I once told a friend of mine about how, when I was a young child, someone asked me my race in an indelicate way. “What are you?” he asked. “Filipino,” I answered. “What’s that?” he responded.

After sharing this anecdote with my friend, she apologized for that experience. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

At the time, the apology felt forced. More like something she thought she should say and not what she truly felt. I have been bothered by that exchange since that day. Not deeply bothered, but more of a back of my mind sort of irritation.

I recently figured out what bothered me about it, beyond the obvious seeming lack of sincerity. The apology in that situation was a power move. My friend assumed the position that she could ease whatever discomfort she assumed I felt. I hadn’t really felt uncomfortable about the exchange from my youth. I was more amazed that someone wouldn’t know something I thought was so obvious.

It appears my friend thought she had the power to heal the wounds produced by an unknown third party. But I had no wounds to heal. I had a lot of lessons to teach, but no wounds to heal. The lack of awareness of something so large as country just meant people had much to learn.

It was the power of privilege that led my friend to believe her being sorry could somehow be the salve that allows me enlightenment. Privilege that gives someone the power to repair a wrong not done by them.

I didn’t need my friends apology. What I needed was for my friend to see that sometimes ignorance isn’t met with vulnerability. Sometimes it is met with the want to move the ignorance into awareness. Better for her to have said, “I hear you.”