Last Wednesday on Reading Day, I studied in one of the coveted Ames group study rooms with a couple friends for almost the entire day. Throughout the day we occasionally wandered off topic, and an interesting conversation started when a friend mentioned a volunteer opportunity he participated in a couple weekends ago. He mentioned how he worked with “people from a low-income, governmental housing neighborhood in Bloomington.” My face reacted to this comment and he asked what I was thinking about. Remembering my observations from the state of dialogue essay and the Kivel reading about speaking in “code words,” I told him about how White Americans tend to speak in code words to disguise actually discussing the topic of race. I attempted to explain this in a non-accusatory and informative manner, but he reacted with annoyance and anger. This friend also witnessed Megan Gleason confront the track team at dinner about a racist joke, and he clearly had no interest in hearing about what both her and I learned in this course. He said something to the effect of “Megan told the track team a ‘wrong’ definition of racism” and that “I wish that you two had not taken this course because you keep correcting and psycho-analyzing everything I say.” I really did not know how to respond to this comment, so I dropped the topic and returned to my studying. I wanted to scream something to the effect of “Of course it does not matter to you because you are White, male, heterosexual and Christian” but I refrained because I knew this would not lead to a positive situation. Afterward I felt so frustrated towards him in a similar way to how the men in “Color of Fear” felt towards David. It just seemed that this friend would invalidate and discount any argument Megan or I made about how racism functions in society. This whole experience just made me think about how to effectively talk to friends, who seem to not care about how White privilege benefits them, about the knowledge gained in this course. In this particular situation, even though I attempted to sound uncritical and nonjudgmental, I ended up angering a friend and returning back to the original silence. Later in the day I read the Interrupting the Cycle of Oppression article by Andrea Ayvazian. She discussed in the "Preparing for the Long Haul" section how confronting racism involves making mistakes and screwing up while in the situation. This provided me with some encouragement that with time and more thought, hopefully I can develop a way to talk to more close-minded friends in a way that stimulates rather than silences dialogue about race.