A few years ago, I was becoming very frustrated trying to explain male privilege to some of my guy friends. Most often, I’d start by talking about the difference between a woman walking home in the dark versus a man walking home in the dark. I’d explain why a woman might seem a little uncomfortable walking past them in the dark. A common response was, “But I didn’t do anything!”

“It’s not about you,” I said. “This gets to be about her.”

I found the “I didn’t do it!” reaction frustrating, because to me it was completely beside the point. To me, it feels obvious that this gets to be about the women. It gets to be about the people at risk.

My favorite class in divinity school was “Black Women and Divinity.” In it, we learned about womanism and healing, about forgiveness (pros and cons) and celebration, the earth and our connection to it. I loved the class, and I took it because I did not have even the slightest handle on what it meant to be black in America. As a student of American literature and history as well as a person who lived in America, that seemed like an oversight.