Had an interesting super candid conversation with a White friend today.
She expressed that its hard to make friends with black women and that she's tried.
Now she's my friend but I'll say this: I have been historically treated very well by White women. I've been singled out as the "exceptional negro" all my life. I, of course, did not realize this until I was an adult but I was the Black kid that they all pointed at and said "that one is the good one." I was highly academically gifted, I played the piano, and I befriended the special needs kids.
I was good.
And as a result, White women have loved me. I had great White teachers that let me lead and succeed. I have a White best friend and White godchildren. I didn't have a reason to mistrust White women. Not until this election at least but I digress.
I had to enlighten my friend that getting to know a Black woman and becoming her friend won't always be like getting to know me and being my friend.
First, grad school is a unique microcosm of life. It puts really exceptional people into a small space where they spend all their time pursuing theoretical understanding and pushing the frontiers of knowledge forward. Its just weird. Ivory Towers have allowed me to move in circles and have influence in ways your average 25 year old Black girl never could any where else.
Intelligence was our currency and funding was street cred.
I had both.
Now about a White woman befriending a Black woman....
Most Black women have been wronged by a White woman. A White woman suspended a Black child in her school unnecessarily or handed down unfair punishment, they got snubbed for a job that was given to a less qualified White woman who didn't raise her voice and acknowledge the injustice or simply didn't say anything when the person at the Chipotle assumed the White woman was first in line when both she and the Black woman know that the Black woman was there first. White women have historically participated in the discrimination against and oppression of Black women. White women weren't innocent bystanders not knowing what their husbands were doing to the slaves. They knew their husbands were raping Black female slaves, fathering children with them, and selling their own offspring.
They knew.
They didn't care.
White women have asked Black women to put down our Blackness time and time again on behalf of feminism.
We're all women you said.
Where the HELL was that when a WHITE WOMAN was running for President?
Oh....now you're White?
Now its race above gender?
And you're wondering why we Black women weren't quick to put down our Blackness for your White feminist movement. Its because White women have shown time and time again that they will keep you around or use you for whatever they need you for and then when you are no longer useful, their friendship/kindness/civility are no longer guaranteed towards you.
So yes, getting to know your average Black woman as a White woman will be difficult. White women have a history of being awful to Black women. You use us all the while pretending to be our friend and abuse us when we are no longer of use to you.
Hell yea, Black women are suspicious of a White woman trying to be their friend.
White women are wolves in sheep's clothing until proven otherwise. Don't agree? Scroll back up to that part about slavery.
Yea....y'all were trash historically.
And so we put up walls.
We don't let you get close.
We don't want to hang out after work.
We have friends.
We have social networks that don't include you and that you won't be invited into unless you meet very specific criteria.
And what's that criteria? Well my best friend is White. She's been my best friend since we were 13. I still remember the first time I called her on the phone. She's white and so is her husband. And when I had my PhD graduation party at my Black church, Shannon moved her own Sunday schedule at her church where she is the children's choir director, to come to my Black church for my party. They were the only White people there. If you're willing to come into a space where you're the only White people there AND there is no hesitation on your part to being in such a space, Congratulations. You're actually eligible to be friends with a Black person. Inviting non-Black people to Black churches is rare so that means that this Black person who has invited you into a sacred space in Black life trusts you.
Now being eligible doesn't make you my friend. We then have to go through some things. We have to experience life together and I have to know that you're really in this with me. And for me and Shannon, band facilitated that bond. Band trips, band practices, youth symphony, nights spent in Shannon's basement, her parents picking me up from concerts and buying me flowers too because my parents didn't come to see me perform: Yea that's the foundation upon which my best friendship with Shannon is based.
Then you add getting pregnant on your honeymoon, coparenting when her husband had a crazy schedule and I could drive across the state to spend weekends with her, painting her kitchen and den, dealing with her anxiety, dealing with my suicidal thoughts and emotional breakdown after not getting into med school, her threatening to tell my parents I was suicidal, a second baby planned around my schedule, financial stress, her husband going back to school to try and get rid of financial stress, and guilt over not having been there when I was coparenting with his wife <--She's my ride or die White girl.
We've been through things.
But as an adult, there's nothing there. There's no initial structure on which to build. There's no history of shared experiences that allows you to be vulnerable or open with this person. So if you want to be my friend, you're going to have to jump through some hoops to show me you aren't what ALL THE DATA says you are. You're going to have to demonstrate to me that you aren't White above all. You're going to have to show me your humanity over and over again until I believe you.
And if you're not willing to do that, that's cool.
We don't need to be friends.
Remember what I said about having my own social network and friends?
Yea, I've still got them. <---The attitude of your average Black woman.
How do I know that when I have a white bestie?
Because I'm still your average Black woman who happens to have had an upbringing that created the opportunity for me to have a White bestie. My sister was popular in high school. She re-integrated the cheerleading squad. And is she friends with any of those White kids she was running around with? Nope. She doesn't have a single White friend from high school or work.
Y'all don't want to do the work and that's fine. Black people honestly aren't looking to make friends at work. But don't act like the difficulties associated with trying to be friends with Black women are our fault. You fucked this up a long time ago and you'll have to prove you're human over White many times before we'll let you in.
Let me say this though?
Its worth it.
We are the most loyal of people you'll ever come across. I've actually thought about how when I have kids and I have to travel for work, I'll send my kids to Shannon's and pay her to watch them just so I can have an excuse to help her financially because of how much money I'll be making that she'll never have the opportunity to make.
Yea...we're those kind of people.
You want to be our friend.
I hope you can persevere long enough to make that happen for yourself.
It'll change your life.
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