Glamour wants to know if you have friends of other races

by Carmen Van Kerckhove

The October issue of Glamour magazine, on newsstands now, has a feature story on race and friendship among women. Read the PDF here.

It’s the second in a series of conversations the magazine has been hosting about race, at least partially in response to the controversy last November surrounding a beauty editor’s alleged remarks about black hair styles being “political.” The first installment was about race and beauty, and we gave it a luke-warm review here on Racialicious.

This article is a rehash of a discussion panel I participated in back in May at the Conde Nast headquarters. The audience was made up of Glamour staff, as well as an ethnically diverse group of media, fashion, semi-socialitey types.

Sidenote: I have newfound respect for fashion models after doing the shoot for this article. See that photo where the three of us seem oh so relaxed and casual? Um… in reality we were each perched on a narrow wooden crate, and I was literally straddling Aisha Tyler. Seriously, my crotch was like, all up on her hip, my boob on her arm, and my face on her shoulder. Sooooo… awkward. Especially considering I had met her just an hour earlier.

Anyway, back to the article.

I walked away from the discussion panel in May pleasantly surprised. The discussion was really substantive, and people were not at all shy about exploring topics one wouldn’t ordinarily associate with Glamour magazine. I mean, we talked about white privilege and white supremacy (yes, in those words), about feeling like the token, about being asked to represent your entire race, about feeling used, about feelings of rejection, etc. Not only were the panelists refreshingly forthright, but some of the greatest nuggets actually came from the audience members.

Does the article reflect the depth of that conversation? Unfortunately, no. But I guess that’s what happens when you’re forced to boil down what would have been 20-30 pages worth of text into just a few.

Still, I’m impressed that Glamour is hosting these conversations on race, and doing it in an intelligent manner that does not talk down to the reader. Let’s not forget how mass this magazine is — they’re Cosmo’s no. 1 competitor, with a circulation of over 2 million. That’s a hell of a platform, and I hope it will spark some authentic conversations about race among their readers.

Interestingly enough, the question we kept coming back to during the panel was this: How do you define friendship? Who’s a friend and who’s just an acquaintance? I’m the type who only considers a handful of people in my life to be genuine friends, but other folks have much looser definitions of friendship.

What about you? Do you have friends (real, genuine friends) of other races? If you do, what are some of the challenges to interracial friendship? What are some of the rewards? If you don’t have friends of other races, why not?

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Comments

ieishah wrote:

oh, i’ve been dealing with this since i switched from an all black public school to a predominantly white private one in the 7th grade. one girl we’ll call gwen, invited me to her bat mitzvah. when i asked why she didn’t invite my homegirl latoya, she said something like, ‘well, you’re not like latoya . . . you’re, well, not so black.’ now what do you say to this? i’d already had 12 good years under my belt of being black. wtf was she talking about?

i kept hanging out with toya everyday. i kept going to bar mitzvahs, (with and without her). eventually, everyone recognized gwen for the evil twit she was, and she became so ‘unpopular’ she had to change schools.

i’ve become more adept at dealing with this kind of thing as i’ve grown up, and changed countries with the same regularity with which i change my drawers. okay. that may have been tmi, but i still have to ask myself the question, should i disown this person, who i genuinely like, because they are completely ignorant about race?

on my blog i have a post called ‘on blondeness’ about my belgian friend who keeps saying, ‘if you’re blonde, you can get what you want.’ when i first moved to barcelona, we became fast friends. i had just moved here from belgium, and we had a lot in common. both tall, multilingual globetrotters who loved working with kids. but she could not understand that this life-as-a-blonde-is-better thing was just too aryan/3rd reich for me. not to mention, completely unsupported by daily life, because i’m clearly the cuter and more popular of the two of us . . . just playin, but kind of not . . .

in the end, i had to distance myself from someone i otherwise really liked.

these kinds of things happen all of the time with black females of other cultures as well. in america, most of my close, close friends are black females. abroad, i find that there’s a chasm just as big, between myself and black females from other cultures.

i work with a woman originally from equatorial guinea. every time someone comments on my dreads, which is often, she finds a way to work into the conversation that she and i are rastas. um, she has extensions. i have dread locs. between the two a great gulf divides. her instance on ignoring this fact makes me want to club her. and every time it comes up (really, at least weekly) i wonder if she really doesn’t know the difference, or if she’s pulling a fast one. and given how serious an issue hair is for black women, this breeds mistrust between us and it’s difficult to really befriend her.

both interracial and intercultural friendship are very difficult, involving really complicated matrices of history, personality, trust, beauty issues and hair products. the most important probably, is communication.

how can i get my colleague to stop calling herself a rasta, wrongly appropriating both a culture and a hairstyle? how can i get belgian girl thru her statements she is clinging to white supremacy? if i can find solutions, i can gain 2 more real friends. if not, that’s 2 more for the aquaintance category.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 12:46 pm ¶
Jenn wrote:

Isn’t Glamour magazine the one with the editor that said don’t hire folks who have natural hair?
They are probably just doing damage control

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 1:08 pm ¶
Brigitte wrote:

“Um… in reality we were each perched on a narrow wooden crate, and I was literally straddling Aisha Tyler. ”

You just become the envy of several of my male friends.

I’m really glad that you were a part of this discussion and am looking forward to reading the piece.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 1:09 pm ¶
Arturo wrote:

I’ve had friends of various other ethnicities since I moved to the U.S. As with any other set of relationships, some of them move along pretty well, and some of them have had issues.

In high school, I remember, it was “acceptable” for some of my whiter friends to make fun of my ethnicity, as compared to, say, our black friends’ or our Asian friends’.

Today, I’m happy to say most of my friendships are flowing better, but there’s still awkward moments: one white woman I know described a mutual black friend by saying, “he doesn’t talk like a typical black guy.” And whenever there’s something insulting to Latinos, I notice eyes shifting over toward me, silently wondering if it’s “okay” to laugh at what’s going on. But, nobody questions why I get offended when I do. It’s constant work, but I suppose you could say the same about any friendship. I hope.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 1:18 pm ¶
Liz Dwyer wrote:

Of course! I definitely have friends, not just acquaintances or work colleagues, from a different racial/ethnic backgrounds and have for my entire life. Choosing friends on the basis of what I have in common with them and whether I enjoy the person’s company has always taken precedence over skin color.

Challenges? There were the times I met a friend’s parents for the first time and the parents were obviously uncomfortable having someone with black heritage in their home. Also, because I have friends who are only second generation Americans, there have been heated conversations about society and systemic racism where I’ve had to hear, ‘My parents came here with nothing and now they have a store/are doctors/own three homes… so what’s wrong with black people?”

In both high school and college I was teased by black acquaintances for hanging out with the rainbow coalition and was told that I can “get away” with having friends from so many backgrounds because I’m biracial (black/white) and also that I’m more acceptable and less-threatening to non-black people because my skin is not dark. Now that I’m in my 30’s, I don’t hear those sorts of things as frequently.

BTW, the photo is great!

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 1:21 pm ¶
Mohammed wrote:

” How do you define friendship? ”

Thats the big question, because we all have different definitions of friendship.

Personally I have about 3 or 4 different groups of friends, with me being the one constant between the groups..meaning, some of the groups are so completely different that if they were to get together not only would it be the most boring and akward time ever, there would be a huge culture clash… so I’ve subconsciously learned to do certain things and talk about certain topics with each group… it makes things easier and to this day, there are still alot of people who are not as open to diversity or have had the life experience’s of assimilating to a couple of different cultures such as myself..

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 1:29 pm ¶
Natalie wrote:

I am a white person with a fairly broad definition of “friends,” but there is definitely a difference in what I’d call close friends. One of my closest friends is Japanese and another is a Sephardic Jew, but other than that it’s mostly other white people.

My circle of friends (meaning people I spend time with and have fun with but am not very emotionally involved with) includes several Asians and Arabs but only two black women.

I am really not sure why this is, except that I don’t do a lot of new befriending and have a lot of the same friends I’ve had since high school (I’m 26) and I’m trying to be more self-conscious about race issues and trying to keep an eye on my behavior to make sure it’s not alienating anyone, but yeah, the whiteness of my social set makes me cringe a little.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 1:48 pm ¶
Cynthia wrote:

Culture and race aren’t the same thing. I’ve always had trouble becoming close to immigrant and second generation+ Canadians who still very much adhere to old country values. I’ve always felt that they had trouble understanding me and vice versa. I don’t understand them because they seem to act more “old country” than people IN the old country, and they don’t understand me because they have trouble believing that someone who isn’t Anglo-Canadian can act so ummm.. “Canadian.”

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 1:56 pm ¶
CEdwards wrote:

My best friend of the last 22 years is white, Jewish, and blond and my bond with her goes beyond the word “sister.”

One of the reasons why it works so well is her ability to recognize racism and her natural interest in thinking and talking about race, gender, politics, etc. When she doesn’t know about something, she asks, she researchs, and vice versa.

As a black female, I’ve had my share of blatant racism and even more of the East Cost, intellectualized racism that comes from people who deem themselves “liberal”, but wouldn’t want you in their homes or on their front porch (true). When I tell her about these things, she doesn’t tell me necessarily that she understands or relates, but she listens, takes it in, and recognizes my hurt and pain. When she knows I want to talk about it, she doens’t hold back in fear of hurting me – she speaks her mind. It isn’t always easy, but that’s when true friendship overrides.

My boyfriend, who is white and from Cape Cod (home of homegenity) is still learning about racism and bigotry through being with me. He is still “working it out”, trying to believe that racism is more than a slur or a bashing, that it can be the lack of representation in media or in the workplace, for example. I hope one day to have the same level of openess with him as I do with my best friend.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 2:11 pm ¶
drispe wrote:

As an African American, I grew accustomed to the idea that no matter how close I was with my white friends and colleagues, I’d be confronted with their ignorance at some point. It became clear that fielding questions about the safety of Harlem or explaining my hair was inevitable. Knowing the ease that whites are condemned to elitism with, my own experience makes it hard to ignore the truths of those opinions. But people can be so stupid in general, and it’s equally hard to find a kinship with people of my own ethnicity.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 2:37 pm ¶
ceecee wrote:

I have a lot of friends from different ethnicities. Personally, I’m a non-confrontational person and I find it easier not to talk about racial issues with most of my friends – it’s a been little tricky with the elections. But I’d rather learn about their cultures and have them learn about mine. It’s very interesting how similar we are culturally.

Re: ieisha
“how can i get my colleague to stop calling herself a rasta, wrongly appropriating both a culture and a hairstyle? how can i get belgian girl thru her statements she is clinging to white supremacy? if i can find solutions, i can gain 2 more real friends. if not, that’s 2 more for the acquaintance category.”

Have you ever considered that the lady from Equitorial Guinea is trying to find common ground (hair) to bond with you? I remember in the 90’s braids in Nigeria were called “Bob Marley” hairstyle. Maybe it’s still the same today in her country and Bob Marley is a self identified rasta…

I know sometimes for me it’s a little hard to get past my irritation with certain stereotypes others have of me but by pushing past some of them I’ve been able to forge some pretty good friendships. So next time she says take a deep breath and try to engage her in a friendly manner to see why she thinks that way.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 2:40 pm ¶
Big Man wrote:

My definition of a friend is pretty narrow, and I don’t have any non-black people on my list right now.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 2:58 pm ¶
miwome wrote:

I’m white, went to predominantly white private schools.

The only black girl I was really good friends with in high school came from an upper middle-class black household–both parents educated at Harvard, four kids. She definitely got the “you don’t seem black” treatment from a lot of people at school, and it was something she came to struggle with a great deal. Her parents had sheltered their family from race issues a lot (and from everything else–Disney movies weren’t allowed till the fifth grade because they were too violent), and my high school made a big point of discussing and promoting diversity. It’s definitely something that’s informed our relationship, but we both managed to approach it from a very open place oriented to understanding rather than “fixing,” and we’ve always been able to understand each other well and make each other comfortable (within the reaches of what’s possible). The one honestly terrible interaction we had was when, in a room full of our friends, I honestly forgot that she was black. I erased that part of her identity with total thoughtlessness and to this day I feel terrible about it. We were able to talk through it, and from the beginning she said that she felt I understood her well and that she wasn’t overly concerned with me–of greater concern to her was our mutual friend who tried to help me out of my hole and ended up digging her own (”You don’t seem typically black,” etc.). She and I still talk often, as we have a lot in common in terms of our interests and goals.

My group of friends now, in college, continues to be fairly homogeneous. I think in part because there’s a very large population of international students, there’s a tendency for a lot of the minorities on campus to stick together, so we end up with sayings like, “You know one Korean, you know them all”–not in the sense that they’re all the same, but they tend to hang out together and you meet a lot of them very fast. For that reason, I sometimes find myself as the only white person in a room full of Pakistanis and Indians, or Koreans, etc. by virtue of being close friends with a couple of the people there. These are great times for me; the South Asians I know happen to all be very into global economics, politics, public policy, technology, etc. and as these are big interests of mine we have some really amazing conversations. They bring a very different perspective to politics, an addiction of mine, and I’ve had some of the best discussions of my life wrt internationalism, religion in the public sphere, Islamic investing, etc with them.

My school has a big Asian population (East Asian and South Asian, primarily). I’m from Boston, and so the diversity on the campus (Asian, Jewish, African-American) is fairly familiar to me. I hear comments all the time about how many Asians or Jews there are and how weird it is–to me, that’s weird. My boyfriend mentioned that he’s been making friends with the receptionist at his work and she might be his first black friend and I almost fell right over until he reminded me that in San Diego (where he’s from) there are white people and Mexicans and that’s more or less all–at least, according to him. I do know there were two black kids in his entire, massive, public high school. That boggles me.

There’s more I could say, but I’d rather not ramble more than I already have. I’ll just end by saying that there are definitely costs in terms of effort–there can be some really difficult conversations or realizations as a result of interracial or intercultural friendships. However, I’ve always found them to be rewarding in the end–mutually so, I want to emphasize–and many of those relationships are ones I cherish the most among my friends. The idea of homogeneity like my boyfriend describes honestly weirds me out.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 3:00 pm ¶
miwome wrote:

Oops–I didn’t mean to imply that Jews, Asians, and African-Americans were the only people on campus, or for that matter in Boston. There is a ton more going on in both areas–it’s just that those are the groups whose presence white friends of mine comment on the most, and I was thinking ahead to the next couple sentences.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 3:03 pm ¶
KuriusJurge612 wrote:

I have friends of other races. They seem to be other “POC” (Latino, East Asian, South Asian).

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 3:03 pm ¶
Keren wrote:

I live in London, my three closest friends are Japanese, Bajan and White-Jewish respectively, and our friendship is incredibly strong and giving. We’ve never, ever had any issues about race or religion. I don’t know why it works-it just does. We’ve never had to think about it. Every friendship group that involves one of my acquaintances is mixed, race-wise, and as far as I know they’re all totally harmonious.

I’m Indian-Jewish, my boyfriend is Chinese- Jewish, and most of his friends are black. I think the only times both of us have felt distant from our friends has been the issue of religion, when it comes up, not race.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 3:15 pm ¶
Thea Lim wrote:

The question “do you have friends of other races?” (and I was surprised Glamour put it so bluntly!) maybe won’t get Glamour the answer they’re looking for – because how we identify ourselves and how we identify with others isn’t always race-based.

For example, I tend to feel most kinship with North Americans who have some sort of POC immigrant background, or some sort of transcultural experience. I have more in common with these folks than I do with straight-up Chinese Singaporeans (my dad’s “race”) or straight-up white English people (my mum’s “race”). I also get along easily with white folks who have recently immigrated to Canada (not from the US or England, that’s a different experience).

I have Muslim friends who tell me that they identify most with other Muslims, rather than with their ethnic group. In the same way in the workplace I’ve seen people gel over similar class/educational backgrounds, or linguistic backgrounds.

Being mixed race, all of my friendships are interracial…except maybe with Carmen! But then again Carmen’s family is Dutch (right?). Must continue scanning for exact racial match…(jk)…

So the question Glamour is trying to get at maybe isn’t as simple as “do you have friends of other races?” Maybe it’s more like “do you have friends who have different racial/cultural/linguistic/class/sexuality/gender/ability/… experiences than you?” But that question doesn’t really fit well with the layout.

PS LOL at Carmen straddling Aisha Tyler – you straddle with such grace!

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 3:26 pm ¶
A. wrote:

I have my friends of different races – and I don’t describe friends as some random Joe/Jane that I met off of the street and had all of one lengthy conversation with. I mean friends as in people that I would invite to dinner and over my house for an extended stay – and people that would do the same for me.

I have a very close friend from Japan – and we’re so close that she actually allows for me to refer to her in the -chan diminutive. My boyfriend and his family are of German heritage – He’s white. I’m good friends with his sister as well.

Another close friend of mine is from Mexico, and she’s just as sweet as pie – I’ve been friends with her since I’ve been 10. The majority of my close friends, however, are other black women, and overwhelmingly tend to be hardcore anime fans like myself.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 3:31 pm ¶
Natasha Vincent wrote:

As someone living in North America, my eyebrows raise as I wonder ‘is it even possible to live on this continent and not break bread, work and play with other cultures?’ Bible Belt dwellers excluded.

Friendship is wrapped up in all of those elements so it’s fascinating to me – as a 2nd generation Canadian who hasn’t ever harked “The Old Country” of, err, Jamaica and Grenada – that there may be people out there with a completely narrow view of the world due to lack of cultural exposure.

Not ‘may’ but ‘are’ since it would take some level of normalcy or acceptance in order for a magazine to ask such a blunt question.

In my quest to help salons and spas cater to more multicultural clients, this aspect never occurred to me.

Thanks for the constant insight, Racialicious.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 3:44 pm ¶
Cecelia wrote:

Of course I do as well! It seems like we have always been attracted to each other for many reasons like feeling singled out in the crowd in life. Just having Native heritage, people want to know more-how you were raised, how you view the outside world and how you connect with the land. I have family members and relatives as well…Black, Native American Ojibway and mixed. I love it! With the friends I have had we often talk about oppression, racism and how we are affected by it. With my family and relatives we have just enjoyed each others company and really celebrating who we all are beyond our race. Its great!

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 3:50 pm ¶
Flo wrote:

It’s interesting, I certianly have friends, true friends of other races. In high school I was part of a tight knit group of friends which consisted of: me (white, half Jewish/ Eastern European, half WASP), one Pakistani Muslim (she grew up in Pakistan until age 10), one Indian (born in America, but her parents were from India), one very Irish Catholic, one Puerto Rican Muslim (yes, you read that right Puerto Rican Muslim, she converted to Islam around the end of high school), one very white (not sure her ethnicity, but she’s got blond hair and green eyes), one half Mexican (her mom’s from Mexico, her dad’s white), and one second generation Chinese girl. At the time I had no idea how rare such a group was, we were just friends, we hung out, we talked about politics, religion, race, and gender issues, but also boys (and girls), parties, fashion, classes and everything else teenage girls discuss with their friends. I didn’t know how special that group was until I went to college (ironically a more diverse college than my high school) and realized a month in that all my friends were white, white middle class vaguely protistant, and it creeped me out. I am still friends with that group from high school, and have expanded my circle at college too. (I’m a junior) but long story short, yes, I have friends of different races, and have learned to appreciate what a gift that is.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 3:57 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:

@Thea Lim
“The question “do you have friends of other races?” (and I was surprised Glamour put it so bluntly!) maybe won’t get Glamour the answer they’re looking for – because how we identify ourselves and how we identify with others isn’t always race-based.”

Cosign!

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 3:57 pm ¶
christine wrote:

Over the years I have had many friends of all different races, but at this time I really don’t. Because I am a stay at home mom, I really only have a few friends, mostly my sister and sisters in law and their kids.

I don’t disassociate myself from others just because of race, but at this time in my life its hard to keep a friendship going with someone who is not at the same stage of life as me (ie: poopie babies and screaming toddlers). Maybe someday I’ll have a social life again!

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 3:57 pm ¶
Joanna Eng wrote:

I’m Asian and white. My close friends are all either white, Asian, or mixed (Asian/white, black/white, Asian/latino, etc.).

I grew up in a very predominantly white town, so it’s not surprising that all of my friends were white until more recently.

Now that I live in NYC, though, I get uncomfortable when I find myself in all-white circles because it seems so conspicuous.

I feel most comfortable in multiracial circles. And I am often attracted (in a friendly way) to mixed race people when I first meet them.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 4:38 pm ¶
zoe wrote:

As I’m multiracial (Chinese-Greek), I’ll have to echo Thea Lim & say that most of my friendships are interracial by default. Most of my friends are either of Asian descent or have connections to Asia, though two of my closest female friends are white (one of whom is married to a Chinese man). With both of them, I feel I can speak freely about race, and one of them is in many ways more of an anti-racist than I am. My husband, who I count as my closest friend, is also multiracial (Japanese-black-various Anglo things). Like the above poster, I feel most comfortable in multiracial circles.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 4:46 pm ¶
Arturo wrote:

One question about the shoot, Carmen: How the heck does Glamour, which I presume has a budget for stuff like chairs, put the three of you on a crate?

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 4:57 pm ¶
John Jihoon Chang wrote:

I’d say about half of my friends (including close friends) are not of primarily Asian descent. None of my circles of friends are race exclusive, but they are majority one race (Asian or white).

Frankly, it’s easier to spend time with Asian Americans (and people of other races heavily socialized with Asian Americans), because I don’t have to play race diplomat when racial friction occurs. The challenge with my non-Asian friends is that many of them make assumptions of Asians (or persons of other backgrounds) and then I have to go about dispelling stereotypes or getting into arguments about whether stereotyping is justified. It’s a little easier with white urban/sub-urban Americans, since I’ve been immersed in their culture by just living here, so at least I can understand them from the start. It’s a little more difficult with persons of other backgrounds, because then I also have to learn about their cultures and navigate my own prejudices as we go.

But, honestly, I could never live in a monoracial community. I feel like it would constrain and limit my point of view. Having friends of multiple backgrounds really does help broaden your perspective, especially in helping you to see something from a point of view that can be very different from what you’re used to. It’s taught me patience, understanding and more importantly, it’s helped to grow my heart to love not only those that are like me, but those that are different from me. And I’m willing to play race diplomat all day for rewards like those.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 4:57 pm ¶
Winn wrote:

I promise I’m not repeating CEdwards post, but there are strong similarities. I am African American and my best friend of 26 years is Caucasian. Our relationship has been like a marriage, with serious ups and downs, times in which we contemplated separating, and a renewed commitment to each other after talking things out and deciding that our relationship remains worth preserving, cherishing, and strengthening.

In recent years, as I have become much more active in anti-racist work, our relationship has been repeatedly tested. She had no problem with the idea of white privilege, but had a hard time seeing herself as a beneficiary (especially considering that financially and educationally, her family occupied a lower social strata than mine). When we first began to discuss the possibility of completing our doctoral work in the UK, she seemed upset when I expressed concerns about racial treatment and whether I would feel comfortable living in the UK (especially outside of London), and felt that I was looking for reasons not to go, rather than expressing legitimate concerns. It was one of the first times that I realized there was a big gulf in our understanding of the world, despite our commonalities, closeness, and ruthless honesty over all these years.

We have had several very serious discussions over the last six months, and this election cycle has prompted a lot of it. One of the hardest things for both of us to accept is that despite the incredible closeness we have maintained over the years, despite the fact that I believe it is possible to have a platonic soulmate and that she is mine, despite the fact that her family informally adopted me years ago and her mother calls me her daughter and her brothers call me their sister, there is still a part of my life and my experience that will remain unknowable to her, and a friendship with me gives her no free pass or special insight into POC that others don’t have. We have far more in common than we have dissimilarities, and she’s the first person I want to share my triumphs and cry over my tragedies with. I believe and hope that will sustain us, as long as we are unafraid to confront the issues that sometimes divide us, and don’t delude ourselves into thinking that we can ignore or “transcend” them.

I must confess, I don’t go to this trouble with a lot of people, and have had to leave some relationships behind with people too naive, too ignorant, too attached to their privilege, or too infuriating to bother with. We have all had that conversation about it not being our job to educate non-POC or to be a representative/tour guide to the world of POC. But on the other hand, there are some people, like my best friend’s mom, where I just have to suck it up to a certain extent. She is the sweetest, most tender-hearted and loving person, and she’s been more of a mother to me in many ways that my own mother. But she’s in her sixties, and just can’t wrap her mind around things like white privilege, the entrenchment of the one-drop rule, or why anyone would support affirmative action. I just take a deep breath, smile, and give her a hug. Sometimes, we have to seal our souls off from things we can’t fix, and just muddle through the best we can.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 5:03 pm ¶
Grandpa Dinosaur wrote:

I’ve actually been losing a lot of my White friends because having more confidence in talking about ant-racist issues. I don’t mind too much. People change or have inconsistencies (are liars, LOL) that are hard to deal with.

My teenage years were spent in a mostly White Suburb and the notion of friendship was a lot looser than I could deal with. I did my own thing, much to the chagrin of those around me and still have life-long, honest friends.

I have a tendency to look to having “real friends,” friends who are like family rather than making friends with everyone. I do classify my friends in three categories: Close Friends, Work Comrade and Acquaintance. Personally, I’m starting to make more friends overcoming the fear of losing them, it’s just that I’d rather have friends than enemies.

Davita and I are really close, but personality and background wise we are opposites. Many people are surprised that I would hang around with a Black person because they perceive me to be stuck up, traditional Cambodian girl—when I came from poor roots, as well as Davita.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 5:30 pm ¶
PureGracefulTree wrote:

I love the photo, too (and Carmen, your description of the staging was hilarious!).

I think Sandra Guzmán’s point about defining “friendship” is really important to the discussion. I can claim casual friends of different races, but those whom I’d consider to be really true, close friends are almost inevitably second-generation Asian, like myself. The experiences of straddling two cultures, of growing up with the model minority stereotype, are such a central part of what has shaped my identity that it’s hard to have a deep connection with someone who hasn’t shared them. Which is not to say that deep friendships across races are not possible, but I don’t think they happen that easily or naturally.

I loved Aisha Tyler’s comment in the article about how it’s necessary to have people around who “get you”, and yet you also need people in your life who push you out of your comfort zone.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 5:43 pm ¶
Fatemeh wrote:

As someone whose bff is not only a different race but a different religion, I really like this piece. We have two totally different categories, but the things we have in common are overwhelming.

I want to identify most with other Muslims or Iranis, but often I find it’s best to wait and see what we have in common. I find that I usually identify most with other misfits like myself, other people who feel too this and too that to really fit in with any of their “demographic categories.”

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 5:59 pm ¶
blanky wrote:

white jew, closest friends since chilhood are east asians (and a few other jews). most friendly acquaintances are latino.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 6:09 pm ¶
JC wrote:

My friends are mostly Asians (Chinese/Korean/Japanese/Indian) and a few Arabs. I have a few white female friends (very anti-racist) as well, but I feel mostly comfortable with other POC of either sex. With white people I have to “vet” them first for their racist tendencies before befriend them, so it’s much harder to get close to. I’ve found that no matter how hard I try, I can only get acquaintances out of white males, and never close friends. I’ve noticed that white guys are usually very responsive to small talks (about anything in their interest), but any deeper talk is difficult. This makes it difficult for me to really befriend them – I can’t call someone I spend some superficial time with a real friend. This is in deep contrast to some Asian countries I have visited and I was able to have deep, meaningful and even personal conversation with people, guys and gals, within ours of knowing them. Fortunate for me, I’ve found white females to befriend on that level, so I can say I white friends. I really don’t have any black friends because I really haven’t meet any in my schooling or work life. I have chatted with a few online but I don’t know if that counts.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 6:23 pm ¶
merq wrote:

Straddling Aisha Tyler? I want your life.

I too am very rigid in my use of the word “friend” as opposed to “buddy” or “acquaintance.”

I have a couple of white, a few East-Asian (more often male) and Desi (female) friends. But I have to say my friends tend to be predominantly black — primarily because most of my absolute closest friends, I’ve been tight with since high school (in Nigeria).

However, what I find really odd is that of the black friends I’ve made in New York, I can’t count 5 (or hell, three) that are African-American. It’s odd, and I wonder what exactly it is about my lifestyle, habits, etc that lead me to click far more often with other Africans and (more often) West Indians.

This is especially true about African-American males. In general, because I’m (supposedly) a good listener, I’ve always had no shortage of female friends of any race. But the odd thing is that whenever I find myself really vibing with a black male in America, something happens to reveal that he’s of either African or Caribbean descent.

It’s an odd thing, and I wonder if there’s a deeper meaning significance to it. But I’ll be damned if I start looking for someone to call “my black (American) friend.”

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 7:05 pm ¶
lxy wrote:

I see one of the members on the panel, Chelsea Peretti, is the creator of the parody website BlackPeopleLoveUs. It’s fairly funny and worth checking out.

http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com/

And wouldn’t it be interesting to have a panel asking MEN if they have friends of other races?

I mean, who wouldn’t want to hear about how men of all races bond with each other over things like sports and um … other things.

We men also want to share our deepest feelings and personal experiences about friendship too!

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 7:05 pm ¶
DollyAnn wrote:

In middle school, I had a bunch of friends of different ethnicities. I think the reason everybody hung out with me though was because I was the American white kid who was too weird to make any friends… so they kind of got stuck with me.

Anyways, one girl was from Iran (Mehrnoosh), one was from Pakiston (Maria), and the other was from the UK (Kim). I will definitely say though that my white stupidity created barriers in our friendship at times. Like, when the 2000 presidential election rolled around, I was very pro-Bush because my parents were pro-Bush. Naturally, my friends took offense to my strong (and ignorant) opinions, and some rifts resulted. All in all though, those were the buddies I could count on to help me through some of the toughest three years of my life.

Then, in high school, I only had one friend who wasn’t white. His name was Mo and he was Lebanese. He was crazy and really sexist, but I still liked him. We could talk video games together… though I’ll never understand how someone can be PSP>Nintendo DS.

Now that I’m in college though, I’m in a really small town and there’s only a few students who aren’t American/white here. I do miss the diversity of my high school and middle school.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 8:19 pm ¶
Rachel wrote:

Fascinating question. I read it this morning and thought about it during the day. Here goes…

I’m a recent college grad currently working at my college. For two years before heading to this college, I went to community college. As a Black person who grew up in a moderately diverse neighborhood, I noticed how much more diverse my community college was as opposed to the university I later attended. It was actually disappointing (or I find it moreso now) that the average student at my school was a white male. In my major of just over 100 students, I think there were only 3 other Black students (and two graduated with me).

Anywho, my best friend from college is Columbian. Other friends are all white. As of late, I’ve really found myself missing diversity as well as friends (a majority moved after graduation).

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 8:28 pm ¶
Anonymous wrote:

First, Congrats Carmen! (and I’ve always wanted to meet Aisha Tyler….)

I really hope that the person I am about to talk about doesn’t read this……..

I am a transcultural adoptee, adopted into a white family. One thing that has always bothered me is that my two older brothers do not and have never had any friends of colour. I would assume that because they have two black sisters, a biracial neice and nephew, ( and biracial cousins, too) they might ‘broaden their horizons’ but to my acknowledge, they never have and it has always bothered me ( geez I feel that I am in a therapy session). It’s like they have purposely strayed from mixing with people from other colours.

Anyway, about a year ago I had a white female friend who is very involved in the Hip-Hop entertainment scene. She primarily dates black men, and hangs out with probably more black people than I do and both of us are in the same field, both competitive and ambitious. There was a situation where an aquaintence – someone who is very well-known in the Hip-Hop industry was very rude, actually hostile towards me ( for no reason, I might add) and she basically took his side over mine, later pretending that nothing had happened and saying that she didn’t realize why I was so upset. I understood that this person would be able to help her in her career but I was really pissed off. Within seconds, I realized that as a white girl, she could make professional inroads where I, as a black girl, would never be taken seriously. I resented her and I have barely spoken to her since that.

She didn’t know, or maybe doesn’t understand the dynamics between black men and women, but at the time, I felt she was capitalzing on it to make a name for herself. I saw her as the epitome of what brothers wanted, even in a professional manner, and she made me – or at the time, I felt like – she was always going to be perceived as better than me. And despite us being friends, she used it.

I feel awful that I never had the courage to confront her and we have both gone our seperate ways. There have been many times where I have wanted to reach out to her but I realize that even though I didn’t handle the situation in a mature manner, there is no way I would ever trust her again.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 8:33 pm ¶
jvansteppes wrote:

This is so interesting to think about in terms of the friends of color I had as a kid [I'm white] and the ones I have now.
As a kid I was always puzzled by the fact that my parents, both white baby-boomer Canadians, didn’t have friends who weren’t white. I could tell that my friends who were Iranian, Filipina, Black and Chinese had a something uncomfortable to put up with that they weren’t quite sure how to articulate. Teachers talked to them differently sometimes, their parents worried about their safety at my house in a different way. I look back now and wonder all the time if my white privilege combined with young ignorance left negative impacts on them even though I know I tried to be an ally because I loved them.
At this point in my life my close friends are a mix. Most of the friends I have who are religious/spiritual are those who are Muslim and Jewish despite my catholic education, and most of my friends in general are also queer or do community work.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 8:49 pm ¶
Mylie wrote:

Of course I do. I always have. The first close friend I remember having was a girl named Maria who was Latina. In most of elementary school, my best friends were white and Jewish along with a few black people. My parents complain a lot more about me not having any friends of my race than they do about me having few friends of other races.
The person I would consider my best friend (outside of my sister) is Chinese, 1st generation. I’ve got a few other Chinese 1st generation acquaintances. One of the friends I’ve known for the longest (since kindergarten) is white. A lot of my friends are white. I also have a few black friends. A guy I’m making friends with now is from Turkey. He’s great.
It never made a differences to me. I don’t think there are any challenges or benefits exclusive to interracial friendship. It’s just friendship, same as any.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 11:03 pm ¶
babybro wrote:

I also have a similar experience as Ceedwards, except I’m a black male. I have a white female friend who is literally like my sister. She has been there for me when even my family has not. Even to the point of bringing up racial issues, she seems to fully understand what I go through and console me during my down times. I can say I’m truly lucky to have her as my big sister who has looked after me ever since I was younger.

But besides that, I live in San Diego which is a very multi-cultural community. So in essence, I probably have a good friend of every race. Like someone mention before, I personally could not stand being in a monoracial community like detroit. I always could tell something was missing in my life and it wasn’t until I had a friends of different races when I realize what was missing in my life, diversity.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 11:07 pm ¶
GeeLennox wrote:

Nope. All of my friends are black American women.

Posted 08 Sep 2008 at 11:16 pm ¶
Phil Deeze wrote:

I have always had friends of all races. Never “tried” to meet any one race over another. Just sort of hung around the people that did the same things as I did growing up.

Posted 09 Sep 2008 at 12:24 am ¶
Jandi wrote:

My closest friends are other POCs-Desi, Asian and AfAms. (I am African).

I have some close white friends but I never feel like I am my complete most honest self with them. I also feel like I am at a disadvantage with them like I do not measure up and so because of some of my feelings of inadequacy I tend not to pursue friendships with white women.

It is tough walking down the street with your blond friend and every tom, dick and black harry will toss you under a moving truck to get to her. At least when I am with other women of color nobody pays us any mind and I don’t have to confront that part of life as much.

Posted 09 Sep 2008 at 1:05 am ¶
Traveler wrote:

Most of my friends are outside my race, and have been my entire life. I am from Ghana, and I grew up in Tokyo. My friends outside of school were mostly Japanese, with some people from different countries (mostly Ghana, but some other African countries as well, as well as the odd European, North American or Asian). My friends in school were white, half-white/half Japanese, or Korean. (There was not one single other black person at my school, save 1 teacher.)

Then I moved to America, to one of the whitest suburbs. (Let me tell you, that moved sucked. Moving from one of the world’s biggest cities to Nowheresville, USA was not fun). My friends in school were almost all white. In fact, I’d say all my CLOSE friends were white until my junior year of high school.

Then in college, I had several, non-overlapping groups of friends of different races, but it wasn’t until my junior year that I became best friends with an entire group of non-white people (4 girls, 2 Indian, 2 black).

Now I’m in China, and I’d say most of my friends are probably outside of my race. It would be virtually impossible for me to not have friends outside my race because there aren’t that many black people in Shanghai and I’d be SEVERELY limiting my friendship circle.

To be honest, I have an easier time relating to other Third Culture Kids than I do to any other group of people. I mean, I have more in common with a half-Chinese//Half-French girl who grew up in Indonesia than I do with a Ghanaian who grew up in Ghana because with the former, we were both forced to live as foreigners which is completely different lifestyle than that of immigrants or that of monocultural kids.

Also, I’ve always had these ideas, but I just recently got into the anti-racist blogosphere* so I’m now just finding ways to articulate the ways all my white friends have pissed me off/insulted me in all the years that I was in America. To be honest, with the exception of a few friends I have from high school and college (who are fully aware of their white privilege and listen to me when I talk about racial issues instead of telling me I’m being overly-sensitive and genuinely want to reach equality), I’m having trouble imagining that I will meet another white person in the future and become really close friends with him/her.

*Unfortuantely, most of the anti-racist blogosphere (that I’ve come across, anyway) deals with racism in America I’m not American, so it’s difficult for me to 100% relate to everything (altho I did live there long enough that I understand most of what people are talking about).

Posted 09 Sep 2008 at 3:01 am ¶
Katie wrote:

I find myself kind of shedding white friends these days. I have been prioritizing speaking up about racism in our friendships, and, what do you know, many of them can’t handle it.

But I do find that there’s a lot more peace of mind when hanging out with friends who you DON’T have to have those conversations with…

Posted 09 Sep 2008 at 5:52 am ¶
Celeste wrote:

@lxy: LOL! that was so funny. I loved the shot of them playing hangman with the word racism, it’s sad/funny on so many levels.

Posted 09 Sep 2008 at 6:08 am ¶
Vik wrote:

I’ve always had friends of other races. I found that I had more in common with them than people of my own race. Seeing as how each race encompasses many ethnicities, we all go through different things. My best friends are Puerto Rican and Black and I’m Asian. We probably had more in common because of how we were all brought up. Also, I saw no point in developing a comfort zone within one race. People tend to stick to “their own” but with me if you were a cool person, you were a cool person, nothing else really mattered.

Posted 09 Sep 2008 at 9:58 am ¶
G. Paige wrote:

I love diversity. I am African American, I grew up and went to school in predominantly white neighborhoods. I love diversity because America is as diverse as it gets. We should all get with it

Posted 09 Sep 2008 at 10:39 am ¶
different Ali wrote:

Reading this post and comments I just realized that while I’ve often been both close friends and aquaintances with moc, I haven’t had very many women friends who weren’t white or latina (I’ve spent most of my life in a predominately latin@ city). Off the top of my head I can only think of 1, maybe 2, (non-latina) woc who I’ve been more than just casual buddies with.

Like Merq I’m not going to go looking for specific people to be friends with like I have a checklist or something, but I will have to keep this in mind when I start venturing outside again and meeting people (moving sucks) and make sure I’m not giving myself blinders.

Posted 09 Sep 2008 at 11:23 am ¶
thesciencegirl wrote:

I have many close friends of other races. I am black&white, and my friendships have gotten more diverse throughout my life (as I move to more diverse areas). I grew up in a very white (and racist) rural town in Maryland. My close friends from middle&high school were almost exclusively white (that’s who was in my honors classes), and a couple of them are still my closest friends today; in fact, my best friend is a white woman who loves traipsing around the country, studying birds; she grew up 5 miles from me and I think she’s just the coolest person on the planet. My friends in college were more of a mixed bag; my best friend from college is a white Jewish woman, and I also had other friends who were white, half korean/half white, and black. I made my first real black friend in college. I live in Chicago now, and my best friends here are a white male, a black woman, a white woman, and a half filipino/half white woman. They are my close confidantes, but other people who I spend time with, love, and consider friends include people who are Indian (a couple) and white (several), and my broader social circle includes a vast variety from Persian to Pakistani to Latina. Some are from other countries originally. I met most of my Chicago friends through med school, which accounts largely for the diversity of my friendships. One thing that I have really enjoyed is the connection I’ve felt with friends who could relate to my experiences as a woman of color, even when our circumstances are different. This sharing of experiences is central to my friendship with my Jewish friend from college, and is integral to my friendships with my black and mixed race girlfriends here in Chicago. The white people I’m close friends with are my friends because they are unafraid when I bring up race and prejudice, and they hear me out, and they love me as a person, without insisting on being “colorblind.” Some of my friends don’t always understand my experiences as a woman, or as a woman of color, or as a serious Christian, but they are always willing to hear my perspective. I love having friends who broaden my worldview, and this diversity of friendships extends to religious diversity, and (to a somewhat lesser extent) economic diversity.

Posted 09 Sep 2008 at 12:14 pm ¶
nat, london wrote:

I’m a black Brit and 95% of my firends are white Brits. I do wonder why its panned out this way sometimes but most of the time I don’t care as we have a good time and they’re there for me when I need them and visa versa.

Posted 09 Sep 2008 at 12:28 pm ¶
Mohammed wrote:

I read pretty much all of the comments and was impressed with the wide range of diversity of the friends and what I found most interesting was that quite a few people found it more comfortable being around other POC’s… I responded earlier but I did not actually follow directions and talk about the racial/ethnic background of my own friends, lol…

I’m a first generation american kid..my parents are from sudan…so maybe like most of yall who are also 1st generation, I’ve always had my ethnic friends and my non-ethnic friends.. my ethnic friends were mostly sudanese or muslim or a combo of both… but then my non-ethnic friends were everybody else.. As a kid, I grew up in a diverse environment so i had friends of all races and ethnicity. And now that I think about it, all those friends were also 1st generation or still had ties to the their culture…. Even my black & white friends… they were all some type of ” – american”… jamaican-american, italian-american, polish-american, trinidian-american, dominican-american, etc…. So we all had that same common ground…

But then later in life, my family moved to a predominately white part of the country where most people where just plain ol’ white and had no ties to their ethnic background… it was a big culture shock to me… I no longer had friends who shared any commonalities.. so I went through those years pretty much not trying to make any real close friends, just acquaintances… because it was hard to find someone who could relate to how I saw the world…

then when it was time to go to college, I chose to go to a big university with a huge student population and was able to meet more people like myself and made friends, finally feeling at peace… Plus I also made a conscious effort to give people who were different than myself a chance instead of just assuming they wouldn’t get who I was… I still dont have alot of close white-american friends but I’m trying not be as judgmental and give everybody a chance regardless of their background…

Posted 09 Sep 2008 at 1:14 pm ¶
Mogs wrote:

my friends are usually a mirror of my environment… my high school was majority Asian, so most of my friends were Asian, with a sprinkling of people from all other races… now I’m attending a really white college so most of my friends are white, again with a liberal sprinkling of people of other races… my guess is wherever i live and work, my friendships would more or less follow the local demographics…

Posted 09 Sep 2008 at 1:53 pm ¶
jasmine wrote:

I’m 18…I went to a predominately white high school so all my closest friends were white (except for one who, while in my circle of friends was *far* from being my bestie — a Trinidadian (dad)/Mexican (m0m) girl [with a white stepmother] and was ashamed to be a person of color).

Now, I go to Howard University, I only talk regularly with one of my friends from high school, so she is the only non-POC friend of mine. I actually prefer POC friends (at least in this time of my life), because too many times in high school were there awkward moments when my friends would say something without thinking, and the ignorance was just off the charts. I just feel more comfortable with my friends who are POC.

Posted 09 Sep 2008 at 2:12 pm ¶
minke wrote:

I’m a female Slavic immigrant to the w. coast of Canada. I’m 22 and have lived in Canada for 12 years.

I went to a high school that was 80-90% Asian (Chinese, Korean, Indian, Indonesian, Philipino, etc.), thus most of my friends and acquiantances are Asian also. My best friend of the past 6 years is a Taiwanese guy.

The friend I’ve known and had for the longest time (though not really my most intimate friend any longer) is a girl from the same country as me; it’s easier to be friends with someone truly intimately when our parents can also be friends without a language barrier. My boyfriend is also an immigrant from the same country, for the same reason.

I’ve had very few lasting friendships with North American-born white people. I find the values of people with immigrant parents from any country, or people who are immigrants themselves to be much closer to the values and experiences of my family and myself. I dated a Canadian white guy and never really knew how to behave at his family dinners (eating salad BEFORE the meal was absolutely foreign to me). I think the conversation flowed more naturally and easily between my middle-aged black Carribean driving instructor and myself than between myself and my white non-immigrant friends’ middle-aged parents.

When I hang out with my non-white friends, I don’t really think about being the “token” white girl. Race is neither an issue nor a non-issue; it’s just a fact. We joke about it sometimes, but it isn’t the main theme of our humour; we explain cultural differences to each other when that is needed for another story to make sense; and we discuss sexy men/women of every race. Our friendship isn’t “because of” or “inspite of” race, it just is.

Posted 09 Sep 2008 at 2:29 pm ¶
brownstocking wrote:

So I’m actually trying to figure out how to expand my group of white friends and conservative friends. I like diversity, and I’ve noticed recently, that, because of where I work, almost of my “buddies” are POC. Which is cool, but when I want dialogue/critical discussions, I don’t want to talk to the choir.

With these elections, I’ve really wanted to talk to white people and conservatives about things that are coming up, and I don’t have anyone to reach out to.

I have one white friend, and she is a true BFF. The rest of my close friends (which is a handful) are Black women like myself. My next circle outward, good friends but not ride or die, is much more diverse, a sampling of everything under the sun-save white men. That’s been recent, too. When I’ve had white men as friends, they’ve all been queer, so I guess I’m attracted to people who understand discrimination or “otherness.”

Someone mentioned Black women into anime, and that is so cool! I’m the only sista I know into manga, and I agree that culture can create differences within the “home community” as well. I’m the weird one, special one, the geek. I’m good with being a geek, but, as I said, it gets lonely and stifling. I wish I knew how to branch out on the friend thing.

Posted 09 Sep 2008 at 2:54 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:

@brownstocking –

How to increase your friends just means going where they go and striking up a conversation.

I had zero white friends two years ago. Now I rekindled some old friendships and go to a fairly mixed yoga studio – and met white people that way. (I also met other yoginis of color.) After that, you work to take an acquaintance a relationship.

Finding other black girls into manga – go to a Con.

And don’t be afraid to meet people on the internet. I wanted to meet other girl gamers, didn’t know where they were, and I randomly sent a few girls a message on friendster. (This was a few years back, before myspace/facebook were as big as they are.)

A couple of them wrote back. One of them is still one of my close friends. I even write about her here from time to time.

Finding people of other races is easy – you just have to pay attention. It’s the making friends part that’s hard. Good luck!

Posted 09 Sep 2008 at 4:25 pm ¶
kerrita k. wrote:

loved the article – thanks for the appearance carmen – i cheered. and there is this great book that i am thinking of using in my class about the nature and formation of conversation – it is called the world cafe. website: http://www.theworldcafe.com/book.htm. i know. a little new-agey, but the way i newly manage my interracial, inter-everything friendships is by making clear my desire for conversation over conversion. and conversation over awkward and potentially destructive silences.
:0)
-kerrita k.

Posted 09 Sep 2008 at 5:37 pm ¶
jen* wrote:

Being mixed (black/white), I find the question awkward. Do black people and white people count? Or do only Asian and Latin@ people count?

As someone else already said, I tend to have friends that somewhat reflect local demographics. Not completely, but that certainly influences things.

But I’m an Army brat, who grew up partly in Hawaii, and my mom has taught ESOL for the last ~20 years. (She taught middle school when I was 10, and we had pool parties for her class at our house. My sister and I would sometimes go to school with her when our school was out. So we became friends with some of the students that were close to our ages.)

So I guess it was kind of natural that my most fun times in college were when I was involved in the International Students’ Club at my school. I felt kinda weird cuz other people only think I’m not from here, but there were a couple other people that were plain old American like me. That’s when I gained a lot more diverse friends.

Now I live in Podunk, USA. I have more white friends than I’ve had in a while, but my besties are Filipina, AfAm, White, Korean/Black. [I tend to have only a few close friends.]

It’s actually pretty rare for me to think about the racial make up of my friends. It was an interesting look back for me.

My Glamour just came today – so now I hafta go check out the article!

Posted 09 Sep 2008 at 6:59 pm ¶
wendi muse wrote:

when i think about my friends in the us over the years, they have become more and more narrow in terms of being like me, maybe because i was finally in an environment where i could find people like me to befriend. i went to a predominately white, upper class, all girls’ school in the south…so going to college in nyc helped me finally find friends who were like me…though when i say like me, i don’t necessarily mean racially…

i found bonds politically, class-wise, musically, in terms of queerness (a lot of my friends are gay/lesbian)…and racially, yes, but not in a way like…oh my friends are black like me, because in actually, i don’t have any super close black friends. i do, however, have friends with whom i feel comfortable discussing race and sexuality, otherness in general, etc, which is something i could not find in my conservative white school environment

Posted 10 Sep 2008 at 6:18 am ¶
Vannessa wrote:

Dear Carmen
>
> I recently signed on with New Demo. I found this week’s topic highly
> interesting. I’m a Eurasian, mixed, half and half, whatever society chooses
> to define me as. Right now, I’m comfortable with how I define myself and am
> loving my life.
>
> Anyway, I grew up in a family of mixed parentage too. I was schooled at an
> all-girls missionary school starting at age 6 and have 4 great pals of
> different races, cultural backgrounds and religious beliefs. We are still
> great pals but life has cast us in different parts of the world. We keep in
> touch via email, MSN, text messages; call to cry over the telephone, visit
> each other and our families in Australia, Holland and Singapore. Thirty
> years of friendship has kept us going and never have we ever sat down to
> talk about our race nor religious/cultural differences. We have sat down
> (and will continue to do so) to laugh, cry, share the birth of our children,
> deaths of parents and pets, get over our anger with our partners and
> frustrations of life. Our partners are also of different races and cultural
> backgrounds. Race never crossed my mind concerning my friends but it did
> when it started being in the news and was being discussed at grassroots
> level too. It was only then did I realise that the friends I have of 30
> years were different racially. I knew we were different, different tastes,
> different ideas, loved different music, met different boys but not the
> intrinsic differences of race.
> I love my girlfriends, despite the miles between us, I wouldn’t have been
> able to pull through the challenging moments of my life.
>

Posted 10 Sep 2008 at 9:00 am ¶
VJ Wong wrote:

My father is Chinese Singaporean and my mother is Australian Caucasian of primarily English/Irish stock. I grew up in both countries and that has definitely shaped my experiences and my friendships.

I only have two friends I consider soulmates, a handful of friends I would consider close friends and then I have a much wider group of general friends.

Of my two bosom friends whom I’ve known for over 20 years, one is Chinese Singaporean who has lived in the USA but is now back in Singapore and the other is Australian but of English and Guyanese parentage born in Canada, lived in the USA but migrated to Australia. Of my close friends, two are Chinese Malaysian both living in Australia, one is American living in the USA, one is American living in Australia and one is Chinese-Indian living in London.

Of my general group of friends, they are ethnically Chinese (Malaysian, Singaporean), a Canadian of Caucasian descent and wide range of Australian nationals with Anglo-European heritage eg: Greek, English, French, etc. I consider my circle fairly diverse, and as I work in international education, I am always meetings and interracting with people of diverse cultural backgrounds. I couldn’t imagine living any other way.

Sometimes I wish I had friendships with mixed people like myself but I’m one of the few I see around in my age group – I guess my parents were trailblazers! I always smile as I see the next generation of mixed kids (0-20 years) coming up, including my own nieces and nephews, and hope they are able to appreciate and celebrate the diversity of their experiences with a growing mixed community.

However, the most significant thing I’ve noticed about my close friendships is that they have formed not because of “race” but more because of what we have in common. Primarily most of my friends are from somewhere else and have moved to a new place (country or city) and know what it’s like to have to learn to fit into a new community. Most of my closest friends also live away from me somewhere else in Australia or the world so this forces me to have to keep diversity and a global perspective in mind.

Posted 10 Sep 2008 at 9:36 am ¶
Keren wrote:

Just been on the phone to a club promoter trying to sort out a guestlist for my birthday party, and was asked the race of every friend’s name that I put on the list, supposedly because they ‘don’t want too many of one colour.’ It was so humiliating.

Posted 10 Sep 2008 at 12:37 pm ¶
cvalda wrote:

Being an introvert, I don’t tend to have that many friends outside my social strata. That is, white, middle-class, college-educated, broadly leftist. My one close Maori friend fits that criteria in all but skin colour.

There’s definitely racism in my peer group, and I won’t pretend immunity. But, yeah, classism is also a factor. Semi-relatedly, went to primary school in a working class area, and find it’s considered much more acceptable to openly kneejerk-castigate that crowd (predominatly Maori & Pacific Island) than somebody middle class & Maori.

Posted 10 Sep 2008 at 6:56 pm ¶
Amory wrote:

I’m a white woman. I live with a first-generation Jordanian and Palestinian-American woman, her white male partner, a white woman with Polish heritage, and my partner, who is a first generation Syrian-American man.
Before I began examining my whiteness, my friends were entirely white. Since I have really begun deconstructing my own white privilege and racism, it has become harder and harder for me to be around other white people who have not examined their privilege. I’ve had fights and there is ongoing tension between me and my oldest friends and family members. I feel like the people I am closest to are people of color who are struggling with racism and with deconstructing their internalized prejudice, and white people who are actively, humbly anti-racist and working to deconstruct their privilege (my sister).
I believe that what has made my close friendships with anti-racist people of color possible is that I have prioritized anti-racism over white acceptance and my own self-image.
And that I am actively checking myself and seeking to further understand racism, white privilege and white supremacy in myself, relationships, society and globally.
There are a couple of key things that I know have helped-
1. when I learned to listen and stop trying to own or define the experiences of my friends (in an attempt to “relate”)… Humility, trust and compassion have been key to my own progress as a white person attempting to be anti-racist.
2. when I stopped trying to universalize “womanhood” (as a white female), and began actively seeking out other peoples’ experiences
3. when I self-imposed a policy of not being defensive about being called racist, deciding that my default position would be acceptance of the criticism and examination of myself. So far, every time someone has called me out, they have been right.
4. when I learned to recognize culture-vulturing and gave it up
5. when I stopped trying to relate racism to patriarchy in a 1:1 way
6. when I gave up my own “clean” self-image (for me as a white woman, it was a lot easier to be a survivor under patriarchy than it was to be a racist beneficiary of white privilege). It was giving up the idea of myself as “heroic” person and owning my own ugly behavior.

Nonetheless I still say things (or think things) that are ignorant, and I don’t delude myself that I will ever NOT have an inflated sense of importance or relevance based on my whiteness. I think the only reason I still have the people of color in my life that I do is that they know I am actively working to confront myself, and that they can confront me about my behavior without dealing with (as much) white defensiveness).
Their patience and love, and our ability to have fun together and relate in other ways, have made our friendships possible.

Posted 10 Sep 2008 at 9:06 pm ¶
NancyP wrote:

middle-aged white woman who has lived nearly her entire post-toddler life in the Midwest:
I have college or graduate/professional school educated or smart self-educated friends, mostly employed in health care or the sciences at the same university. I don’t get out much, tend to be a workaholic.

One of my two or three best friends is black, my age, works in a field very closely related to my own, and is enthusiastic about her field. We talk a lot about science, politics, movies, very little about race in the abstract. If she brings up something related to race – for instance, possible or actual boyfriends, details of childhood, pop culture – and I don’t quite “get it”, I listen and ask pertinent questions.

I have a fair number of POC friends, respected colleagues, students / interns, and others met at work. Most are Indian subcontinent origin or Asian (several nationalities of origin), with a few “Hispanics”. Relatively few are black American, and that reflects the demographics at the graduate level of training in the field. I admit to being curious about the immigrants’ backgrounds, since I am the classic untravelled American hick. I’d characterize the friendships as “geek plus” – interest in science or medicine, plus some other shared interest or even mere proximity.

I admit that I have a hard time forming friendships outside a structured setting such as work, chorus, or such. I am an introvert, and rely on having a common interest to get the conversation started.

Posted 10 Sep 2008 at 10:44 pm ¶
dalia wrote:

my best friend s is brown (east indian) and i get all kinds of flack from black people for not having a best friend who looks more like me. she is the coolest person i know, hands-down. we get each other’s jokes, finish each other’s sentences, and have the same har-har-har, out-loud, bawdy laugh that makes outsiders want to get in on the joke.

do we have problems that boil down to race? sure, but we talk about them, and deal with them as intelligently and civilly as possible. it pains me that her family loves me, but she can’t ever date a black guy for threat/fear of being disowned by her parents (bigotry by proxy?). she’s patient and stifles an eye roll whenever my mother asks her (for the millionth time, already) why she isn’t married (at 32? gasp!) or why she won’t let her parents arrange a marriage for her.

we’re different, yes, but i’ve never known anyone to have my back the way s does. in a heartbeat, whether it’s a pick-me-up or a few bucks, i know who i can count on in when i’m in a bind.

we always joke and say that if one of us was a boy, we’d be married… (and then i tease her and say it would never happen ’cause her parents would disown her for marrying black. and then she hits me, and we laugh…)

sigh.

still, we make it work.

Posted 11 Sep 2008 at 4:09 am ¶
Ann wrote:

I have always had friends of different ethnicities. Growing up my best friend was white which made sense because I grew up the only minority in the subdivision. In college my best friend was german and black and now my best friend is columbian. I have always felt the need to have friends of other ethnicities. I don’t know. I can truly say I can’t think of only having friends who are black.

I think it is a bit shocking for my parents. That can’t understand my connections with other people who are not black because they both came up during segregation and even though they are both mixed growing up in the South they were relegated to the one drop rule.

Posted 12 Sep 2008 at 5:39 pm ¶
jamilah wrote:

amory, your post, i like it. especially the ‘culture vulture’ and the ‘racism/patriarchy’ bits… me, i am a black woman who tends to be quite outspoken about issues of white supremacy (particularly living in portland, oregon, one of the most racist places- considering they think themselves to be ‘diverse’… and if you have to call yourself ‘diverse’ then you are not).

anyways… i am very much unapologetic about my blackness, and i consciously choose not to focus my energy on people who cannot deal with it and get defensive (welcome to the northwest!) however, one of my best friends is a white woman. she knows where i stand, and this is one of the reasons i am friends with her. she acknowledges her whiteness (she is mixed with other things but identifies as white), and does not make attempts to impose that on me. there are not too many people i have bonded with here emotionally, and she and i have.

my other really good friends are black, and cuban. i do not have a lot of friends, mostly aquaintances. i do wish i lived in a place that had a more prominent black community though. the women i admire here are most definitely are black women.

and on to another subject… for me, a friendship with a white person is fine, but i could never marry or have children with a white person, because i do not feel like having to work. i am not in the business of education, or accepting guilt-filled apologies, or you trying to prove how NOT racist you are. ‘cos when the race war comes, we’ll see which side you are really on. find me a white person who is totally comfortable within themselves, who acknowledges they benefit from the societal standards that have been unquestioningly been set- as well as not getting uncomfortable/defensive when black people are unapologetic about their culture- and then we’ll talk.

there is nothing inherently wrong with ‘white pride’, if it does not inhibit someone else’s culture. if you are white, be proud. just acknowledge the history of your people, good and bad, without shame. and when i say that there needs to be a space for me and people who look like me WITHOUT YOU, don’t get all hung up and shocked, whining about MLK and his speech from 1963 (ESPECIALLY when his later speeches reflect ‘black pride’).

as paul mooney has said, i like my white people white. not anyone trying to be a ‘cultural tourist’ (a ‘white rasta’ is an oxymoron), or apologist, looking at me wondering if whatever you said was okay. and so on. just be who you are, and we could move on. and if you’ve moved on and can acknowledge your whiteness with pride, then we can be friends.

Posted 14 Sep 2008 at 5:14 am ¶
jamilah wrote:

oh, i just read the article… the thing about the parents not discussing race with their white children is so true… i mean, kids STARE at me, and their parents are like, don’t stare, without explaining the diferences of people. i’ve had kids make comments to me, and the parents just had their jaw open. teach your kids about the real world! racism exists for these kids, whether or not you want to admit it. one of my very good friends is a 5 (almost 6)-year old white girl though. she just was so loving to me. she knows i am black, and is not like, ‘why do you look brown, and i don’t?’

but i always wonder what these white parents say to their kids who are black. that race doesn’t matter, we’re all the same? that’s a lie. do these parents tell them about toussaint l’overture? patrice lumumba? kathleen cleaver? barbara lee?

this is why sesame street was so special to me growing up… that show instilled cultural pride, not at the expense of anyone else. there actually weren’t interracial romantic relationships on the show, but people were friends of various ethnicities. see, when you know who you are, with pride, you can move anywhere in the world.

and THIS is what we should be encouraging. just because you date someone of a different race does not mean your racism has diminished or disappeared. first, you must learn knowledge and pride of self before you can properly move into romance (and in most cases, even friendship). and once you have that, be with who you want.

but how many of us have that knowledge and pride?

Posted 14 Sep 2008 at 5:29 am ¶
Ange wrote:

I have a lots of different friends, but my “call at 3am friends” are generally ladies of color and we’re like the knock off version of “Girlfriends”.

Posted 21 Sep 2008 at 11:53 pm ¶