Jayvon and Cory invited me to go bowling with them and their close friend Tyler while we were home. I was excited to meet Tyler because the guys had spoken highly of him. “He just gets it,” they would say.
He was also an interesting mystery for me, because I was the only one of us on Facebook at the time, so I didn’t have any idea what Tyler looked like. But I naturally imagined he would be young and Black like us.
On the day we went bowling, Tyler messaged the guys to tell them that he and his girlfriend were running late, so we bowled a game without him.
As we got ready to bowl another game, Jayvon was looking behind us toward the door and yelled, “Yo, Tyler! Over here!”
I was immediately confused, because when I looked at the door, I didn’t see Tyler. All I saw was a tall white guy holding hands with a short, young Black woman. The two of them started walking toward us.
“What’s good, my guys! This is Denise,” the tall white guy said.
“I’ve heard a lot about all of you,” she added.
I was just standing there, flabbergasted, trying to take it all in. Not only was the close friend of my new “woke” Black friends white, but he had a Black girlfriend.
I can’t emphasize enough how surprised I was. I’m sure my jaw literally dropped.
Tyler introduced himself to me, and I shook myself out of my surprise quickly enough to respond.
I spent the next few hours trying to understand who Tyler was and what he was about. Based on my own experiences with white people, I had a hard time understanding how a white guy was the person who had protested against racism and injustice with Jayvon and Cory in high school.
I guess Cory could feel how standoffish I was while we were bowling, because he eventually came over and spoke to me in private.
“I know what you’re thinking, but he’s wild cool. We wouldn’t bring anyone around who isn’t down for us. Get to know him,” he said.
As I said, I trusted Cory and Jayvon with Blackness as a whole, and I trusted them with my Blackness even more. So I let my guard down and went over to Tyler and got to know him and Denise a bit more.
Jayvon and Cory were right; outside of being white, he was just like them—just like us. He and Denise were not only down-to-earth; they weren’t afraid to address important subjects, such as their being an interracial couple.
That day we ended up hanging out for hours. Those hours became days, and eventually over the next few months, Tyler and Denise became good friends of mine.
We spent most of our time discussing politics and race, which were often brought into the conversation by Tyler. But it was never in a pandering or problematic way.
Another thing to note was that Tyler wasn’t one of those white guys who think they are “down” by dressing in stereotypically Black things, like Jordans, and listening to rap. Like me, he was a huge soft-rock fan. Unlike me, he couldn’t dress to save his life.
After the holidays, we hung out whenever we were all in town, and sometimes they’d visit our school, and we’d visit theirs.
That summer Tyler invited us all over to his house for a pool party.
By this point, you’ve read a few chapters and understand my apprehension over going to a white person’s home for ANYTHING.
It wasn’t very difficult to decide to go. Tyler was much different from the white people I grew up with, and if anything went wrong, I had a bunch of other Black people there with me. Plus, how bad could it be if Tyler was going to be introducing Denise to his family for the first time? (They already knew she was Black.)
I decided to arrive at Tyler’s house later than everyone so someone could text me if there was anything I should be aware of. (I wasn’t taking any chances.)
But I never got any texts other than “where u at?”
When I got to Tyler’s, I could immediately tell it was different from my other visits to white homes. Tyler greeted me at the door and said, “Took you long enough!” then shoved a burger in my hands. “Here! You’re trying to get your weight up, right?”
I was pretty tall and lanky at the time, so I was trying to put some weight on. Which wasn’t easy as a broke college student, so I appreciated the free burger.
We walked into the house, and Tyler introduced me to a ton of his parents’ friends, and eventually we walked up to his parents.
“You must be Fred! Sorry, do you prefer Frederick?” his mother said.
“Whichever you like, Ms. Matthews,” I responded.
“My mother-in-law is Ms. Matthews. Just call me Marissa,” she said.
Before I could wrap my mind around how pleasant this white woman was being, Tyler’s father walked up, holding a plate of hot dogs and a spatula.
He was a huge man, who I knew from conversations with Tyler had played football in college. He was wearing a tank top and had tattoos all over. Upon further inspection, I could see he was wearing some sort of championship ring.
Needless to say, my racist senses were tingling. I fully expected him to ask what NBA team I played for or to say something equally racist. The new improved Black Power me was ready to fight and be kicked out of this house.
He looked at me for a second. What happened next is still one of the most surprising moments of my entire life.
“Just the guy I was waiting to see! I finished The Audacity of Hope last night. It was great! That Barack Obama could really make a great president!”
I was so confused, I simply replied, “Huh?”
“The book you gave Tyler about the candidate you like,” he replied.
I had completely forgotten I’d given Tyler that book to read to learn more about Barack Obama. I was so dumbfounded by what was a completely new experience of white parents for me.
I was a huge Barack Obama fan. I had the opportunity to get familiar with him during my freshman year and made it my life’s work to get everyone to love him.
I eventually caught myself and told him I was happy he enjoyed the book. I called him “Mr. Matthews,” and like his wife, he asked me to call him by his first name, Tim.
Marissa and Tim spent a great deal of time speaking to me and others that afternoon, about everything from politics to movies. For the first time, I felt like I was around a white family that respected me.
I wasn’t the only one who was enjoying myself. Denise had been anxious about meeting Tyler’s parents, but they hit it off. You could tell they loved her, as they were making those “you’re too good for our son” jokes.
In addition to his parents’ friends, some of Tyler’s relatives were also there, but I hadn’t paid much attention to them.
The day went on, and we were having a blast. But, as Murphy’s Law says, “Whatever can go wrong will go wrong,” or in the case of my life, “Whatever can go racist will go racist.”
Don’t steal this saying: I’m getting it trademarked. “Freddy’s Law.” Also, I never go by “Freddy,” but you know, Murphy . . . Freddy . . . you get it.
At some point in the afternoon, Cory, Jayvon, and I were in the pool, and Denise was sitting on the side with her feet in the water. We had been at Tyler’s house for hours with no problem, until suddenly we heard him yelling from the kitchen, where he had gone a few minutes earlier to get us some snacks.
“Don’t talk about her like that!” Tyler yelled.
A woman’s voice I didn’t know responded, “Calm down, Tyler. It was just a question! You’re going to cause a scene!”
“No, you’re the one causing a scene!” Tyler replied, and then came out to the pool.
Marissa and Tim walked over, and his mother asked, “What’s going on, Tyler?”
The next moment, a woman appeared from the kitchen who, Cory informed me, was Tyler’s aunt.
“He’s being dramatic, Marissa. I simply asked him a question,” his aunt said.
“I’m not being dramatic! She’s being racist toward Denise!” Tyler responded.
As soon as he said this, I started looking around for the exit. This
was my cue. I was going to grab a few more of them burgers and get the hell out of there.
“I was not! I simply asked if he was serious about her,” his aunt replied.
“Is that all you said, Mary?” Tim responded, as if he knew she was lying.
Before she could respond, Tyler said, “What you asked me was if I was serious about her. Because, you said, I couldn’t marry a Black woman, especially not one as dark as her.”
It was completely silent at that point. Everyone was listening, including Denise.
I knew I wouldn’t have time for the exit at that point, so I figured I could hold my breath underwater until it was all over and then duck out.
Marissa looked at Denise, who was still sitting on the edge of the pool, obviously in shock and nervous.
“Did. You. Say. That. Mary?” Marissa responded.
“I mean, yes, but I—” Tyler’s aunt tried to respond before Marissa cut her off by saying, “Get the hell out of my house, Mary.”
She looked shocked, and immediately turned to Tyler’s dad. “Tim, are you going to let her kick me out? I’m your sister.”
“Yes, and I suggest you go before I put you out,” Tim responded.
Tyler’s aunt stood there for a moment, as if trying to get a few last whiffs of those good-ass burgers Tyler’s family made.
“Now!” yelled Marissa. Tyler’s aunt grabbed her things and left.
I’m a huge fan of slow claps. I try to start them all the time at the movies. If there was ever a moment for a slow clap, this was it.
The direct response to the racism of their family member was commendable, and in fact what Tyler and his parents did next was a textbook way to handle racism as a white person.
Tyler, Marissa, and Tim all went over to Denise to apologize to her and see whether she was okay. She was rightfully emotional, so Tyler took her inside and spent time with her.
Next, Tyler’s parents came over to me, Cory, Jayvon, and a few other kids of color to apologize for “putting us in a traumatic situation.”
This was the first time white people had apologized to me for racism and done something about it. It was the last time as well. Not that I haven’t dealt with racism since. (On the contrary; I’ve dealt with enough racism in my life to fill a book. Get it?) It’s just that no other white person has taken the time to hold themselves accountable for it.
We ended up leaving the pool party shortly after that incident took place, but it wouldn’t be our last time at the Matthews’s home. The way they stood up against racism and defended us against their own family made us comfortable enough to continue spending time with them until they moved years later.
Being someone who supports people of color and stands against racism isn’t easy. Sometimes it requires sacrifice and having difficult conversations—but that will never be as difficult as actually being impacted by racism.
Some people think they can be an ally while also letting the people close to them continue to be comfortable in their racism. In the case of Tyler’s family, this would be like if his parents hadn’t kicked his aunt out of their house but had still apologized to us for her racist behavior. That’s not being an ally. That’s being a coward. No one would be comfortable being racist around someone who truly stands against racism, because they would know there’d be consequences. (Like getting kicked out of their own family’s home.)
Let me repeat that: No one would be comfortable being racist around someone who truly stands against racism. If you still have racist friends in your life, you aren’t truly standing against racism.
It’s rare to find allies like the Matthews family, but there are a few. Jessie Daniels is one.
I was particularly interested in speaking to Jessie because her story is rare from all quarters. Jessie is both a white ally attempting to do her part in combating racism and the granddaughter of a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
I really wish I didn’t have to ask you to learn more about the Klan if you aren’t familiar, but we are here to grow. Which means that not all of the things you should learn about are going to be positive.
Jessie first spoke to what made her want to become the ally she is now.
JESSIE: When I was in graduate school, I worked on this project with Joe Feagin. He and a colleague of his, Mel Sikes, wrote a book called Living with Racism. And I was a research assistant for him and transcribed all these interviews, about two hundred or more interviews with middle-class Black Americans, describing their experiences of white racism in the contemporary setting. This was the ’90s. But listening to that, to those interviews and Black interviewers with Black participants in the study—as a white woman sitting there transcribing, typing every single word of the interview, it really changed me. It was a transformative experience for me.
When I started that project, I thought racism was something that happened in the past, and when people were talking about it now, they were just making too much of it or complaining or whatever. And doing those transcripts, I realized how much of a problem it was. How damaging it was to people who were experiencing racism and discrimination, and in every story that I was typing, that I was transcribing for that work, the damage would be caused by white people.
Jessie’s experience gave her a newfound perspective on what Black people in America were dealing with and who was the cause of many of our struggles. So she dedicated herself to making change. But as Jessie was working to help the people that her people were oppressing, she found out that the oppressors included people in her own family.
JESSIE: I was on a trip with my father to see a great-aunt of mine. She was the sister of my grandfather, my father’s father. When I was at her house, I pulled a book off the shelf, and it was Thomas Dixon’s The Clansman, and I said, “Aunt Marie, how come you have this book?” She’s like, “Oh, I don’t know. I think it was your granddad’s.” “Why did he have this book?” “Oh, you know, he was in that group.” I was, like, “What?” It was this very kind of nonchalant revelation that my grandfather had been in the Klan.
My father happened to be there, and I was, like, “Daddy, what’s going on? He was in the Klan?” He’s, like, “Yeah, they were just trying to help people.” Also, very nonchalant about this revelation, and he knew that I was writing this dissertation on the Klan and hadn’t told me about it, about his father. That upset me. That disturbed me. That unsettled me in a way that it didn’t my family, and they were just totally casual about it. It was really for them no big deal. But I sat with that news for the next, I don’t know, a couple of years or so, and just couldn’t shake it, you know?
Eventually I realized that I didn’t want my grandfather’s last name, which was my last name, Harper, to be on the book that I was writing. So I decided to change my name. I’d never liked my first name anyway (it was Susanne), and I started looking around for white women who had fought against racism to change my name to one of theirs. And it was a short list.
I remembered someone I had read about in graduate school. Her name was Jessie Daniel Ames. She was actually from Texas, and she had started something in the early 1900s called the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching, which was actually a white woman who was saying, “Not in our name,” you know? Like, “You’re lynching Black people basically in the name of protecting white women, and don’t do it for me. I’m not going to stand with you; I’m not going to let you get away with this.” So I decided to take Jessie Daniels as my name.
Jessie’s choice may seem drastic for some, but it is inherently no different from that of the Matthews family. She identified a legacy of racism and bigotry and decided that she wasn’t going to be associated with it. But more important than just walking away from it; she’s doing something about it, beyond her own family.
Jessie finished up our interview by addressing why she felt it was important for her as a young white woman to make combating racism a part of her life and why it’s important for other young white people to assess their privilege and
power as well as the historic and current racism people have faced and continue to face.
JESSIE: I think it’s so important for young white people to rethink the lessons that they’ve been handed down from their parents, from their elders, from their teachers, from whomever, about what it means to be white. If white people would just listen, if they would read those stories [by people of color], if they would take them in a way that they were not trying to interrupt and interject their own narrative on top of it, I think that we as white people could do less harm to other people. Right now, today, ongoing.
The world is lucky to have Jessie, as she’s doing great work and is setting an example for white people around the world.
But as Jessie mentioned, she wasn’t always this person, and many white people feel exactly how Jessie once felt, that people of color, particularly Black people, are just complaining when they speak up about racism. Which is what happens when the lives of people of color are just concepts to many white people, when we are just the Black bodies they see on the evening news, or the Latinxs that politicians claim are illegal and taking jobs from (white) citizens.
The types of white people who accuse people of color of “complaining” are the types of white people who tell their nephew it’s not okay to love and have a long-term relationship with a Black woman. They are the types of people who don’t have a problem with one of their family members being a member of the KKK.
Those types of people are not me, and if you learn anything during our time together, they won’t be you. Not only that, but those types of people shouldn’t feel comfortable in their racism around you. Those types of people should know you’re going to speak up, regardless of who they are.
Because we’re the type of people who stand for something, and when it has to be, that something will be people of color.
Let me start by saying again, I’m not an advocate of violence. While I have gotten into my fair share of tussles over the years (I will never lie to y’all—they were for good reason), I prefer to talk things out. Which is why it breaks my heart every time I have to go full Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson on people.
The Black Friend Page 9