My Republican Friend Admitted She Was a Racist
And I love her for it.
Nearly four years ago, on the day that Donald Trump was elected president, I stopped posting about politics on social media.
My last political post was time-stamped on the morning of the 2016 election, on what I like to think of as the last dawn before the great dusk. In my message to all of my friends and acquaintances, I expressed my heartfelt excitement that this country — our country — was about to do something big, something historic. I became filled with joy that millions of women across our country were (presumably) about to experience a range of positive emotions similar to the ones I felt as a black American when Barack Obama was elected in 2008. I wanted so badly for our country to experience that for women.
Well, our country did something big all right; just not in the way I or many others expected.
My social media circle is wide and diverse, reflecting the company I keep in real life. That circle comprises mostly fellow Democrats and liberals, but also a surprising number of Republicans and conservatives. I have long kept an open mind about friendships and politics. Back in law school, I joined the Republican and Federalist Society (libertarian) clubs, where I made some of my closest friends. I’ve had romantic relationships with Republican women, and politics or race never came between us.
I enjoyed talking about politics with my Republican and conservative friends for several reasons; among them, as an attorney, I cannot resist the temptation of a good debate. But it had always felt like we shared a mutual respect for one another’s basic humanity, and that our differences could be traced back to policy principles, not skin color. Moreover, I recognized the value of having your own beliefs perpetually challenged. Without pushback from outside your bubble, your worldview risks growing stale or immutably ideological.
The great challenge for me came when, during the 2016 presidential campaign, issues of racial injustice and police brutality piqued the American consciousness. In the spirit of furthering the conversation about race, I decided to share my own personal experiences as a black American, recounting a handful of the many incidents in which I experienced racism throughout my life.
Though the polls indicated that Donald Trump was unlikely to be our next president, the amount of support he was receiving unsettled me. I worried about what that level of support meant, not only for my friendships with Republicans and conservatives but also for my place as a black male in America.
As the election drew closer, I began posting more race-related content — both political and apolitical — in addition to my strong objections to Donald Trump from a national security perspective.
I wanted my friends to know exactly who they were getting into bed with if they pulled the lever for Trump. I wanted them to know that I knew.
I navigated the fine line between indignant rant and thoughtful diatribe, knowing that my tone and presentation would make all the difference in how my audience received the message. I hoped that by learning that their friend was not immune to the ills of systemic and personal racism, some of my “un-woke” white friends might reexamine their own worldviews and investigate latent prejudices.
Perhaps they would even become allies in the fight against injustice.
Perhaps I was naïve.
Still, I held strong to my belief that a person’s politics was neither determinative of their human decency nor indicative of whether they harbored racist sentiments. I recalled that the only time a classmate called me the n-word back in law school; it came screaming out of the mouth of a drunken California liberal, while it was a white Republican from South Carolina who unexpectedly came to my defense. I was adamant about not making assumptions.
That all changed on the evening of November 8, 2016, when Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. Overnight, I felt like a stranger in my own country. It was as if a void had suddenly opened up, instantly swallowing that core belief whole, nothing but questions left behind.
Voters had just placed a vehement racist into the highest position of power in America. I asked myself, “who are these people?”
Who are these people who openly celebrated the election of a man who spent years denigrating President Obama, a man whom I deeply admire and for whose administration I worked, with racist attacks questioning his place of birth and academic records?
Who are these people who support a president, who in the opening speech of his campaign, called Mexican immigrants “criminals” and “rapists?”
Who are these people who supported a party that conducted massive voter suppression efforts targeting minorities?
Who are these people who continued to support a president whose response to the death of a woman peacefully protesting a neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville was to say that there were “very fine people” on “both sides.”
Who are these people who support a president who claimed that an American-born judge could not render an impartial judgment because he was “a Mexican,” a remark that the then-House Speaker of his own party called “the textbook definition of a racist comment”?
Or more recently, questions like:
Who are these people who remain silent and/or ignorant during our national conversation about systemic racism and white privilege, yet can post snarky memes alleging baseless conspiracy theories to dismiss racial justice concerns, such as falsely characterizing rioting and looting in cities as George Soros-funded operations?
Who are these people who mock racial injustice protestors for risking their health and their lives, all so they can attempt to make some charge of liberal hypocrisy in the context of Covid-19 quarantines?
Who are these people who take time out of their day to remind us that “Blue Lives Matter” or “All Lives Matter,” but who do not say one damn word about the murder of George Floyd, as if to imply their sentiments arose spontaneously outside the context of our national conversation?
Who are these people?
Turns out, some of them were my friends.
For the past four years, I have wrestled with these questions and countless others, all while maintaining my silence regarding politics and race on social media. Several of my Republican friends leaped off the Trump train as soon as it left the station; as soon as they heard its blatantly racist whistle loud and clear, they wanted no part of it. Some even left the Republican party completely. For others, it took more time, eventually attuning their ears to what the rest of us have heard all along.
At this stage, it is heartbreakingly difficult not to view my friends who still voice overzealous support for President Trump and the Republican party as aiders and abetters of white supremacy. To support the President and the Republican party at this time is synonymous with the defense and/or willful ignorance of the indefensible. I no longer possess the will or emotional energy to engage in debate with people whom I suspect do not recognize or value my humanity.
But I must. And there is a reason for that.
Her name is Amy.
(Note: well, not really, but out of respect for her privacy, I changed her name)
Amy is white and has been my friend for many years. We are not close friends who call each other up all the time to make weekend plans. However, we are always happy to run into one another and engage in meaningful conversation. We grew up nearby each other, and although we attended different high schools, we knew a lot of the same people and frequented many of the same bars in the summer during our college years and as young adults. Over time, we developed a friendship.
Amy had always been a conservative, which never bothered me until the election of Trump. Her social media pages became littered with racially charged Republican rhetoric and conspiracy theories. She also posted memes with deceptive claims and statistical data that expressed a nastiness or indifference toward issues deeply concerning to minorities like me.
Memes, in particular, cut deeply because they offer the convenience of simplicity while condescendingly distilling complex and often painful issues into terse, dismissive arguments. Like several of my friends, she placed her racially insensitive commentary on full display. I wondered if she considered me when she wrote them. Even when I would post the most positive and encouraging message, she would respond to it with an intense aggression that increased as the day that Trump was elected drew nearer. When I think about why I stopped posting on social media, Amy was one big reason.
Little did I know, however, Amy was undergoing a significant change within her.
Over the past year, I began to notice a dramatic shift in Amy. Suddenly, she began posting articles critical of Donald Trump. During this period, she increasingly used her own voice to fashion her opposition to Trump, his Republican enablers, and racism in general. And lately, that voice has reached a crescendo in both frequency and passion that rivals even my most liberal and racially conscious friends. I observed this change in her from afar, maintaining my distance.
A few days ago, however, in the midst of America’s awakening to racial injustice after the death of George Floyd, Amy reached out to me for the first time since her ostensible transition began. She asked me how I was doing, and if I was okay, the subtext of her questions apparent to us both. We broke the ice by exchanging obligatory quarantine jokes before proceeding to begin a lengthy and very emotional conversation.
Amy started by apologizing to me, fully and without qualification. She disclosed that she had been a racist. She told me she regretted allowing herself to continue to be a racist for so long. Though it surprised me to hear her admit it, I was unsurprised that she had been a racist.
What shocked, me, however, was when she revealed to me that even as she was casting her ballot for Donald Trump back in November 2016, she suddenly became what she described to me as a “crying lunatic.” There was something deep inside of her that was telling her to stop, that voting for Trump felt wrong to her emotionally.
She finished her ballot in tears. Amy then told me she didn’t know what that feeling was back then, but that she now realizes what it was: there was a part of her, small then but increasingly powerful, that absolutely hated Donald Trump. It hated him for what he represented; hated him for what he reinforced and encouraged in her family that raised her; hated him for the person he expected her to be; hated him for the person he expected her son to grow up to be. She did not have words for what Trump espoused then, but after educating herself, she does now: white supremacy, systemic racism, white privilege.
Amy let me know that engaging with her and challenging her beliefs was among the first steps in her journey toward dealing with her racism, toward changing for both herself and her son. She said that going through therapy and seeing things as a mom allowed her to discover that she wanted to raise her son as a “good, kind, accepting kid” and to “send him out into the world as someone who treats others how” she wanted him to be treated.
Amy thanked me for staying her friend throughout her journey, for being patient with her, for trying to teach her. For not giving up on her. She said she did not deserve it, but that she was so thankful. And it was at that moment that I realized that it was a mistake for me to withdraw from discussing race and politics, on social media or otherwise.
If you are my friend or were at one time, there must be something decent I recognized within you, some aspect of your humanity that is worth continuing to be present in your life for, some part of you worth fighting for. We make our marks on the people we know in ways we do not fully realize, in ways we may never know.
As much as I admire Hillary Clinton, I believe that she was wrong about the “deplorables” in our country being “irredeemable.” I understand that for political expediency as a presidential candidate, it might not be wise to waste your time and effort trying to win their votes. That changing their minds is probably not going to happen, and effort is better spent getting people who would support you out to vote.
But in your personal life, in the domain of personal human connection, I now believe that no one is categorically beyond redemption. Even racists. I now believe that as long as you have the opportunity to share your experience with someone who may be unknowingly struggling with their own, I say it is worth trying.
It is worth trying because yesterday, Amy posted a picture of her young white son in a socially distanced crowd in the middle of a street in their conservative-leaning suburban town where less than one percent of the citizens are black — his beaming smile physically obscured by a face mask but clearer in his eyes than a cloudless day, his little hands as high in the air as they can reach — holding a cardboard sign with the words “Make America Equal!” written in multicolored magic marker ink.
I know it is worth trying, because as much as I taught Amy about my value as a human being, Amy ended up teaching me about her value as well. And I love her for it.
This article is part of Progressively Speaking’s series “Change Happens” by and about individuals who have significantly altered their opinions, becoming more progressive over time.
