Recently, a local activist posted an impassioned call to action recalling an incident at Lincoln Hall a few weeks ago. Her story is one of misunderstanding, judgment, fear and the lines that we all try so desperately to tow.

Agree with her or not, she represents the marginalization of our fair city and no matter how comfortable we may become in our isolated spaces created by the quiet segregation of the past several decades, we are all a part of the city at-large and perhaps the real point of her experience--and all those she represents--is that discrimination is a default reaction to so many of our interactions with strangers. We've all seen it, someone being accused of being a bigot and someone else defensively standing their open-minded ground. Chicago is better than its racist roots. But where does the real change begin? The Internet isn't small enough to hold everything we should be saying to each other.