A note before we start, this episode contains offensive language including racial slurs.

From the New York Times, I'm Charles Duheg, and this is Change Agent. Our caller this week would like to remain anonymous, so we'll call him M.

So like a few weeks ago I was in a car with a couple of my friends at a red light and they were talking about this car that we're sitting next to and there was a black family in there and my friends just

started like just doubting off like oh I bet they have these kids to get more government checked.

I look at this fucking nkher family.

Whoa. Like literally, that's what they said.

Wow. And it just, it made me really uncomfortable.

These are two friends of yours?

Uh, yeah.

I mean, one of them is definitely a friend.

The other one's friend of a friend kind of thing.

But, uh, but, uh, but the one who's definitely a friend.

What did you say to him when he said that? I was just like, I was just like, why do you feel I need to say that? That's like not funny at all.

And what did he say? Did he apologize or what did he say? And what did he say?

He's like, I was joking, blah, blah, blah.

And it's like, it's like I'm the, I'm the jerk for staying that's not okay to stay, basically.

M is a young guy in his early 20s, and he just recently graduated from college and moved to a new city to take a job.

We talked on the phone for a while and he told me he's pretty shy and he has trouble making friends.

I'm not that good at social stuff and it's very easy to just kind of find yourself isolated.

But pretty quickly after moving to the city,

M meets this one guy and they really hit it off.

He's much more of an extroverted guy,

...