This reminds of the heartbreaking scene in Isabel Wilkerson's Caste where she recounts showing up to a Chicago store to interview the owner for an NYT story and he insists he can't speak with her because he's waiting for a reporter. She says she's the reporter and he simply refuses to believe it. After the man proves astonishingly stubborn in insisting she can't be the reporter (even though no one else is showing up), Wilkerson leaves.

After recounting this episode, Wilkerson explains why she won't name the person or the store: not for the sake of kindness, but because doing so would give the rest of America the opportunity to talk about how horrible that person/business are instead of looking in the mirror and realizing it could've been anyone...

I'd never thought of it this way before. I'd kept waiting for her to say who the person was.