One day a long time ago, when I worked on the National Mall, I was blessed to have the experience of being just a pale dot, a solitary young white woman, in a virtual sea of Black men–simply by virtue of stepping out of my office building for lunch in the middle of the Million Man March.

I was nervous only that someone might scorn me (even with a sideways glance) for being so out of place. But there was only one of me, and I was met only with friendliness as I gently navigated my way through the crowd. In fact, the one and only notable thing about that day, for me, was just how relaxed, how at ease, how comfortable everyone clearly was.

At first I simply found that reassuring–but then, at some point in that journey across the Mall, it became soul-stopping…as I realized that the only reason that their comfort level was notable was that I had very rarely experienced Black men permitted, permitting themselves, to be so completely at ease, particularly in public spaces.

Classrooms. Offices. Shopping Centers. Parking Lots (!).  Even the integrated humanist commmunity I grew up in…only in their own homes were the older Black men I knew in childhood really close to being fully at ease. I’d never recognized it before, but here it was, the contrast staring me in the face. They didn’t have to think about how they might be perceived that day, didn’t have to worry about evoking fear or suspicion or disdain or anything else. They were surrounded by brothers. They could just be. And it was a quiet-tear inducing joy to behold.

That was 1995, the  year Trayvon Martin was born, eighteen years ago.

Eighteen years before that March, both whites and Blacks had a communal reckoning with the airing of the mini-series Roots, and a confrontation with the “roots” of racial injustice and tension in this country. All of a sudden, Blacks were reminded of a history they had a right to be angry about. And whites were confronted with a history they had reason to be ashamed of. It’s not like we didn’t know that history, but those few nights of TV watching brought it home.

Eighteen years after the March, the sad case of Trayvon Martin reminds any Black citizen who was bold enough to forget, to relax, to be at ease..that really–first Black President notwithstanding–they simply cannot.

It reminds those of us who are of any color and care that there is still a whole lot of work to do.  Trayvon Martin may just be one casualty of many; we may have expected the verdict that ultimately came in (though the information the jury sought on manslaughter charges raised too many of our hopes). But there is no way to look at this case, from start to finish, without seeing all the ways that race came into play. There is no scenario–once you have a determined, armed vigilante in the picture–that would realistically have Trayvon surviving that night.

We all know the system is stacked. We all know, at some level, that Black men still arouse fear and suspicion–in everyone–for no earthly reason but their race.  We know all this.

But Trayvon Martin, and Zimmerman’s acquittal, really brings it home.  The pain of it just is.

And the need among many to question that pain, their inability to understand, just makes it worse. Because it is, worse; worse than we’d let ourselves believe.