There’s a lot of discourse going around these days about white people. Not much of it is positive. It’s understandable; just about every person of color has at least one story in which a white person made them feel terrible because of their race, whether intentionally or not. There’s a lot of pent up anger, and it’s socially acceptable to vent that anger now, so people do. As a result, there are a lot of well meaning white people who are receiving the message that they, and people who look like them, are making the lives of people of color hard. Some people react to that by getting angry, others react by looking for opportunities to prove they aren’t that kind of white person. When they see an interaction like this one, they feel compelled to act, and they do. Sometimes way out of proportion to the inciting incident. Other well meaning and anxious people react positively to the callout, which reinforces the perception that this is the right thing to do. The person who committed the offense often tries to clarify their position, which presents more opportunities to call them out. In situations like this, even apologies are often criticized. Each time this process unfolds, the line of acceptable behavior creeps ever backwards, and increasingly benign actions and statements end up on the other side of it.