😨I Have Never Wanted to Be Wrong as Badly as I Want to Be Wrong Now, but . . .
. . . is it possible that “White Allies” think we’re, you know, actual flesh and blood IRL friends?
Like, not real real friends, but fake real friends with a means to an end like — oh, I don’t know — a Brett Kavanaugh Keg Party kind of friend? That kind of friend?
Like, not real real friends, but the ones your mom makes “for you” over coffee with the new neighbor who has a boy your age named Carol who wears his shirts backwards, and there was that one time when you saw him pick his butt then his nose? That kind of friend?
Like, not real real friends, but like in that movie Fatal Stand By Stranger Goonies on the Green Mile, starring Dr. Frederick Chilton, fava beans, and a nice Chianti? THAT kind of friend?
Like, not real real friends, but . . . awwww, fu@& me. I’m gonna be sick.
I’m stunned at the sheer simplicity of it, and the pure perversion. Can it be that someone somewhere told a bunch needy, fragile, socially awkward people that there is a club of death row inmates in need of mewly-slash-Captain America heroes, just without the Captain or the hero but most definitely with the cape plus double the mewly? Is it? IS IT???
ICYMI, “it’s not called ‘friend’ when you force yourself on me.” ~The Whole of Black America.
Because, I mean, it lines up so cleanly . . .
They literally, literally, literally call themselves your “White friends.”
They tell you that the two of you are friends — not ask you, tell you, because Their. Mother. Said. So. They actually argue with you about it. Passionately.
They honestly have not your best interest at heart. Bonus points; they also know you can read, and that you speak well.
They get hurt when you stand at your front door and say “I’m sorry, *who* invited you to breakfast again . . .”? Butt hurt.
They warn you about how isolated you will feel if push them away.
They say — straight-faced no chaser, Black coffee, no sugar, no cream — “you would be so much prettier if you just smiled more.”
They really, really think they are helping you.
And, that they know more about Black people, human nature, and a world with no racism than you do.
They insist that you need more friends like them, while they are literally in the act of trying to make friends with your friends.
They keep explaining your mother to you. “See, your mom really believes there is no place in civilized society for, well, I hate to say it, but unpermed hair . . .”.
They need a hug, you need a pardon, and a better match there never was? Because I really, really, really am going to be sick.
Ladies and Gentlemen, a pro tip: it’s not called “friend” when you force yourself on me.
Be Best,
Before you engage me or others, here are a few things to keep in mind:
Catherine Pugh is an Attorney at Law and former Adjunct Professor at the Temple University, Japan. She developed and taught Race and the Law for its undergraduate program, and Evidence, Criminal Law, and Criminal and Civil Procedure for its law program. She has worked for the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section, and was a Public Defender for the State of Maryland.
To my sweetest of loves: I am the wall for them; you are the wall for me. And nothing — nothing — has ever gotten past you. You are my everything. #CubanKitchen.
“It takes the wisdom of the elders . . .” Thank you for teaching us, loving us, leading us all: Mary Stovall Davis Budd, Andrea Tucker, Lorenzo and Dorris Pugh, Jacqueline and Roger Wallace, Kenneth Davis, Sandra Davis, and Karen Davis.
