“That awkward moment when I realized my white “liberal” friends were racists”
“The comical scene played out to its record-scratching, freeze-frame, “WTF?” climax around a picnic table populated by frat boys in the middle of the sunny UCLA campus. It seemed like the thousandth time a friend had suddenly unloaded a blatantly racist bombshell, although this was the wildest one yet.
As a Canadian working and studying in Los Angeles for ten years, I began to wonder why progressive young hipsters of various races were so eager to privately share their disturbing ideas about black people. The fact that these probing admissions came from a large number of my “coolest” friends, rather than the usual suspects, made it seem like a disturbing new cultural phenomenon.
Seemingly nice young people, once they knew and trusted each other, were trying to take their friendship “to the next level” with these revelations of their racist beliefs. It was like they felt they could finally talk openly and drop the façade they maintained in public. They did this joyfully, as if it were a postmodern bonding ritual to confirm that they were members of the same cool social “tribe,” one that didn’t include blacks.”
Sometimes I read things that make me just want to live in a cave and never interact with people ever again. (also — “It Took Me Two Years to Realize My Boyfriend Was Racist”) (I don’t know if this is becoming a genre?)
The scenarios described here remind me of moments when I have gotten to know a friend relatively well, spent enough time with them that they feel comfortable around me and suddenly it’s time for them to ask me the questions they have always had about black people, or air the theories they have always had about race or racism which are now my responsibility to discuss with them. In those conversations, there is also this sort of overlap with a you-don’t-meet-my-stereotypes thing, a you’re-not-really-black thing that rarely invalidates the stereotypes but instead erases my identity so that they are comfortable enough to ask me, like, why a lot of black kids are named ‘Blondie’. (Which I don’t think is a thing?)
