The Black Friend Page 3

  That Sunday afternoon, I arrived at Patrick’s house in a cab and was immediately impressed. They lived in a home with a driveway gate that had a video intercom. This already put them in a higher class than the white television families I had seen.

  After my cab was let past the gate, I saw that Matt’s car was already there, which eased my mind; I wouldn’t have to meet Patrick’s family alone.

  I rang the bell, and within seconds the door was opened by a tall white woman who looked like she could have been Tina Fey’s sister. She stared at me for a moment, as if to take in what I was wearing and confirm that I wasn’t a threat, and then said, “You must be Frederick. Come on in!”

  I thanked her for having me and handed her a pie I had bought at Trader Joe’s. I figured that would be the easiest thing to bring them, as everyone loves Trader Joe’s, regardless of what race they are or how much money they have.

  When I walked in, I was greeted by Patrick’s father, who sort of reminded me of Ben Affleck. (Not the Batman version, the out-of-shape version.) He shook my hand and said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, son,” then followed up with, “Strong handshake like that on a boy your size, I’m sure you can palm a basketball. You can probably dunk, too. No NBA in your future?”

  You’re probably thinking, Wow, that was racist as hell. You’re right: it was. If you’re not thinking this, we have A LOT of work to do, and you should refer to the stereotypes entry in this book’s encyclopedia.

  I didn’t know how to respond, and luckily I didn’t have to, because at that moment, Patrick came downstairs to greet me and take me upstairs to their game room. (Yes, they were that rich.)

  When we got to the room, Matt was sitting there playing Smash Bros. with Patrick’s brother, who was about eleven years old. After a few minutes of talking, I got comfortable and joined them.

  We played for a few hours, then Patrick’s parents called us downstairs for dinner, which surprised me because I hadn’t smelled any food being cooked.

  When we got to the dining room, there were about ten cartons of Chinese food laid out. As I said, I’d had no idea what to expect from a white family dinner—maybe a green bean casserole?—but it certainly wasn’t Chinese takeout.

  When Patrick’s father went to turn on the radio, I figured I would at least get to hear what their Sunday music was, but I was wrong. Instead, he turned on NPR (National Public Radio), which I’ve come to realize is like religion for liberal white people.

  I suppose Patrick’s parents could tell I was confused, because they asked me what was wrong. I told them all about Sundays in my household and about my mother’s cooking.

  Patrick’s mother responded by saying, “That sounds nice! What does your mother make?”

  Before I could respond, Patrick’s brother jumped in and said, “Fried chicken!” and laughed, assuming we’d all think his comment was funny.

  Patrick’s father swiftly turned to his youngest son and said, “That’s not funny, Michael. Apologize to Frederick!”

  But I jumped in with “It’s okay.” In fact, there was nothing okay about it, but I was so embarrassed and hurt that I just wanted to move past this deeply racist moment.

  I was expecting one of my friends to stick up for me and condemn what was said, but Patrick simply chimed in by saying, “Michael, you’re a little jerk,” and then changed the conversation to how the Yankees were doing that season.

  I sat quietly for the rest of dinner, picking at my food until everyone was done eating. After Patrick’s parents cleared the table, his brother went back up to the game room, and his parents asked the three of us to stay downstairs for dessert and to talk.

  We went into the den and Patrick’s mother and father sat for a second and stared at me. Then Patrick’s father said, “Frederick, I want to apologize to you.”

  At that point, I would rather have been anywhere in the world but in that room, surrounded by white people staring at me. Looking back, it felt like I was in the Sunken Place from Get Out.

  So I simply said again, “It’s okay,” hoping I could just call a cab and head home soon.

  Patrick’s father slammed his hand on a table near him and said, “It’s not okay! I don’t know where he got that from!” Which was interesting, seeing as he was the same person who made the racist basketball comment when I walked in.

  An older me would have said, “He obviously got it from you, Chad.” But I said nothing.

  I don’t know if his name was Chad. I just figured he looked like a Chad, or maybe a Dan. I also imagined that he had played lacrosse and would shotgun beers at frat parties in college.

  Patrick’s mother said, “The reason we are frustrated by what Michael said is because in this family, we don’t see color. When you are here, it doesn’t matter if you’re black, orange, or purple. You’re a human, Frederick.”

  Both Patrick and Matt nodded and smiled at me when she was finished to affirm that they were on the same page as her. I just sat and stared at them, then stared around the room.

  She then proceeded to go into the kitchen to get dessert.

  There are two sayings that almost every person of color has heard various times in their life: “Why does everything have to be about race?” and “I don’t see color.”

  These sayings are directly responsible for many of my migraines over the years, and more important, they are part of the reason for a lack of racial progress in this country.

  While I might not have been as thoughtful about racism when I was younger as I am now, I still hated the idea of people not seeing color, because it doesn’t make sense. You can’t tell me that you don’t see my Blackness when you have to see my Blackness to even make the statement. The statement contradicts itself.

  Beyond making no sense, the statement is also extremely racist, even though most people saying it think it’s the exact opposite. But I wouldn’t learn that until later in life.

  When Patrick’s mother walked back into the den, she was holding something that looked like banana bread, which I was happy about. The least they could do was have a solid dessert to end the night.

  She cut everyone a piece, and they began eating. I picked up my piece and took a bite and quickly realized this wasn’t banana bread at all. It wasn’t sweet, and the texture was off.

  I asked what it was, and Patrick’s mother responded, “Date loaf.” I didn’t know what the hell date loaf was, nor did I care; I had had enough. First they ruined my Sunday dinner, then they were racist, and now they were trying to poison me!

  For those who aren’t aware, date loaf is basically bread with nuts and dates. It can be camouflaged as other things, such as banana bread, and is disgusting. It tastes like soggy wheat bread with crunchy nuts and fruit in it.

  I don’t know why anyone would eat it themselves or serve it to their guests, unless that person is pulling an elaborate prank—or hates their guests.

  I got up and went to the bathroom and called my cab. When I was walking back to the den, Matt was standing there, and he asked whether I was okay. I told him I was getting ready to leave because Patrick’s family was racist. He responded by telling me I was wrong and that they said they didn’t see color.

  I tried to explain why that didn’t make sense, but he told me I was “looking for something to be mad about.”

  While I’m paraphrasing a lot of conversations in this book, some of the things that were said I never forgot and remember word for word. That comment of Matt’s is one of them.

  A few minutes later, Patrick’s father told me my cab was outside, and I thanked them and left.

  I thought about the day the entire ride home, and then I thought about it the next day, and I kept thinking about it for months, and now years.

  I didn’t just think about the racist things that happened. I thought about how everyone had created a shield so I couldn’t criticize their racism and how I also felt my Blackness being erased in the process. I disliked myself for a long time for giving them that power, for n
ot holding them accountable.

  I’ve come to realize that a fear of accountability is why white people say things like “I don’t see color” and “Why does everything have to be about race?” Because to see my color, to see my culture, to see my race, would also mean taking responsibility for how white people have historically treated people my color, with my culture, from my race.

  I may not have realized it when I was younger, but being at Patrick’s house helped me come to terms with something important: from the expectations and stereotypes about what foods we eat to what talents we have or what activities we enjoy, every interaction in some way is influenced by race.

  More important, talking about and combating racism doesn’t “make everything about race”—racism makes everything about race, and racism can be found in every part of society. From our educational system to our legal system, nonwhite people are disproportionately mistreated and oppressed.

  Except when it comes to food; I can safely say that green bean casserole is a form of white oppression.

  Between conversations online and in professional settings, I’ve spent a lot of time discussing the reasons it’s important that white people not only see race but also understand the active role their color blindness has played in racism. One of those discussions was with Angie Thomas.

  One of my favorite things about Angie is how her work is authentically Black and relatable while holding white people and oppressive systems accountable.

  ANGIE: Whenever I sit down and write, I never really sit down with an intention to talk about racism or with an intention to talk about issues that may be affecting young Black people. I just want to really tell stories about young Black people and the things they may experience, and in The Hate U Give, we see that with Starr. She experiences, of course, racism, police brutality, systemic racism. All of these things affect her life, affect her world. But for me, I wanted to simply tell a story about a Black girl in a community like Garden Heights and the struggle she had with being two different people in two different worlds.

  This is an important point because it shows the inherent difference between the lives of many people of color and those of many white people. Angie didn’t set out to write a book about racism or oppression; she set out to write a Black girl’s story. But to tell most Black stories, it would be inauthentic not to include the racism impacting their world. This is another benefit of white privilege: white storytellers don’t have to create characters or worlds that are impacted by things such as police brutality or systemic racism if they don’t want to.

  ANGIE: I hear white authors saying things all the time like “Oh, I just decided to make this character Black because it would be great to have that. But I’m not doing any research on Black people.” You know what I mean? It’s like you just took a white character and essentially gave them blackface, and no, it doesn’t work like that. There are certain things, there are certain experiences, that Black characters are going to have that’ll be different. So it’s always good to take note of that. It’s always good to be aware of that.

  Let’s say, for instance, if you were writing a story about time travel, and you were sending characters to the 1960s. It’s going to be a whole different experience for a Black character than for a white character. You have to know these things. You have to be aware of these things.

  In order to know these things, you need to first acknowledge that there is a difference. You need to see race. My experience at Patrick’s house didn’t happen because I’m “a human”; if so, it could have happened to Matt. But it didn’t happen to him; it happened to me, because I was the Black person there.

  ANGIE: I tell people, just say no to color blindness. I hate that phrase “I’m color-blind, I’m color-blind.” I don’t need you to be color-blind. I need you to see me as I am, I need you to see that I’m a Black woman. I need you to read my characters and see that they’re young Black people. I need you to take note of that. I need you to recognize that, because it makes a difference. That’s the world we live in. But when somebody says, “Oh, I’m color-blind,” that also means they’re purposely being blind to the things that affect me as a person of color.

  In my opinion, the idea of being color-blind and of trying to steer conversations away from race are the most manipulative and powerful tools of racism. They allow white people to continue to be comfortable. No awkward conversations about race! No having to account for the centuries of brutality and injustice perpetrated by people who look like them against people who look like us!

  But that color blindness doesn’t help people of color who are in uncomfortable or downright dangerous situations every day because of race. And refusing to acknowledge race certainly doesn’t save the lives of those who are killed because of it.

  Think I’m overstating the impact of color blindness? I suggest heading to the encyclopedia, my friend.

  The inability of people to accept accountability for doing things that are wrong is in the DNA of America. It’s why people can’t accept that America was founded on land stolen from indigenous people and that Black people are still feeling the legacy of slavery.

  I’m going to assume (hope) that you’ve heard of Black Lives Matter—the movement that started in the wake of the murder of Trayvon Martin, which seeks to draw attention to the disproportionate degree of police violence experienced by Black people in this country. You’ve probably also heard of All Lives Matter, which might seem like a fairly neutral statement but is actually anything but. (And then there’s Blue Lives Matter—the movement to remind everyone that white killer cops are people, too.)

  All Lives Matter is directly related to white people not wanting to see color and not wanting to make things about race. It’s an effort to derail the people who are saying that Black lives matter while they are burying children like Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice. It’s an effort to neutralize the message that we need to uplift the importance of Black lives because so many people act as if those lives don’t count. I want you to see my race, and I want you to see the race of other people of color and the traumas many white people have caused us, and I want you to own those traumas and to be better.

  But I also want you to see more than our pain and our struggle. I want you to see the beauty in our differences.

  I want you to see Black mothers perfecting their collard greens recipe. I want you to see Chinese grandparents teaching their children to make dumplings by hand. I want you to see Puerto Rican fathers teaching their children the history of salsa music. I want you to see Indian mothers placing colorful saris on their daughters.

  I don’t want to be seen as “a human,” I don’t want to be seen as “the same.” I want to be respected. I want to be special. I want to be jazz. I want to be soul food. I want to be poetry.

  I want to be Black.

  I was in the cafeteria of my new high school, and someone started playing a Backstreet Boys song. Of course I went over and started singing along.

  Keep in mind, boy bands were a staple of my childhood. You would’ve had to be from Antarctica to have never heard anything by the Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, and 98 Degrees.

  98 Degrees was actually the best of the boy bands, and I will gladly die on that hill. I’ve been making this point for years, and no one wants to listen. Go compare and see for yourself. Anyway, back to the story.

  So there I was, in the middle of finally enjoying myself with all those white kids, but then someone cut me off in the middle of singing and said, “I didn’t think you would know this song . . .”

  “Why wouldn’t I know the Backstreet Boys?”

  He responded, “You know, you guys mainly listen to rap and stuff like that!”

  There it was.

  One of the things I remember most from high school is the idea of Oreos. Not the cookies—I’ve been very familiar with those amazing creations for as long as I can remember. No, I’m talking about the term “Oreo” as in the phrase “You’re like an Oreo: Black on the outside and white on th
e inside.”

  I had never heard this term until I transferred to my new high school, and then I heard it A LOT.

  I stood there, dumbfounded. Not only because I had never heard this stereotype before, but also because I couldn’t believe he thought that was true. But I found out through the years that he wasn’t the only white person who thought this way.

  Since I was a kid, my interests have always been diverse and dynamic. I’ve always loved all types of movies, shows, books, and music. Most of the music I was introduced to was through my mother.

  When I was growing up, my mother listened to everything. On any given day in my house you could hear the Bee Gees, Carole King, Fleetwood Mac, the Beatles, and more.

  Because of this, I never saw certain genres or musicians as reserved for white people. It was the music I grew up hearing, along with DMX, Mary J. Blige, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, and Miles Davis.

  But I learned during high school that liking things that weren’t “Black” meant I was some type of special Black person. Like a mythical unicorn, or some sort of rare trading card that the white kids (and some of the white teachers) wanted to show off to people. Or a damn cookie.

  If I knew a Fall Out Boy song, I was an Oreo. If I watched One Tree Hill, I was an Oreo. Hell, I couldn’t even play certain video games without being called an Oreo.

  It wasn’t just the Black kids that were seen this way; it was anyone who wasn’t white. If you didn’t stick to things that white kids thought you should stick to, if you were different from what they assumed you should be, then odds were they would make fun of you for it.

  The kids of color who weren’t Black but who defied racial stereotypes were often called “golden Oreos.” Tan on the outside, yet also white on the inside. Really clever, right? I’m sure kids in my high school kept Oreo’s stock doing great.

  As I look back, another reason I hate that white kids called us Oreos is because many white people hate, and I mean HATE, being referred to as foods.