White spaces shouldn’t bother me. I went to white schools. I went to a white church. I have white friends. I’ve dated and I’m dating a white person.
But still, in a room of white strangers I am uncomfortable.
In those situations, I’m not worried what white people think of me; I’m worried about what I think of them.
Please don’t perform a “substitution test” on my sentences and exchange the “white” for “Black.” There are no substitutions for my feelings as an individual.
In these scenarios, my mind paces, and it races. I assume the whites in the room are racist or prone to say or do something offensive.
This feeling has nothing to do with class. A room full of white people is still a blinking and unthinking sign to me that reads, “whites only.”
No matter how old I get, or however many positive experiences I have, these feelings follow me.
This past Halloween, I went to a party in the Baltimore suburbs.
When my partner and I entered, I scanned the room and saw no color.
I then spent the night inspecting costumes for blackface. I needed to be ready because, hey, it could happen.
Then, there was a wedding I went to recently and all the attendees were white.
As the groomsmen filed into place, I saw Black faces and they relieved me.
But then at the reception, I drank too much, and I blacked out, in part, because I was still uncomfortable.
My partner told me I mentioned to the groom, yes, the freaking groom, how relieved I was to see Black people in the wedding. I don’t remember saying that, but it matches my inner dialogue, and apparently, I made myself heard.
Before that incident, this past summer I went to a new bar with a visiting friend.
Everyone was white inside the bar; I even noticed the tall walls were all white. Were the owners trying to send a message?
When I mentioned my discomfort to my friend, who is also Black, can you guess what she said?
She said I need white friends! Can you believe? Me? Surely not I, lord?
Well, I balked as if she had asked me to eat chalk. I scribbled and passed her my whitest list. She crossed it out and said, I need “local white friends.”
I believe in friendship.
I’ve read and quoted the stats, studies, and stories about how friendship reduces prejudice and anxiety.
But, no matter how many white people I know, I still can’t automatically extend their earned comfort to any group of white people.
With every new group of white people, I’m at ground zero again trying to assess the situation, and I look for the nearest emergency exits.
I know my feelings have a cause. No one has to tell me how society’s racism justifies my feelings or how my feelings are a prejudice.
I acknowledge those obvious points.
But my point is, I don’t want to feel uncomfortable.
Surprisingly and selfishly, I’m not motivated by my instant ability to turn a group of white people into white supremacists with MAGA hats and tiki torches.
My discomfort motivates me.
Social science says these feelings can raise stress levels and create bad outcomes for the body and the mind. I need something to change, and it will have to be me, and for me.
Years ago, when I was in therapy, I wrote affirmations to counter these thoughts.
One affirmation says, “I cannot tell based on someone’s physical features whether they are racist or where they stand politically.”
I used to read my affirmations daily, and I mentally recited them when I felt uneasy.
Experts in prejudice reduction call that self-talk.
Maybe I stopped talking back to myself because I thought I didn’t need to anymore. But talking to yourself isn’t always a sign of an issue; it may be how we get over issues. Talking to yourself should be a lifelong habit.
Some researchers and sociologists look at prejudice like a habit, and some hate group members describe their hate as an addiction.
With prejudice and hate, self-talk includes: replacing stereotypes, countering images, visualizations, recognizing people as individuals, and perspective taking.
I have to walk the talk, and I have to work the steps.
I have work to do; it’s the work I know to do.
Somehow, I need to retain the reality of racism without always and automatically feeling uncomfortable in every group of white people.
Truthfully, when I step into a spot, it ceases to be all-white. The spaces with “whites only” don’t necessarily mean “only for whites” to those people.
So, by the look of things, my Blackness will have to be enough for me; as it should be.
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