The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person

by Frederick Joseph

As I write this, you are still too young to understand that to be Black in America is to be left with two options: either you pretend oppression isn’t happening or you fight back. I say pretend because there is no way that any Black person who is born in this house, which is on fire, and always has been, doesn’t come to realize that smoke is filling their lungs.

The feeling that your life may potentially be lost at any moment to a virus is a frightening one, though it’s not much different from the feeling of any Black person who fears they may never see their loved ones again whenever they step outside. Not because accidents happen to Black people but rather because hatred happens to Black people.

Black people and people of color are taught in school, in the media, and in everyday interactions to be empathetic and understanding of white people and their history. But most white people never have to do the same for us.

You can’t tell me that you don’t see my Blackness when you have to see my Blackness to even make the statement. The statement contradicts itself.

I’ve come to realize that a fear of accountability is why white people say things like “I don’t see color” and “Why does everything have to be about race?” Because to see my color, to see my culture, to see my race, would also mean taking responsibility for how white people have historically treated people my color, with my culture, from my race.

But when somebody says, “Oh, I’m color-blind,” that also means they’re purposely being blind to the things that affect me as a person of color.

In my opinion, the idea of being color-blind and of trying to steer conversations away from race are the most manipulative and powerful tools of racism.

Around the world, the foundation of what’s “normal” typically stretches only as far as the people and cultures in front of someone, and in most places, the people and cultures in front of someone are their mirror images.

We need to do away with the idea of “normal,” especially when it’s used as a stand-in for “mainstream” (whether that’s white or anything else seen as such). Because at the heart of this difference between normal and abnormal is the belief that these so-called normal things are neutral.

Each one of us comes from our own rich culture of food, music, and clothing, and also of triumph and struggle. Often our cultures are difficult to explain, even for the people who belong to them. What makes a culture special is that it’s not just yours; it belongs to a community of people. Your people—people who typically share an understanding of your culture and acknowledge not only the positive aspects of it but the negative, too.

Still not sure you know the difference between “appropriation” and “appreciation”? Here are some questions to ask yourself that might shed light on the distinction: Who is selling the thing I want to buy? Who gets paid if I buy it? If the money isn’t going to the people whose culture is being represented, walk away. Is the thing I want to wear used in specific ceremonies or rituals? If so, say no! Is the thing I want to wear or buy associated with negative cultural stereotypes? Do your research! Have people from within the community spoken out against white people wearing or buying the thing I want to wear or buy? I repeat: Do your research! If you’re reading this book because you truly want to be a better white person, then consider that sometimes that might mean deciding not to do or wear or say or buy something because there’s a chance doing so might hurt someone.

No one would be comfortable being racist around someone who truly stands against racism, because they would know there’d be consequences.

No one would be comfortable being racist around someone who truly stands against racism. If you still have racist friends in your life, you aren’t truly standing against racism.

This lack of interaction can build preconceived notions about groups of people you rarely or never deal with, from both sides. The difference is that, as Joel said, there are often power dynamics involved.

For many white people, their views of a person of color may be based on what they’ve seen on a show, or in a movie, or on the news, as we’ve discussed. But for some people of color, our first and only interactions with white people are with people in power, such as educators and law enforcement.

As with my story at the concert, many white people don’t have to think about the repercussions of their actions in the same way that people of color do, or sometimes at all. This is the very definition of white privilege. At best, this privilege makes them feel free to do what others can’t do and, at worst, to do things that disrespect or oppress others.

Our experience with white power structures and white power dynamics and supremacy is very different [from white people’s experience with those things]. Because we have to question

everything before we do it; we’ve had to study white people forever. The reason we know them so well is because we had to. It was part of our survival. Whereas they don’t have to know us or respect us.

Having the ability to survive without having to know or develop a level of respect for groups of people is part of the legacy of ...

If I’m being honest with you, white people don’t have to change; they will be fine without doing so. But white people should change, because just being fine shouldn’t be good enough.

And once they learn how everybody’s experiences are interconnected—and I guess it’s kind of the differences that I don’t think they see the beauty in. Again, we are definitely all different, and that’s fine, and that’s okay, but those differences are actually quite interconnected, and maybe if they understood that part of it, they wouldn’t always think of learning about race or talking about race as something that was automatically supposed to be divisive. Quite the opposite; it’s actually supposed to bring us all together, despite the crowd constantly bellowing that the real racists are the people who talk about race.

White women have not only been let off scot-free, they are heralded for their innate goodness. For being NICE.

In one way or another, we all have some type of privilege or power in relation to someone else, but most of us aren’t reflecting on that. Most of us aren’t thinking about how we may be hurting someone else, how we may be ignoring someone else, how we may be oppressing someone else. It’s a difficult conversation because it requires us not only to treat others better but to hold ourselves accountable. It’s hard to see the role we play in someone else’s struggle while we are busy fighting for ourselves or our people. But we have to learn to see with new eyes, hear with new ears, and find new ways to trust other people’s words when they tell us and show us how we’re hurting them. Because doing the right thing sometimes means putting the pain of others before our own, especially if we are part of creating it.

White savior moments also fail to account for the fact that opportunities for white people to “help” typically only exist because systems and acts of white supremacy created these conditions of inequality.