Relationships with white people can be difficult when you’re Black.
Case in point: A couple of years ago, I had a crush on this white guy I volunteered with at a nursing home. Once our day at the facility was through, we went out for a late lunch/early dinner at a nearby restaurant. The time flew by. It stopped when he uttered these sentences:
“I’m a libertarian. And I voted for Trump.”
That was a non-starter for me. I didn’t have the luxury to entertain a relationship with someone who voted for a bigot because it was a matter of life and death. “I don’t think we’re gonna work out,” I said. “I can’t be with someone who supports a bigot.”
The guy then proceeded to claim that I was the one who was racist and that President Obama was the one who nearly destroyed the country.
I got up and walked out of the restaurant. And haven’t seen him since.
Navigating Friendships While Black
I pride myself on doing that now, but I don’t think I would have done the same when I was a teenager. As someone reared in a predominantly white community, I learned very early in life how to shrink myself in order to survive in an environment hostile to those who looked like me. Because there weren’t many children who looked like me in the area, as a child, all my friends were white.
As a naturally shy, introverted kid, I did not fit the stereotype of the loud, aggressive Black girl that white neighbors or white classmates had of me. Since I didn’t threaten them, they figured they could say lowkey racist things around me as I wouldn’t object. I shrugged off their comments about Black welfare queens and Black predators. I tolerated their treatment of me as an exotic zoo animal by allowing their unwelcome hands in my hair. I was called a “good Black” several times during childhood.
Being reared in an environment where whiteness was the standard, it’s no surprise that I rejected everything Black about me. Everything about my existence was ugly. My kinky hair was an uncontrolled mess compared to the tamed, straight hair of my white friends. I remember not being allowed to stay out as late as my white friends or not being allowed to go to certain places with them, such as the beach. I resented that my Blackness prevented me from not having the same freedom to move about my environment as my white friends did. During childhood and adolescence, I didn’t understand that what I perceived as my parent’s overprotectiveness was their attempt to shield me from the harm that came with existing while Black.
I didn’t understand that being one of the “good Blacks” wasn’t a compliment until I reached adulthood. It took a while for me to learn that anyone who disparages an entire group of people while building me up as an exception really didn’t think all that well of me either. White friends referring to me as a “good Black” implied that all positive traits like intelligence and poise are rarities in the general Black population and ended up tokenizing me. My presence among my white friend groups was only a performative effort on their part to be inclusive. Their interactions with me proved that they “couldn’t be racist.”
Embracing My Blackness
By my thirties, I grew tired of being the token Black friend and began to unpack the anti-blackness that hampered my relationships with other Black women. Initially, it was difficult to accept that white supremacy taught me to hate myself as well as other Black people. However, once I started accepting myself and rejected whiteness, my relationships with other Black women improved.
Interestingly, increasing my Black friend circle caused me to behave differently among different friend groups at first. Among Black friends, I waved my social justice flag. Black Lives Mattered all day, every day around them. However, I muted my politics as well as my Black culture among white friends. I didn’t discuss race with them because I figured it would make them uncomfortable. They felt that since we elected a Black President, we lived in a post-racial world. What more could I possibly want?
The subsequent election of Donald Trump in 2016 forced me into a racial reckoning. I realized that I repeated the same patterns among white friends in adulthood as I had in childhood by being as meek and non-threatening as possible. Denying a part of myself around white friends meant that I wasn’t authentic. I wasn’t my true self.
Additionally, I suspected that my friendships with whites over the course of my life had a covert or overt power imbalance. Friendship is egalitarian in nature. However, since the message that white supremacy imparts is that whites are superior to Black people, undoubtedly, any white friend of mine is going to subconsciously or consciously believe that they are better than me. How can a connection based on vulnerability or sharing thrive amid such an unequal footing?
The only way that my relationships among white friends could be more satisfying was to stop compartmentalizing a major part of myself. Being governed by a President who openly despised my people didn’t allow me the latitude to keep pretending that my race didn’t matter among those who didn’t look like me. Frankly, since many white people voted for that demagogue, I didn’t feel they could be trusted.
I gradually began voicing my opinion on racial matters to white friends as well as sharing aspects of my culture with them. Those who got defensive or obtuse were cut off and deemed untrustworthy. While those who remain still fuck up every now and then, I know that their missteps don’t come from hatred. It stems from the relentless anti-blackness that white supremacy surrounds them with.
Any white person I befriend today needs to understand that I won’t hide my Blackness. It won’t be locked in a closet so they’ll feel comfortable. I won’t give opinions that Black Lives Matter is a terrorist organization a pass. I won’t stay silent when they spout microaggressions such as me “speaking so well (translation: for a Black person).” They are taking ALL of me. They need to appreciate my brown skin that glistens in the sun, my hair that coils and defies gravity. They need to know that if they can stand with me in a bar, they need to kneel with me when I march for equity for my people.
I’m still proud of my middle-aged self for walking out on that Trump-supporting ass because I refused to compartmentalize my Blackness for the sake of companionship. Losing a sense of myself would have been a worse fate than hurting the feelings of someone who probably felt I was beneath him.
©Vena Moore 2022
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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