I read the other comments, especially the ones complimenting the spirit of the article and the writing itself. Apart from the issue: This is great writing and great storytelling and needs to get picked up and published.

In regards to the subject well covered — I am sorry. It is nowhere to your degree, not even in the same universe, but I have a touch of your feeling. I’m a white male and I live in a rural Texas county that voted 85% for Trump and still has Trump signs flying high together with the Confederate battle flags. I ride a bicycle on the back roads for exercise. I am fastidious about following DPS law for bicycle operation and respect for vehicles. Some pickups slow to a crawl and beep their horn as if passing a dangerous exotic animal. Most handle things normally and appropriately. Some occasionally dangerously deliberately brush close in anger that something interpreted as “different” has invaded their fearful space. When that happens I think, “What if I was a black man?”.

Please, everyone, let’s regroup and enter into a new place of kindness and consideration — setting aside nameless fears, derision and division. The untrusting, bias and racist shadow self energies cause suffering to both parties. Let’s let all take joy in a black woman who loves to run.