Lace on Race

On Cross Racial Friendships

When we are ready, and I hope it’s sooner rather than later, we need to have a candid conversation on cross cultural relationships and what white women demand and feel entitled to from people of color.

We are not there yet, but we need to be.

That means you all need to have the skills to navigate tough conversations. Which most of you do not have yet.

So, Relational Ethics series; all the pinned posts actually, are required.

It’s one thing for me to have to have multiple conversations this week that seared my soul. It is entirely another thing to have this happen on a grand scale with the women I stand with.

So no deep dive; we are not yet ready. But I do want your thoughts on the dynamics of white women and women of color, and how those dynamics shape relationship. I want reflection on the risk women of color take to enter into these fraught situations.

And I also want success stories; how groups and dyads have confronted and traversed this very lumpy terrain.

Let’s talk.

.

Lace Watkins

5 responses to “On Cross Racial Friendships”

  1. Selika Avatar
    Selika

    Cross cultural friendship demand a huge level of trust from multicultural people. We never know when that trust will be violated, our views undermined for the majority’s comfort. We have to explain, be vulnerable, and risk being falsely accused of racism if we mildly ask a white ally to look inward or avoid certain behaviors. Accused of being over sensitive. Add a hyper white environment and we are uniquely vulnerable, and at risk of being accused falsely of anything.

  2. Deb Chymiak-Isanhart Avatar
    Deb Chymiak-Isanhart

    Lace, It has taken me a while to reply to both your post and your reply to Kathy because it makes me so sad. So sad to know I hold this potential to harm you and the other Black and Brown ppl in my life

    It is why I do the work this space brings to me. An effort to mitigate the harm I pose to all Black and Brown ppl in general. But, in all honesty, it is the harm I pose specifically to those with whom I am building relationships, that holds my feet to the fire.

    All relationships require care and thought. Those that involve a power imbalance require an extra layer of effort and intension. The onus is on me to make the space of our relationship a safe-ish space for the Black and Brown people in my life. (I want to say safe space, but since I am white woman, can it ever really be safe?) That means working to strengthen my resiliency and reduce my fragility. It means increasing my understanding of systemic racism and taking action to change things. And it means recognizing there are places and depths to these relationships that my Black friends may never feel comfortable taking me. And while that makes me sad, my feelings cannot be the deciding factor.

  3. Kathy Kratchmer Avatar
    Kathy Kratchmer

    Oh my heart……
    Weeping over this…Such a painful parting it must be…

    Knowing It could someday, perish the thought, be me…
    That those Choice Points are real ‘til death…
    That I am committed to doing no harm…
    (Yet she was too and still….)

    And I’m thankful for your daily choosing to stay the course with us. ❤️

  4. Lace Watkins Avatar
    Lace Watkins

    You are hitting on some very important points.

    I think it’s important to say this because people often think that the danger is in beginning nascent friendships, but in fact it runs in a through line through the relationship itself and there are always Choice points with in that relationship for both the white person on the person of color they’re different no doubt but they’re there.

    The friendship that I lost tonight was actually with one of our administrators here.

    She was mostly silent , but she was the one that did the beginning bones of the website here.

    I do this for a living.

    I live and breathe racial relational ethics, and still this friendship ended, with all of the usual tropes embedded Within.

    For all of us who are choosing to walk this path together this must be foremost in our minds- that we choose not to harm each other no matter what.

    That we become places of rest as padraig o’tuama said to be the place where others can stand where their feet are sore.
    When that is forgotten, when we forget that we are here to serve, and not only to be served, it will go sideways very fast.

    I am mourning this loss of friendship, but what would have hurt more would be to have mourned the loss of my integrity and my conviction.

  5. Kathy Kratchmer Avatar
    Kathy Kratchmer

    The first thing that comes to mind is the power dynamic that is always at play. WE expect to set and enforce the boundaries in relationship and the ones we set are not fixed points, but ever moving according to what makes us, white women, most comfy, in any given moment–which can change from minute to minute and encounter to encounter. There is no firm ground to stand on in relationship with us because, unless we are far, far along in the work—our primary interest is in maintaining the status quo—white supremacy and white normativity. And even when we’re farther along our fragility will still be just beneath the surface and we may still be just as blind to it as when we first began.

    We expect to always be given the benefit of the doubt. And we demand this to avoid accountability for our racist thought and practice that is so hurtful—we didn’t mean to, right? Wasn’t my intention. You misunderstood—-you’re the one at fault. See, here’s what I meant…. is that better. Do you understand now? Oh, no, that’s not what I meant either. You’re still not getting it. Why are you being so difficult, so unreasonable–I told you that’s not what I meant! WW, in our desperate need to always be right, to be seen as nice/good, just escalate the situation until you surrender, ‘admitting’ we were right and just misunderstood all along or until you have to leave—-and we claim victory either way: such a shame she got so angry and couldn’t understand what I really meant.

    I am developing some cross cultural relationships now and it is lumpy terrain indeed. I am so aware of the danger inherent in my whiteness…. And I know it takes times to build trust and even once you have trust, that doesn’t mean you’ll be given access to the realist parts of another person, to their deep heart issues, joys, fear, hopes, concerns…. or that you’ll even understand them…. and that has to be okay. WP don’t have a track record that inspires trust. But the poin of doing this is not just to have Black friends and be seen as a decent human being. I am looking to help build a community that has difficult conversations with the goal of making it safer for Black people and setting white people free from all the false narratives that make up such a huge part of our identities and do such violence against Black/nonBlack people of color. And this is not heroic, or special, or praiseworthy—-it’s really just entry level decency: human decency 101.

    That’s all for tonight…..

    We expect to always have our understanding of things affirmed as an equally valid, or honestly, a more valid, point of view even when we have no actual experience or expertise to base our understanding on: We think we can equate our white woman experiences to the experiences of Black women and we center our experiences. This makes it impossible for us to even begin to hear, access and understand what Black women share with us. …so I think they are rightly wary of letting us in, of trusting us with deep matters of the heart. And even of entering into lighthearted connection and fellowship because always, always our expectations can surface and destroy a good time.

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