I was 30 years old and doing my student teaching internship in Boston. The 12th graders were working on their final paper, and so the head teacher and I had a few minutes of downtime. Absentmindedly, I checked Yahoo News, not expecting anything particularly dramatic. I mean, it's Yahoo News, not the New York Times. It's a fluff website; I was maybe expecting some celebrity gossip.

The leading story was far from fluffy. An unarmed black teenager had been shot dead; no arrest had been made. I remember looking at Trayvon Martin's face for the first time on my computer screen and wondering, for a split second. WTF, Skittles, is this an elaborate joke? The human brain loves denial.

Trayvon Martin's murder wasn't, of course, a joke. I immediately confirmed it with other news sites. Word spread quickly through the school. The students, for the most part, were not surprised. Even though they were living in the northeast—the "enlightened" part of the world—and not in Florida, the truth that a young black man's life was expendable was not news to them. As much as people in Massachusetts might like to delude ourselves otherwise, there is no safe state. Not for young black men. And our students knew that.

During a free period a few weeks later, a couple of male seniors joined us in the teacher's lounge, which so close to their graduation they were kinda-sorta allowed to do. They were both college-bound, so the head teacher and I decided to give them some friendly college advice. By which I mean, drinking advice. The head teacher had a son a bit older than they; she knew how to talk frankly to teenage boys. She instructed them not to leave their drunken buddies on their backs lest they choke. She reminded them to drink water while partying. Although we'd spent the semester talking to them about linguistic conventions and literary structuralism, all of which we thoroughly believed in, this was maybe our most fun and engaging lesson.

And Trayvon Martin came up. How could he not? He was so ingrained in the national debate at that point. And we asked the young men, both of whom were black, if they felt safe. They did not. Why should they? They weren't.

We asked them if they knew what to do when a police officer, or a crazy civilian with a gun, went after them. Submit. Always submit. Do what they tell you. Don't run. Don't resist. Of course you're right. Of course you're in the right. The moral right, the legal right. It doesn't matter; being "right" won't save you. You don't have rights against a gun. Not in America. Not if you're black.

We were two white women telling young black men how to be young black men. Trust me, I'm aware of how hideous, how condescending and gross that is. But we cared about them and we needed them to stay alive. They were beautiful, intelligent and kind. And that alone wouldn't spare their lives. Submit, we said. Always submit. Surrender. Put your hands up. Kneel.

Basically, we told them, let them have their way with you. Your life is worth more than your dignity.

"The world is racist, and sick, and horrible, and cruel. But, you know, stay alive!"

These boys are Trayvon's age, 17, 18. They are very much on the cusp of being men. But in a real way they are still children. With potential and full lives ahead of them. Dear god, let them see those lives unfold. Dear god, let them be safe.

(goodnightlittleboysthankthelordyouarewell)

I look back on this conversation and I want to vomit. Not because I was wrong--I wasn't--and not because I was arrogant--although I absolutely was. And am. Telling them things they already knew. Things they knew so much better, so much more deeply, than I did. Than I in my comfortable ignorance and privilege could fully comprehend. We know, they said. We won't run. We won't fight, or panic. But we'll live in a calm state of fear. Fear is our best hope of not getting killed when things go down.

What makes me sick is this: it's not enough. These boys could put their hands up too slowly, or too quickly, for a person who's already decided their fate. They could be lying face down and still be perceived as a threat. Submitting is their best hope of survival--it is not a guarantee.

Let that sink in.

Think of the fear they must live in, knowing that complete capitulation only increases their odds of survival. It doesn't guarantee it. My god, that's horrific. That's not compatible with the notion of a free country. This is the level of safety we've settled on, if you're black? "Do what they tell you, and hope for the best, but you might get murdered anyway" is not acceptable odds.

One of my former students, a classmate and friend of those two boys in the lounge, recently posted a picture of himself on Facebook, looking handsome and dapper in a tie. A computer science college student, behind his glasses shines obvious intelligence and sweetness. His caption of the picture was this: "If I ever get killed by the police, make sure CNN uses this picture of me."

That is too much fear for a young man to lIve with. He's not in a gang. He's not what the news would call "at risk." But he is. By the color of his skin, he is. Nothing he does, alone, can change that.

White people, I know our tears don't add up to a river of change. I don't know exactly what to do; I'm not perfectly enlightened. I'm not an authority. Worse, I don't know where to find such a person.

But I do have a suggestion.

Maybe we should start to live in real fear. Not of black people. God knows that we've been demonizing them for long enough, and our unjustified fear too often leads to their unjust execution.

I'm not saying we even can know the visceral fear that other people endure daily. Not completely, not to the same extent.

But maybe we should try to take some of that fear on. Maybe we should try to fear the next murdered Philando Castile, the next murdered Alton Sterling, in our bones. Maybe we should realize what non-white people seem to already know: That if the danger is real, fear is entirely reasonable. That fear can be a good thing.

I fear for my black students more than I fear for myself. But maybe I don't fear enough. Maybe I need to fear more. Maybe I need to shake. Maybe America does.

Because black people are being murdered at an alarming rate. And yes, it's sad. It's very sad.

It's also fucking terrifying.

And maybe if we all, literally all of us, fear it more, we can temper it. I'm not so naive as to think there's only one simple solution, or that fear alone will solve everything.

But I'm also not oblivious: I am afraid.