What’s race between friends?

Some people would have ended the relationship there, I know. But I knew Mona as a friend who had always been generous, supportive and good to me. Her recent comments didn’t square with the person I had known for years–the good liberal who had a guru and took annual treks to commune with nature in the mountains. We spoke sporadically over the following months, then it ended with one last phone call. We were speaking on the run, as long-distance friends often do. I was in the drive-thru at the neighborhood Dairy Queen and Mona was running some errand hundreds of miles away, annoyed she said by D.C.’s celebration of “fucking” Emancipation Day, a commemoration of the day the city’s slaves were freed. “Everything is closed. It’s ridiculous!” She said. “Between this, the Duke case and Don Imus, I’m getting really sick of this shit.” I didn’t have to ask what shit that was.

I ended that conversation quickly and I haven’t spoken with Mona since, though she has left a few messages. I just let the figurative and literal distance grow between us. I feel like a coward for not confronting her and telling her why we can’t be friends. Maybe she agrees. Maybe she was finding our discussions about race difficult and frustrating. I never asked. I feel guilty, like I betrayed people of color by not getting angry, not slamming the phone down at the first sign of my friend’s prejudice, not immediately thinking Mona was a bad person–a racist. But what would that have solved? I am old enough to know that a lot of good people have screwed up beliefs about other races. You don’t educate people and change minds by walking away. But I did walk away. It’s just easier not to talk about race, isn’t it?

I don’t hate Mona. In fact, as I write this, I feel a little protective, like I’ve painted her too negatively. In addition to doing the things that ended our friendship, Mona wrangled the photographer at my wedding, listened to me kvetch and moan when corporate life got to me, stayed on the phone with me during a late night hysterical drive from Chicago to Atlanta (don’t ask), called herself my husband’s “football wife” because she likes to talk about the NFL as much as he does. She did a lot of good things. And I miss her. I tried to understand her. I tried to educate her. I just couldn’t accept feeling that someone who was dear to me held my people in disdain, even as she called me friend.

I wish race weren’t so damned complicated.

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