What were the one to three acts of allyship I did this week, and how did they support the most oppressed?
What did I notice about myself as I did them? Did I seek cookies or other forms of praise (either internally or externally)? Did I tell myself I was “good” or otherwise separate myself from belonging to a group of oppressors (disavowal!)?
How did I or can I protect my energy while prioritizing the needs of the most oppressed?
How can I ensure I continue to act in allyship? (For example, setting up recurring monthly payments, having someone hold me accountable, etc.)
FIFTEEN
Better Befriending Black Women+
No person is your friend (or kin) who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.
—ALICE WALKER
Friendships are some of the most enduring and important relationships in our lives. So what are the implications for Black women+ and other WoC who befriend white women+ in a white supremacist society? Fraught AF. I’ve endured countless experiences of being betrayed by white women+ friends in a variety of ways. When I think back on the relationships that have hurt me most, it’s not the (mostly white) men I dated. Not even close. It is a history of violence at the hands of the cis white women closest to me. There was the time my best friend told me I looked like I had been dipped in poo when I was eight. The many friends throughout high school who loved the cool factor of having a Black friend but were entirely disinterested in Black struggles. Or the “liberal feminist” who explicitly refused to hang out with me after reading one of my articles asking white women+ to address their racism. Then there’s one of the most egregious offenses, when a close friend removed me as the MC of her wedding after I confronted one of her racist bridesmaids. Needless to say, I never went to that wedding, and we’re no longer friends.
These are only a few examples, and they are painful to recall. I am in no way proposing to be a saint (I’m not), and I take responsibility for the ways in which I contributed to these toxic relationships (#internalizedoppression), but the white women on the other side seldom do. In the end, it was clear that the comfort and well-being of whiteness was their ultimate priority.
The community within which I was raised is a battlefield of white supremacy, and I, as the only Black person, let alone Black woman, in the mix at the time did the best I could simply to survive. Though in hindsight I understand the ways in which the white women I once called friends have been beautiful teachers in my life. Folx who have played an integral role in helping me get clear on what I will not endure and fully affirm my power—but that doesn’t take away from the fact that I suffered great heartbreak. Much like many other Black women+. Here’s a hard hit of realness that white folx have the privilege of ignoring: as a Black woman, the majority of the time being your friend or acquaintance means biting my tongue and hiding the truth of who I am. For your white benefit and comfort, at grave detriment to my own.
* * *
I’ve broken up with nearly every best friend I’ve ever had. Almost all of them have been white. That certainly says something about me, and it undoubtedly says a lot about the women I was befriending. One of my closest friendships was with a white woman I met while working at a restaurant when I was nineteen; we’ll call her Andy. I remember the first day Andy and I met. She was impeccably dressed, bubbly, and bright. A woman I could get down with! We became fast friends, and though we stayed in touch as I moved on to law school, our friendship solidified when we both went through big breakups with longtime partners. We lived only a few blocks apart, and I regularly went to her apartment to cook us meals to pair with her homemade kombucha, all of which culminated with watching some trashy show to keep us amused and assuage our post-breakup agony. I taught her how to cook; she introduced me to plant-based meals and got me back into yoga. I joined her family for holiday celebrations; my mother helped her cleanse her ex’s presence from her apartment. We spent a Christmas at da club dancing until we were soaked in sweat. We helped each other heal. When I went on a three-month backpacking excursion the summer after I graduated from law school, she was the person I was most excited to return home to (other than moms obvi). I loved her, and I know without question that love was mutual. But in time, I understood that the ways we supported each other as our whole, full selves was not.
Many years later, Andy and I became roommates. I had been concerned about the impact it may have on our friendship. I knew Andy had qualities that rubbed me the wrong way, but I always struggled to name them. At first, it was great. Sharing space on a daily basis only served to strengthen our already formidable bond. But ten months in, everything changed.
I received the call from my mother telling me she no longer wished to live, and I was thrust into a state of action and anguish. I knew supporting my mother as she transitioned was going to take everything I had. So I called in support. I asked Andy and a few other close friends for help, and, as my therapist advised me, I was crystal clear as to the ways they could help. I asked them to show up—both in word and in action. I asked them to check in on me, to be with me as I cried, and to help me with errands. It was the biggest call for help I had ever made, especially for someone who had been caring for others her whole life. Sadly, all of those white folx I called on for support let me down. Especially Andy. When I first told her about my mother, she was entirely present. She even offered to go to the funeral home with me for my mother’s cremation when the time came. She said a lot of amazing, caring, and supportive things, but when push came to shove, Andy’s talk was cheap. As my mother entered hospice, and the weeks of suffering dragged on into months, Andy became increasingly scarce. She never once came to visit me or my mom in the hospice where I essentially lived for three months. She rarely called or otherwise checked in. And then one day, as I sat alone crying next to my dying mother’s bedside, on the same day my beloved godfather passed away, shit all came to a head. I was scrolling on Instagram after having made a post honoring my departed godfather’s life and legacy, when I saw that Andy was out of town. She was hosting a healing retreat for other (mostly white) women. I recalled her briefly telling me about it a month or so prior but when you’re busy tending to your dying mother you need some support remembering what day it is let alone someone else’s schedule. Andy leaving without notice felt like a slap in the face. Not long before her unexpected departure I had called to let her know that my mom had finally been granted proper pain support from the hospice, and we expected she would die within the week. Andy never mentioned that she was leaving town.
Four days later my mother was dead. After staying vigil with my mother’s body and preparing her corpse for cremation, I sat and waited for the funeral home to collect her body. I started to make calls. And though I was hurt and angered by Andy’s actions, I was also in desperate need of my best friend. I phoned her up at four a.m., an ungodly hour, but your mom only dies once. I hoped she would have kept her phone on awaiting this very moment. She knew the end was near. She knew I was more or less alone. When I got Andy’s voice mail I knew that was it. My mom had just died, my favorite person and closest family. And my best friend was nowhere to be found. When Andy finally reached out, she left a message that felt altogether laissez-faire. Like my mother leaving this world wasn’t earth-shattering in every way.
The loss of my best friend on top of losing my mother was more than I could take. Then one week later, when I bared my soul to a grief group, the counselor asked me if I was surprised by Andy’s actions. If her lack of support at a time I needed her most was misaligned with how she had otherwise shown up in our friendship. And that’s when I realized that Andy hadn’t been a very supportive friend at all. Not in the ways that mattered. This isn’t to say she didn’t show me love in many ways, because she absolutely did—through hugs and talks and notes and gifts (cuz, #whitewealth)—but it is to say that when I needed her the most she had a history of leaning away. I recalled all the times she bailed on me last minute. And the ways she would ghost me once
a man entered her life. I recounted the ways she talked down to me and made fun of my most sensitive imperfections, both in private and in public. But mostly I remembered the ways in which she would gaslight me when I asked for more care, leaving me feeling needy, troubled, and rejected. What made these actions all the more painful was that Andy is praised in her predominantly white spiritual community for being a champion for women’s healing. Just not her (Black) best friend’s. Because of her power and privilege as an ambassador for one of the most problematic yoga companies on the planet, I was afraid to say anything about my pain. I knew I would face more gaslighting, as many in my midst wouldn’t believe that the person they hailed as their yoga guru could be so violent. Especially since people rarely care about the harm inflicted on Black women+.
I avoided Andy as much as I could, and she didn’t make much effort to reach out. Many months after my mom died, I eventually let Andy know how I felt, and though she apologized, once again her actions weren’t aligned with her words. I focused on healing my heart from the great grief caused by the loss of my mom, and eventually Andy and I lost touch.
Years later I ran into Andy’s mom and learned that her dad had nearly died a few months prior. I texted Andy to send my condolences. Though we hadn’t spoken in years, I know better than most how harrowing it is to witness a parent in pain. We wound up meeting for coffee, and Andy shared that she had gone MIA because she was afraid of my pain. Of witnessing the person she had always known to be so strong fall apart. And because I am so strong, she didn’t think I needed her. Of all the things she had done and said, this sentiment hurt the most. It was heart-wrenching to know firsthand that the friend you loved most in the world was unable to show up for you when you were most in need, the way you had repeatedly shown up for her, because she couldn’t withstand your pain and felt you were “strong enough” to endure it without her (even when you had expressly said otherwise). It was also racist. Black women+ are constantly viewed as strong, independent, capable, and tenacious, and therefore, we’re entirely deprived of care. By family, friends, and partners alike. This notion that I, and all Black women+ like me, can and should carry the brunt of life’s load on our own is steeped in white supremacy; and as we’ve already discussed, the emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical strife it creates is very literally killing us. And white women+, especially cis women, are more than comfortable letting us die.
Andy and I never rekindled our friendship. She took me for coffees here and there and hired me for some legal support. She still can’t seem to grasp how to fix her fuckup because, like so many white women+ in this world, she’s making the situation about her. My Black anger, presumed vicious by whiteness, is used as a justifiable excuse not to try. If I had a penny for every white friend who proclaimed, “I don’t know what else I can do,” when they haven’t actually done a damn thing. I’d be rich. In dollars. Still under-resourced in community.
I believe Andy still loves me, and though I am angered and saddened by her actions, in many ways I still love her. When the COVID-19 pandemic erupted in New York City, I again reached out to check in on her, as she’s immunocompromised, and, friends or not, I wanted to make sure she was okay (she was, because her privilege allowed her to stay in Canada during the worst of it). Unsurprisingly, when the global health crisis evolved into state-led Black genocide, Andy was silent as a stone.
I still want what’s best for her, but I am prioritizing care for myself. Because the only true apology is changed behavior. To not only admit the specific ways she caused harm but to do the inner work to address her white supremacy, where she went wrong, then actively show up and remedy her mistakes. My door remains open to those who put in the work to do better, but I ain’t holding my breath.
* * *
We don’t talk about friend breakups or the considerable hurt they cause, especially as women and femmes, and all the more so as BI&WoC. I’ve never much felt like I fit in anywhere and have spent a lifetime cycling through friends searching for belonging from other women+.
Though I’ve had many white friends express the extreme closeness they felt we had, it often left me perplexed. I rarely felt the same, because they didn’t really know or care to know me. Doing so would require them to own up to their privilege, unpack their racism and the harm they’d caused me and other Black and Indigenous women+, and these women were not about to do that. If you haven’t talked about racism with your BI&PoC friends, decolonization with your Indigenous friends, or anti-Blackness with your Black friends, y’all just ain’t that close. Periodt.
I used to internalize my stream of failed friendships and attack myself for them. My first suicidal ideation, at thirteen, arose after being ostracized by two white girlfriends. Then I realized the common theme: almost everyone in question was a wealthy white person who refused to acknowledge or affirm me as a Black woman—meaning they failed to accept ME. I still frequently feel as though I wasn’t meant to have good friends. Being a racial justice activist makes meeting new friends all the harder. And the pervasive gaslighting I’ve endured from white women+ makes it hard to trust myself or others. Sadly, my experiences are not rare. I have heard countless stories from Black women+ about the toxic friendships they experience with white women+, the depression it causes, and how they choose to isolate themselves as a means to prevent further harm. Almost all of which occurs to the willful ignorance of the white women+ in question. This shit has got. To. Stop. Let’s explore some other common harms white women+ inflict on Black women+ and other WoC so we can help kick this crap to the curb.
OTHER FRIENDSHIP FAILS
As with any intimate relationship, harm occurs in all close friendships between folx of all races and identities. The potency of the harm that occurs between women or femmes is of particular note, given its insidious nature. We may not punch each other in the face, but we sure as hell know how to take one another out at the knees. Through passive-aggressive remarks, silence, ganging up, criticism, and the like, women and femmes are no strangers to inflicting violence on those closest to us. Naturally, this is magnified in friendships between white women/femmes and Black women/femmes because racial power dynamics create inherently uneven relationships and aggravated forms of assault. For example, when a Black woman and her white friend get into a disagreement, the Black woman knows she will be perceived as “angry” for merely expressing herself. Our white women and femme friends, as a result of their anti-Blackness, are prone to misconstrue our emotional expression, any emotional expression, as anger. And when white women and femmes face anger, especially from Black women and femmes, it’s considered abuse. Any meaningful dialogue between friends ends, the voices of Black women and femmes silenced and our behaviors policed. Moreover, when cis white women cry, the whole damn world stops. Everyone caters to their tears, and they expect it to be so. Emmett Till, an innocent Black child, was even murdered because of one white woman’s tears!
Growing up in an incredibly white space, I accrued a bunch of white women who became my friends on the condition that I didn’t challenge them or the system of racist oppression they both perpetuated and benefited from. And for a long time, I didn’t—constantly, though unconsciously, ensuring that the white folx surrounding me weren’t made to acknowledge racism in any way, because it would almost surely result in violence. White wildness, H.A.R.M., white entitlement, gaslighting, spiritual bypassing, white exceptionalism—you name it, I’ve endured it a million times over. Black women and femmes rarely trust white women and femmes because of all the violence we’ve encountered from them. Many of us explicitly refuse to befriend white women or femmes as a result. As Brittney Cooper writes in her book Eloquent Rage, “I have always known of white women’s great capacity to be treacherous.”1 Below are some additional examples of ways white women and femmes cause their Black women and femme friends harm:
#1—Insensitivity & Selfishness
I once went to visit friends at their apartment, and when I got there, they were both nearly
in tears because they were “broke.” One of the women exclaimed, “We’re living below the poverty line!” and I almost lost my whole shit. I should have. They lived in a two-bedroom apartment on the thirty-second floor of a brand-new development in the heart of one of the most gentrified neighborhoods in North America. One friend drove her dad’s BMW, the other a MINI Cooper her parents bought her at sixteen. Meanwhile, my mother was disabled, on welfare, and pleading with the government to give her enough funding to pay for adequate care, and I was busting my ass to pay off student loans and support us both—which my friends were well aware of. Lacking the wherewithal to check your privilege, especially in front of your Black friend, and particularly doing so from your ivory tower surrounded by displaced and disenfranchised Indigenous folx, is all kinds of NO. We’re also seeing this collectively with multiple accounts of white women losing their shit when asked to wear a mask to prevent others (mostly Black and Indigenous folx) from contracting COVID-19. Selfish (and violent) as fuck.
#2—Bullying, Solidarity & Silence
It took me thirty-three years to properly understand what bullying from a woman feels like. And when I finally did, I realized I’d been subject to it at the hands of white women+ my whole life. One of the worst instances was at that bachelorette party for a close friend. When I called out a woman for her racist remark, four other women jumped in to “defend” her by outright attacking me in white solidarity. “That’s not what she said!” “She didn’t mean it that way.” “We’re just trying to have a good time.” As I sat in the center of an almost entirely white circle, I was made out to be the villain. Not one mention was made about the harmful statement the white woman had made. And what was worse than the wealthy, white, and wretched cis women yelling at me was the silence of the other white women present. Those I called friends who knew I was being treated unjustly and did absolutely nothing to stop it. When we returned home from the trip, I spent the next week helping the white bride-to-be navigate her feelings about the harm I endured at her behest. In a breathtaking act of white solidarity, she then removed me as the MC of her wedding “because of who would be in attendance,” though I was still allowed to be a bridesmaid—thanks so much! She couldn’t even tell me herself—I was informed in an email sent by her fucking fiancé! No words.
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