Being from Upstate New York, I was in shock. I was used to a more subtle form of racism.

In my small town there were few Black families. Once, my sister’s boyfrien...