Growing up there were virtually no people of color in my universe. We did not speak about race and I don't recall ever hearing an overtly racist statement. Race simply did not exist for me. It wasn't until I was 22 and working at a big, progressive law firm in NYC that I made friends who weren't white.
But Even then I still didn't think about race and that the reality of my new friends was different than mine. They were my friends not my educators and they never called me on my own inadvertent insensitivities which I now know existed. It was really when I started talking with my friends back home that I started to become aware of things. Friends who had never (whether intentionally or not) stepped outside of our childhood bubble would make casually racist statements and I would be caught flat-footed, unable to respond.
Comments about how someone looked 'Un-American", how affirmative action was wrong, how if people didn't want to not get shot maybe they shouldn't commit a felony. They would shrug off discrimination with excuses why it wasn't their problem and why it wasn't real anyway. I was in a bar with a friend and a drunk guy came over and said the reason he liked hanging out in our town was because there were only white people there. By hearing my white friends speak about non-whites, I became aware of my own words, and my own insensitivity. I learned to watch myself and think of why I said things and how what I said might be viewed by others. I learned that when things made me uncomfortable, that was a sign that I should pay attention.
I told some friends that I didn't have a black friend before I was 22 and one of them said, 'so? I've never had a black friend...what does it matter?' Too many of my friends have this attitude. They have no idea why this is a problem, how it narrows and blights their world, they had no interest in changing it for themselves or for their children.
Why would you want to only be friends with people who looked like you? This is America, one of the most diverse nations in the world. What kind of example does this set for your kids? What kind of world is this creating as we try and move forward?
The onus to change this is on white people. Surveys have been done that show that minorities typically have white friends, whereas a lot of white people don't have any minority friends. But please don't go out there looking for some token black friend, put yourself in a position to hear their voices and get to know people who don't look like yourself. If you are open, friendships will come in time.
In my opinion, there is no greater disservice we do to our country than self segregation. If everyone worked to overcome the walls we have built between us It would go a long way to healing our county. Not knowing people who are different than yourself makes it way too easy to not understand where someone else is coming from.
I try and repost the things my black friends are posting, hoping to reach my white friends, but I'm afraid I am often discounted as someone who is simply suffering from some misplaced sense of guilt over the color of my skin. Well perhaps I am, but not in the way they think. Perhaps I feel guilt about the color of my skin in that it makes me affiliated with those who would judge someone for not being white. Perhaps I feel guilty about the color of my skin because it means that people will make comments about black people in front of me assuming I think and feel like them. They will speak to me their truth in a way they would never do if a Person of color was present. And there have been times when these words have shocked me so much that I have not known how to respond so I have said nothing and let those words go by unchallenged. And maybe that is where my guilt in the color of my skin lies.
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