The perp in this case was obviously a mentally ill individual.
The author actually tips her hand by repeating in different ways that the offenses didn’t even “register” with her at first. In other words, it was not normal behavior for a young white male in Starbucks to throw “liquids” at someone, or use the disgusting racial epithets described.
In fact, the events described were so unusual that the author’s first reactions were of disbelief.
If racism were so all-pervasive and common in our society, she would have come to expect this sort of thing on a daily basis.
Anyway, that is what I gleaned from this article. Just My Humble opinion.
As somebody who grew up in the sixties, and who was actively involved in the Civil Rights Movement even as a teenager, I can truthfully say that I had observed racism in America nearly eradicated up to 2008, and then increase exponentially as the current occupants of the White House have turned the clock back 50 years with their baiting and evil rhetoric. (sigh)
Even worse! The author was a thin-skinned MALE!
I was so sure it was a female from all the whining that was going on.
FTR...I’m a woman!)