The Black Friend

by Frederick Joseph

  As I see it, there are levels to Dwayne Johnson. There’s lovable him in kids’ movies like Tooth Fairy, there’s mid-level him in WWE as “The Rock,” and then there’s full him, shooting things, throwing things, and smacking people, which is him in the Fast and Furious series.

  One of those instances happened during my freshman year of college at my school’s spring concert, which I had been waiting months for. The spring concerts were the stuff of legends. Unlike at high school, where a concert meant the school band or choir performing, a concert in college meant real musical acts, famous musical acts, and, of course, after-parties.

  That year, the artists Lupe Fiasco and Soulja Boy were going to be performing, which meant the party would start during the concert.

  If you’ve never heard “Donk” by Soulja Boy, go listen NOW. You’ll see exactly why I said the party would start during the concert.

  The night of the concert, everyone on campus was excited, but none more than the freshmen. For many, this was our first-ever concert, and it was the first school “party night” for all of us. It was also the night when the campus was full of people who didn’t attend our school, because students were allowed to bring guests to the show. I was attending the concert with Jayvon, Cory, and a few friends from campus.

  So basically it was a ton of teenagers underage drinking and partying, many of whom didn’t even attend the school. What could go wrong?

  When we arrived at the on-campus arena, I had never seen anything like it in my life. There were thousands of people, none likely older than twenty-three, each one wearing their best outfit, and everyone seemingly looking to hook up with someone. It was everything my nineteen-year-old self had ever dreamed of.

  After standing in line for about an hour, we finally made it in. It was crowded, hot, and sweaty. It was perfect.

  Everyone inside was grouped with people they knew, looking around to see who they didn’t know and figuring out who they wanted to know.

  For the most part, we knew everyone there was to know on campus. While there were many groups, we generally all got along and had respect for one another. But because there were many people on campus and at the show that night who didn’t go to our school, things felt different.

  Some people used their guest passes to bring people who simply didn’t fit the typical mold of the students at our school (friendly and polite), and some of the guests even seemed intent on disrespecting people that night.

  Specifically, there were two white guys (not from our school) who I saw the moment I walked in; they were hanging out with this Black dude I deeply despised named Kenneth Barns.

  People actually called him “KB,” but this is my book, so his name is Kenneth.

  Kenneth was from somewhere on Long Island and grew up in a wealthy family around a bunch of wealthy white kids, but for some reason he always tried to act tough on campus. As if he was from “the hood,” where I in fact was actually from.

  I hated seeing someone perpetuate the negative stereotypes of not only Black people but also where I was from, especially someone who had no reason to. But I was never more disgusted than when I saw the guys he’d brought to the show.

  Kenneth and the two white guys were all wearing clothes you would only see in a parody of a rap video from 2008: baggy jeans, Jordans, gold chains, big fitted caps.

  Mind you, at this point “urban fashion” had trended away from that style already. Which made it that much more annoying.

  It was just our luck that they were right near us, and there wasn’t room to get away from them. At first I was able to ignore them, as I had done with Kenneth most of the year, but then they started doing things that were impossible for me to ignore.

  I was taught from a young age to respect women, part of which meant not to catcall women. It was something that my mother and grandmother made sure I understood was wrong.

  If I saw someone doing it, I would typically approach them about it. But what Kenneth’s friends were doing wasn’t just catcalling women; they were grabbing women and being completely outrageous.

  I already knew if I said something to them, it was going to be a big issue, and I didn’t want to ruin the night for my friends. But after a few minutes of watching Kenneth and his white friends disrespect almost every woman walking by, I decided to approach them. I told my friends I was going to get food; just in case anything happened, I didn’t want them dragged in.

  As I walked up, one of the guys was talking to a classmate of ours named Yulitza, and she looked annoyed. But I couldn’t hear what they were saying over the music until I got closer.

  Pay attention to everything that happens next, because it’s a great example of just about everything white people should never do. Heck, much of it is everything no one should ever do.

  The first thing I heard was Kenneth saying to his friend, “Her name is Yulitza. She bad, right?”

  Kenneth’s friend (I’m calling him Tweedledee) responded by saying, “Oh, word, Yulitza? That’s mad exotic. Where you from?”

  Yulitza: “I’m just Dominican. Can you leave me alone now?”

  Tweedledee: “Damn, I can’t just keep you company?”

  Yulitza: “I’m good. My friends should be here soon.”

  Tweedledee: “You don’t have to be all stuck up. You waiting for your man?”

  Yulitza didn’t respond. She started looking around as if hoping whoever she was waiting for would suddenly appear.

  Kenneth’s other friend (Tweedledum) finally chimed in: “She’s just stuck up because she has some hair.” He then proceeded to touch her hair.

  As I said, pay attention to things you should never do. Touching Black hair is one of them.

  Yulitza yelled, “Don’t touch me!”

  It was at this point that I walked over and said, “You good, Yulitza?”

  Before she could say anything, Kenneth got in my face. “Yeah, she’s good. Why don’t you relax?”

  No one likes being told to relax, but honestly, I’d been waiting for Kenneth to give me a reason, anyway.

  I responded in the most tactful and pleasant way I could: “Get out my face before I hurt you, Kenneth.” (Yes, even then I refused to call him “KB.”)

  Kenneth glanced at his friends as if to make sure he would be backed up in what he was going to say next. He then responded, “So what’s up, then?”

  I wasn’t surprised that he felt bold enough to fight me in that moment. But he did seem surprised when I looked at him and his friends and said, “Who’s first?”

  All of them stared at me for a moment. Then Tweedledee responded, “Don’t get your ass beat, my nigga.”

  As soon as he said it, Yulitza looked at me, and I looked at her. We both then turned toward Kenneth. Kenneth didn’t seem surprised, but Yulitza and I obviously were. This white dude had just called me his what?

  Now, I’ve already said that before college I wasn’t the most woke person, and I certainly let white people slide with a lot of things. But the n-word was always off-limits for anyone who isn’t Black. Doesn’t matter if it’s with an “a” or an “er”—if you aren’t Black, don’t say it.

  Also, remember, I don’t condone violence, but I did what any self-respecting person would do—I went full Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

  At some point, my friends joined in, then everyone came running over to watch. Eventually a few other people who had nothing to do with our fight started fighting.

  After a few minutes (probably seconds, because brawls never last that long), one Black and two Latinx campus security guards came over with two white police officers, broke everything up, and took us outside the venue.

  As soon as we got outside, the police asked Tweedledee and Tweedledum—the only white people involved—what had happened. They said that I started a brawl and was harassing them.

  They both changed their voices and wording while talking to the police. They went from speaking in slang with an accent to articulating every word as if they were Engli
sh professors. They knew how to play their whiteness to their favor.

  The police didn’t bother to ask me or my friends what happened, so I decided to speak up. “Officer, they called me a nigga,” I said.

  The officers looked at me for a second, and one of them said, “I suggest you stop speaking before you make this worse for yourself.”

  “Officer, we didn’t do anything. They were grabbing women and said the n-word,” I responded.

  “We don’t have any complaints of that,” the officer responded. “All we have is a bunch of Black kids who decided they were going to jump some white kids watching a concert. Look at their faces.” He pointed at the marks and bruises on Tweedledee’s and Tweedledum’s faces.

  In all fairness, my friends and I had not only won the fight handily; we’d kicked their asses. But the officer didn’t bother looking at Kenneth’s face, which personally offended me, as he looked the worst, thanks to yours truly.

  I began to walk closer to the officer, trying to further explain myself. “Officer, if you go and ask—”

  Before I could finish, the officer had his hand on his gun holster.

  “I suggest you back the f*ck up!” the officer yelled while both he and his partner gripped their gun holsters as if ready to shoot me at any second.

  Before I could say anything or process the moment, Cory tapped me and whispered, “Chill. Move back.”

  “I’m moving back to the space I was in, and my hands are up!” I said loudly so the officers and everyone around us could hear me as I slowly stepped back.

  This was something that my mother taught me to do in case I was ever in a situation with a police officer like this. Something that many Black parents have taught their children during what’s often known as “the talk.” Something that doesn’t always work but is an attempt to save our lives.

  I stood there, shaking, trying to process what had just happened.

  “Get out of here. Go home. Stay out of trouble,” one of the officers said as they took their hands off their holsters.

  As we walked away from the venue, we heard the officers say, “You two, get on back in there.” They were speaking to Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

  We also heard one of the campus security guards tell the officers that we actually attended the school and the two white guys weren’t students, but the officers ignored him.

  Kenneth tried to walk in with them, but the officers stopped him and said he needed to go back home. He told them he was with the two white guys, but Tweedledee and Tweedledum just looked at him and then went in.

  It’s always funny to me how that worked out for him. That’s what he gets for thinking white people who say the n-word were going to defend or protect him.

  As I walked away, I could only think about how unfair the moment was.

  This might have been my first time fully understanding just how powerful white privilege could be and the power white people hold within the justice system.

  I thought I understood. But you can never fully understand until you’re in it.

  I had dealt with a lot of racism in my life up to that moment, but most encounters were based in microaggressions—inherently racist or problematic things that white people had done that disrespected me but that I knew they didn’t realize.

  There was nothing not to realize in that moment. From touching a Black woman’s hair to calling me the n-word, Tweedledee and Tweedledum’s racism had been obvious. But it didn’t matter.

  In the eyes of the police, my friends and I (and Kenneth, too) were just a bunch of Black kids starting trouble, regardless of what had actually happened.

  That night sat with me for a long time, and still does. By that point in my life, I had read countless books, watched tons of documentaries, and spent hours having important conversations about race dynamics in America, but I still wasn’t prepared. You never are.

  But the worst thing about what had happened was that I was lucky. I could have lost my life because two white guys decided to be racist asses. This is America.

  There are lines that you should never cross with people from various communities, especially people of color—words you should never say, ways you should never interact.

  It’s a nonnegotiable understanding for many, but there are countless moments like that night at the concert, when lines aren’t just crossed; they are completely ignored and disrespected. Moments when many white people simply get to do whatever they want.

  JOEL: I didn’t deal with white people until high school. And granted, the white people I dealt with were, like, in [positions of] power. Like, it was only police officers and teachers. You know? The only other white person in the world, who I never met, though, was my mom’s co-worker, Miss Helen. And Miss Helen used to give my mom hand-me-downs. You know? I wouldn’t even have to go school-year shopping, because I was just wearing the clothes that her older son just stopped wearing. That’s all I knew of them.

  This is an important point. There are many white people who live within bubbles where they don’t get to interact with people of color, which we talked about earlier, but the same is sometimes true for people of color. This lack of interaction can build preconceived notions about groups of people you rarely or never deal with, from both sides. The difference is that, as Joel said, there are often power dynamics involved.

  For many white people, their views of a person of color may be based on what they’ve seen on a show, or in a movie, or on the news, as we’ve discussed. But for some people of color, our first and only interactions with white people are with people in power, such as educators and law enforcement.

  JOEL: I think I wasn’t in the position where I really, fully understood racial dynamics until high school, when I made some white friends. Like, there are things that I’m not allowed to do because of my skin. I remember, prime example, we went to Jennifer Convertibles, just to chill.

  They were sitting on the couches, and drinking soda. And I didn’t do any of that. Because I was just, like, “What are they doing?” Who goes into any space and just sits on the furniture? You’re not worried about staining it? I remember we left, and then we went to Central Park. And they took their shoes off, and they just started jumping in the water. And I can look back at that moment now and think about how carefree they were. And how much freedom they felt like they had. That they didn’t even have to think about the consequences and repercussions of doing something that could be considered illegal, or could get them in trouble. They weren’t thinking about that.

  For those of you who aren’t aware, Jennifer Convertibles is a furniture store. People go there to buy couches, not hang out. I really should have asked Joel why he and his friends were chilling in a Jennifer Convertibles. Anyway . . .

  As with my story at the concert, many white people don’t have to think about the repercussions of their actions in the same way that people of color do, or sometimes at all. This is the very definition of white privilege. At best, this privilege makes them feel free to do what others can’t do and, at worst, to do things that disrespect or oppress others.

  As was the case with Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

  JOEL: Our experience with white power structures and white power dynamics and supremacy is very different [from white people’s experience with those things]. Because we have to question everything before we do it; we’ve had to study white people forever. The reason we know them so well is because we had to. It was part of our survival. Whereas they don’t have to know us or respect us.

  He was right. Having the ability to survive without having to know or develop a level of respect for groups of people is part of the legacy of American racism and white privilege.

  This is the same racism and white privilege that allow young white men to disrespect young Black people, yet the police are ready to kill the young Black man for standing up for himself.

  This is probably part of the reason someone like Kenneth thought that he needed to let white people act a certain way around him. Bec
ause otherwise, he might not have had any friends where he was from.

  Maybe Kenneth wasn’t much different from me during my Carlton phase. We may have both been survivors trying to get by, and that meant lessening ourselves for the white people around us. Two people, damaged by the same system.

  Though I wouldn’t have ever gone to the depths that Kenneth went.

  Those young white men didn’t have to understand or respect him, but there is a value for those who decide to, which is something Joel gave his thoughts on.

  JOEL: For me, I think I’ve benefited from having a diverse circle or grouping of friends and people that I learn from. It enhances my global experience. And it enhances my local experience. There’s so much to be benefited from being more inclusive. You’ll grow more. You’ll just be a better human being. You’ll be a better parent. You’ll be a better partner.

  If I’m being honest with you, white people don’t have to change; they will be fine without doing so. But white people should change, because just being fine shouldn’t be good enough.

  Which is something I discussed with journalist Jemele Hill.

  JEMELE: Learning about other people allows us to have more empathy for the other person, and therefore more growth, in that as you become more empathetic, I think, you become more fully human and fully whole because you start to understand how the world works. And I thought that was the mission, why we got all put here together: to understand how this world works. Being homogenous doesn’t teach you that. If we all went through different experiences all the time, and we were all getting exactly alike, how would we ever grow? We wouldn’t.