Small Steps Forward

I don’t know about others, but I always do a mental cringe when a white person starts talking to me about having black friends, or fighting for civil rights, or whatever they think is necessary to get you to give them a pass for being white.

The problem is that you don’t have a pass to give them. If they’re a person and you like them as a person, then it doesn’t matter what color they are. And if they’re a person and you don’t like them as a person, then it doesn’t matter how many black friends they have or that they babysat MLK’s kids. So you don’t even want to begin a conversation on that basis because it ultimately doesn’t matter a single blanking bit.

So when this white woman was telling me about how she felt weird living in a city without black people, I thought her speech was the southern version of getting the pass. The problem was that she seemed sincere. But I’d never heard anything like this before. In my entire life. Which, granted, hasn’t been that long. But people of color share stories on the grapevine and I’d never heard anyone sharing a story like this. Ever.

You know, you have to decide which lines of conversation you want to pursue and which you don’t. I was curious, but I decided not to pursue this line of conversation. I didn’t want to get trapped in a conversation where she was looking for a pass.

It took me by surprise. I knew I’d never heard it before, but there was more and it took me a couple of days of wrangling with it to figure out why.

If all the white people disappeared tomorrow, black people wouldn’t be all that upset. In general. There might be a few specific white people they’d miss or wonder about, but in general, it wouldn’t be a big deal at all. I go to all or mostly black cities and I don’t feel weird; I feel relieved.

I think the reason is that we’re trained to be careful around white people. You can’t be yourself You assume it’s safer to keep a mask on. And when you get around your skin folk and can let your guard down, it’s like putting a big load down. It’s a relief.

My first thought after realizing this was that I couldn’t say this to the woman. I kept it at sea level because it was safer. So this was, essentially, a dead relationship. And after my encounter with Dan, I realized this was the only thing I could say to this woman. Truth will either kill a conversation or take it to uncharted places. You can’t be truthful and keep skimming the surface of things. It can feel risky; but the risk in letting dead things live is far more damaging. I decided to assburger my conversation with this woman: go right to all the places I’m not supposed to go and talk about all the things I’m not supposed to talk about.

I knew there was a chance it was going to be a complete dud: another dull, safe conversation about race with her giving me a spiel about MLK being the best thing to happen to the country since whenever. And if that was the case, then the relationship which was dead to begin with.

It turned out to be a great conversation. The kind of no-holds-barred, in-depth exploration for which I’d been yearning a good, long while. (About a year or so, in fact.) It was such a breath of fresh air.

Ever have a conversation like that? They say not to talk about politics or religion because they’re too controversial. I don’t think the subjects are the problem. I think people talk with the end in mind too much of the time. More with the idea of converting you than with the idea of exploring you.

I hung up with the woman thinking that one, I needed to talk to her more often, and two, I needed to continue killing dead things in my life. I also realized something about the law of attraction: that which we focus on grows in our life. I had been so focused on the idea of protecting myself from negative, shallow conversations that I had completely ignored the fact that there were people in my life seeking deeper exchanges.

I was so heartened by the results that I immediately went to work on another relationship in my life. Didn’t quite assburger it as reconfigure it, but I’ll write more on that later.