A question of perspective on "my black friend"

[Timsup2nothin]

In just about every conversation about race and racism in America at some point the person defending the most blatantly racist position will cite "my black friend" in an effort to bandage their wounded credibility. This actually is such common practice that it makes it difficult for me when I mention that I have black friends, since it has developed into a trigger that makes people wonder what racist position I'm trying to defend.

I suspect that the reality is that almost everyone, no matter how racist their mindset, probably does have "a black friend." It just may require a little latitude in defining "friend." For example, if you include "guy at work who I might talk sports with on a break" that allows a lot of people to have a black friend who might not have one if you limit friends to "guy who's son I would like to see dating my daughter because being family with them is an attractive proposition."

I want to shed a little light on the subject by examining it from a different angle. Are you somebody's "white friend"? That guy who you talk sports with on the break at work probably doesn't tell his actual friends "I have this white friend" and mean you. You know it because he probably has any number of white coworkers who are willing to talk sports with him and you aren't unique at all in his world. Now, if your kids are dating and you are both looking at it as a good thing that might lead to you being family instead of just friends, then yeah, you are no doubt his "white friend." Obviously there is a lot of ground in between these two extreme definitions. Looking at it from this reversed perspective imposes some reasonable limits on how we define "friend."

Honest answers, do you think there is someone out there talking about their "white friend" and meaning you?

 

[civver_764]

You've got a weird definition of friend.

I don't think anybody considers me their singular "white friend", because I'm usually not the only white person around. I used to work at a warehouse where I was the only white employee and everyone else was black, so perhaps I was considered as such then.

 

[Disgustipated]

<----- No friends (me, not my avatar ) I honestly can say I don't have a black friend. Not because I don't want one, I just haven't found one who lives my kind of lifestyle who wants me as a friend. And currently, I just don't know how to make friends as an adult anyways. I suppose technically I could have been my ex gf's "white friend" since we were friend in addition to the romantic stuff and she was a different race than me. But she wasn't the type of person to go around saying my white friend (that would imply she had many friends of her own race which she did not).

 

[Akka]

One thing is sure, there is a real obsession with race in the USA it seems.

 

[Disgustipated]

One thing is sure, there is a real obsession with race in the USA it seems.

No doubt about it. I don't know if we'll ever escape our past. If anything, there seems to be even more obsession with race today than when I was a kid. In some ways that is good, but also bad in ways.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I think Eminem's black friends may have referred to him that way before he was famous.

 

[Akka]

No doubt about it. I don't know if we'll ever escape our past. If anything, there seems to be even more obsession with race today than when I was a kid. In some ways that is good, but also bad in ways.

I'd say it's about 99 % bad. Despite all the well-meaning stupidity that is displayed in this obsession, the obvious fact is that you don't make people forget about races by constantly reminding them about it.

 

[Senethro]

You should let the racists know that you're tired of their crap then.

 

[Naskra]

I'm nobody's "white friend". They just call me "massa".

 

[Hygro]

You've got a weird definition of friend.

He doesn't define it, he picks two far away points to paint distance between definitions of friendship.

 

[civver_764]

Ah, you're right. Sorry for the misinterpretation.

 

[red_elk]

Honest answers, do you think there is someone out there talking about their "white friend" and meaning you?

Only if I look particularly pale today.
On a serious note, if you mention your black friend, it already means his/her skin color is somehow relevant to discussion. Otherwise you would have said just friend. This is probably what makes people think you are going to talk about racial issues.

 

[Akka]

You should let the racists know that you're tired of their crap then.

I fail to see your point.

 

[Kyriakos]

I suspect that the reality is that almost everyone, no matter how racist their mindset, probably does have "a black friend." It just may require a little latitude in defining "friend." For example, if you include "guy at work who I might talk sports with on a break" that allows a lot of people to have a black friend who might not have one if you limit friends to "guy who's son I would like to see dating my daughter because being family with them is an attractive proposition."

You've got a weird definition of friend.

This. If by "friend" one has to mean "person i want to form family ties with", then there are almost no friends to be had in the first place.
Most people have a small circle of "friends", a much smaller of actual friends they spend considerable time with, and - if lucky- one or two people they can regard as so compatible/pleasant to be with that they would like to keep around for good.
Like it or not, different background can be a serious factor in disabling friendship of the latter type, without it having to be about racism.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Only if I look particularly pale today.
On a serious note, if you mention your black friend, it already means his/her skin color is somehow relevant to discussion. Otherwise you would have said just friend. This is probably what makes people think you are going to talk about racial issues.

That was kind of the point, if you actually read the OP. Conversations about racism almost always, at some point, have someone say "my black friend..." The conversation already was about racial issues. Sometimes it is just openly hilarious. I've seen a white guy claim that his idea of what it is like to be black in America is "the truth as relayed from my black friend" when the guy he was arguing with about it actually was black. At that point you just have to shake your head and laugh.

 

[Kyriakos]

That was kind of the point, if you actually read the OP. Conversations about racism almost always, at some point, have someone say "my black friend..." The conversation already was about racial issues. Sometimes it is just openly hilarious. I've seen a white guy claim that his idea of what it is like to be black in America is "the truth as relayed from my black friend" when the guy he was arguing with about it actually was black. At that point you just have to shake your head and laugh.

There likely isn't one truth, much like there isn't just one black person. While similarities do stand to exist, due to any common trait (and "race" counts as one as much as any other), truth isn't so... b&w ^^

 

[Timsup2nothin]

There likely isn't one truth, much like there isn't just one black person. While similarities do stand to exist, due to any common trait (and "race" counts as one as much as any other), truth isn't so... b&w ^^

Agreed...which is another failure inherent in the "my black friend" argument. It's amusing how the "black friend" of the glaringly racist individual always seems to be the one black man in America that has never encountered anyone that even noticed his skin color...which conveniently proves the racists case, at least to their satisfaction.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

One thing is sure, there is a real obsession with race in the USA it seems.

I'm trying to decide what to make of this. Are you trying to suggest that you were previously unaware of racial tensions in the US?

Just went and watched the mayor of Ferguson Missouri explaining how there wasn't any kind of racial divide in his city...which was burning in the background. I'm sure a more clever mind than mine could find a way to tie that in here.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Race hasn't mattered to me in the choice of friends or close acquaintances. Now that I think of it, the only person I knew and liked who could be described as black is a neighbor I had in the first apartment building I lived in. He was a good neighbor, and one day he knocked on my door to ask if I could help him with a computer problem. During the course of trying to solve the problem, he told me he was from one of the countries in Africa where kids were conscripted to be child soldiers. His story was horrific, and he was happy to have escaped that and made it to Canada. He was studying to be a nurse (the computer problem had to do with figuring out how to email a term paper to his instructor), and he wanted to reunite with his family.

I hope everything worked out for him; it's been several years since I last saw him.


Other situations... one of the women I used to go to science fiction conventions was Chinese. I remember one night when our group was supposed to meet in the hotel and she was late. I went around, asking people if they'd seen a black-haired woman, wearing this-colored shirt and that-colored pants, about this-high... and not once did I remember to mention that she was Chinese. That fact just totally slipped my mind.

I had a friend in school who was East Indian. This was likely a situation in which her parents immigrated and she and her sisters were born here in Canada. Her father was strict and controlling, and I remember one time when she was in a panic because she'd "only" made 90% on a math test. She knew her father was going to be displeased about that.

 

[Akka]

I'm trying to decide what to make of this. Are you trying to suggest that you were previously unaware of racial tensions in the US?

It's hard to be unaware of it considering how constantly it's brought to the forefront. It was not surprise, just a weary statement.