“You are not black; this doesn’t concern you!” I have heard/ read that sentence so many times this past week, it almost seems meaningless. It wasn’t always meaningless. The first time I read that on one of those sketchy handles on twitter, I had to make some serious efforts to reach deep inside my brain and make sense of it. The y were simple words, simple grammatical structure; simple enough for an immigrant with English as her third language to comprehend otherwise but somehow, I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand if the person was being factual, assumptive, cruel, condescending or just flat out ignorant. I still don’t know the answer to that but what I know is, after having several episodes of knots in my throat trying to hold back my tears and then several episodes of letting it go and wailing, I AM A “PERSON” BEFORE A PERSON OF COLOR, PERSON OF GENDER, PERSON OF SEXUAL ORIENTATION, MARITAL STATUS, SOCIAL STATURE and whatever else tags along. This is one of the few times