Friendship and Race and Knowing Your Place

[wrathofkuus]

Well. We really have a lot to work on.

[tacosforlife]

Jan 26, 2015 18:36:33 GMT -5 @soudesafinado said:

“We have a question, and you’re the only one we can ask. We were wondering…”

I felt sure it was a trap, but curiosity got the better of me, and I waited.

“…Do you have a sideways vagina?”

“What?” I had no idea what she was talking about, which didn’t prevent me from flushing hot with embarrassment. What she’d said made no sense. “Why would you ask me that?”

“My brother told me Asian girls have those,” she said, beginning to laugh.

I don’t remember if the other girls laughed, too; I think one of them might have tried to say something to me, something nicer, but I’d heard enough. As I dropped down from the bars and ran off, I heard the questioner call after me, “So is it true? Are you going to check?”

WAIT WAIT WAIT. 

WHAT THE FUCK?

[iammalcolmx]

Oh hell naw

[foundmylazybum]

Jan 26, 2015 20:48:41 GMT -5 tacosforlife said:

Jan 26, 2015 18:36:33 GMT -5 @soudesafinado said:

“We have a question, and you’re the only one we can ask. We were wondering…”

I felt sure it was a trap, but curiosity got the better of me, and I waited.

“…Do you have a sideways vagina?”

“What?” I had no idea what she was talking about, which didn’t prevent me from flushing hot with embarrassment. What she’d said made no sense. “Why would you ask me that?”

“My brother told me Asian girls have those,” she said, beginning to laugh.

I don’t remember if the other girls laughed, too; I think one of them might have tried to say something to me, something nicer, but I’d heard enough. As I dropped down from the bars and ran off, I heard the questioner call after me, “So is it true? Are you going to check?”

WAIT WAIT WAIT. 

WHAT THE FUCK?

I read that too and thought it was so sad.  Also NOT FRIENDLY.

Also, there were parts of this that really hit home for me.  When I was in elementary school a girl in my grade was a transracial adoptee--she was Mexican and her family was white.  I will NEVER, EVER forget girls yelling at her on the playground "beaner, beaner, beaner!" and also a lot of kids asking her why her mom was white and she was "brown." 


My memories of her were that she always seemed sad or mad. Like that was her face and my interactions with her were always difficult and she was generally defensive--I wonder why (sarcasm).

[erbear]

Jan 26, 2015 21:24:26 GMT -5 @smorriso said:

#2 resonates with me so much. It stings.

Instead of the sideways vagina, it was the black macarena (which I've previously described in a post, bullshit).

I wasn't so black that I was always in speculation, but I was black enough never to feel included with the white girls. I hate how this article makes me feel. Brings up all the hateful bitter feelings of my childhood, esp in high school and middle school.

This breaks my heart  

[origami]

Jan 26, 2015 21:48:36 GMT -5 @choco said:

Man, I will still never forget when a CW told me that I wasn't Asian b/c Filipinos are from islands so they don't count. ::blank stare:: It basically summed up my experience growing up where I didn't fit in with the Asian crowd, or anywhere else. The white girls in HS told me they were terrified of me b/c I was "ghetto." That actually pissed me off.

From an ethnic standpoint I used to consider myself mixed but all people saw was brown. It wasn't until I hit my late 20s before I became comfortable just saying Filipino because that was where I was born. I now realize why my group of friends from college aren't that diverse

someone quick alert Japan they are a new continent!

[origami]

Jan 26, 2015 21:57:54 GMT -5 @choco said:

origami, I swear that CW eventually became a friend but I wanted to throat punch her when she said that. 

if you ever needed proof that you are a kind and open-hearted person look no further than ^.

[NitaX]

Jan 26, 2015 22:18:46 GMT -5 pennypenny said:

So much of my life is #1. I am often the only black person in a group. Honestly I don't really mind. I hang out with people who have the same interests as I do, who are friendly to me, etc. But I know in HS I wasn't black enough for the black girls, so I hung out with people who accepted me for who I was. And that just happened to be mostly white people. But I got so much of the you "talk white" from black people in HS that I just stop trying.

My H and I were JUST having this conversation. The "talk white BS" pisses him off because he's like "I don't slur words because my mom always corrected us. ALWAYS." He gets so upset if people ask him if he's from Memphis. It bugs him too when people comment that our girls talk "proper." 

[summer]

Numbers 1,2 & 3 pierced me right in the heart. Man, do I know those feelings well and I'm neither biracial or adopted. I can't describe what it feels like, but I've spent a decent amount of time feeling like I've been recruited as people's First Black Person (hire, coworker, friend, girlfriend....) And when you are first introduced into that job or friend circle or whatever, everyone has that "Oh, we have a black girl for that now" look on their face.

This piece has me all up in my feelings, as @smorriso would say

[summer]

I have so many things coming back to me now.  There was a woman I befriended a couple of years ago from Utah.  I was basically the first Black person she had had personal contact with and she was about 35 at the time.  She asked me once why at her job Black people always sat together. It was such a jolt to hear someone ask something like that, it was like being in a movie.  After a second I just said I couldn't speak for all of them, but for me, it's a refuge from having to live in a world where you are always "on" (see: OP's #3), a place where you don't need to explain or excuse yourself in some way that I can't articulate.  And when I think about it, I've always sought out other Black people when I've felt like I've stepped into a space that was overwhelmingly Whiite. 

#2 took me back to walking home in 7th grade with a classmate and he thought it was completely appropriate to tell racist jokes.  I remember feeling so angry and uncomfortable but not wanting to say anything because his mom was co-workers with my mom. I could not have articulated it for you, but I had the feeling that my mom being Black should not have any drama with White coworkers. I don't know if I thought she'd get fired or what, but it was a feeling like i would be threatening her job if I said anything. 

[secretlyevil]

This article and everyone's comment just makes me sad. People are such assholes.

[downtoearth]

What a screwed up world we live in that kids, who tell it like it is, can't turn to another group of kids and call them out as racists! That is a lesson I want my white kids to learn if they are being racist - that it's mean and someone will call them out! Now I'm pissed that there seems to be a code that brown people have to play by to get through school in mostly white areas.

Hell, I know I turned to many a boy as an elementary school kid and blatantly called them "sexist" because they were being sexist. One kid even asked my sister, "What's Texas have to do with not letting girls on the kickball teams?" My sister schooled him, at the top of his lungs about how he "...should move to Texas if he was so dumb that he didn't know what being sexist even was!" So my wish for 2015 is that kids who are subjected to terrible stuff like this get to call out their racist classmates directly!

[iammalcolmx]

This is the only place where I am someones ONLY Black friend.

[downtoearth]

Jan 27, 2015 11:14:27 GMT -5 iammalcolmx said:

This is the only place where I am someones ONLY Black friend.

But I'm guessing you don't live out west... aside from southern CA, the western US is pretty lacking in black people, especially the NW.

Check out this shocking map...

www.censusscope.org/us/map_nhblack.html

Hispanic is the opposite... if you live in the east you are less likely to have a Hispanic friend.

www.censusscope.org/us/map_hispanicpop.html

ETA: And while you aren't my only black friend, none of my friends who are black live in MT. They live in Seattle and Denver.

[iammalcolmx]

Jan 27, 2015 11:18:38 GMT -5 downtoearth said:

Jan 27, 2015 11:14:27 GMT -5 iammalcolmx said:

This is the only place where I am someones ONLY Black friend.

But I'm guessing you don't live out west... aside from southern CA, the western US is pretty lacking in black people, especially the NW.

Check out this shocking map...

www.censusscope.org/us/map_nhblack.html

Hispanic is the opposite... if you live in the east you are less likely to have a Hispanic friend.

www.censusscope.org/us/map_hispanicpop.html

ETA: And while you aren't my only black friend, none of my friends who are black live in MT. They live in Seattle and Denver.

I live in Atlanta and grew up in DC. My family and friends are as diverse as diverse can be.

[downtoearth]

Jan 27, 2015 11:23:48 GMT -5 iammalcolmx said:

Jan 27, 2015 11:18:38 GMT -5 downtoearth said:

But I'm guessing you don't live out west... aside from southern CA, the western US is pretty lacking in black people, especially the NW.

Check out this shocking map...

www.censusscope.org/us/map_nhblack.html

Hispanic is the opposite... if you live in the east you are less likely to have a Hispanic friend.

www.censusscope.org/us/map_hispanicpop.html

ETA: And while you aren't my only black friend, none of my friends who are black live in MT. They live in Seattle and Denver.

I live in Atlanta and grew up in DC. My family and friends are as diverse as diverse can be.

I am the antithesis of this... I grew up in a city in MT, left the state for college in Chicago, then back to MT, then to Denver for a decade, and recently back to MT. My friends and friends of the family are primarily white.  I can count on both hands the number of friends I have that are black, Hispanic, and Native American.  I imagine my friends and family look like a Garrison Keeler audience.