After taking a picture with my colleagues to emphasize the importance of focusing on Black children at the Society for Research on Child Development’s (SRCD) biennial conference, my friends and I left out of the building to go to another conference event. My research partner and I would have the pleasure of facilitating a Black Caucus Early Career Meeting on “Keepin it 100 in Academia” and we all had on our shirts, proudly displayed.
A panhandler spotted us and proceeded to ask for help, and then noticed our shirts.
The panhandler incorporated the statement “Can you help a Black child, well not me but I would be grateful too…”, to which I continued walking past and my friends kindly responded no to. The person was neither Black nor a child, so I was annoyed that the person would appropriate our concern for gain.